Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 119964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Dinner is catered and better than any Thanksgiving meal I’ve ever had. Since Finn’s dining room is an unfurnished space he uses for exercise, James, Jake, a lineman named Russell, Finn, and I crowd around his coffee table, sitting on the floor to eat.
Shoulder to shoulder, Finn and I laugh and eat and trade jokes. He is a warm presence at my side the whole time. True to his word, he doesn’t try anything, but his promise keeps spinning in my head. I’m going to be there to catch you when you fall.
Now we are in San Diego where the sun shines lemon yellow and the sea air is a warm kiss on my cheeks.
Finn has rented a lime-green convertible Jeep and put the top down.
“This feels very 1980s,” I say over the noise of the wind.
His teeth flash white within the tan of his face. Jeep could sell dozens of these vehicles just by using a picture of him driving.
“Too much?” Finn asks me.
It is; my hair whips around me like a lash, even though I started out with it in a secure ponytail. But it’s also fun. After hours of being stuck in a stuffy plane, the open sky and fresh air acts like a balm. “It’s perfect,” I yell back.
He laughs and then guns the Jeep up the curving road that hugs the coast. The scenery is stunning, with massive homes carved into the coastline, their endless glass windows glinting in the afternoon light, and the Pacific stretching west like a dazzling sapphire and gold-studded canvas.
Finn pulls up to a gated drive and punches in a number.
“I had these installed after I was drafted,” he tells me, somewhat grim. “Dad didn’t like the idea, but I liked the idea of some crazed fan trolling around even less.”
“Someone would do that?”
“Someone did do that.” The gates slowly open. “Young woman last year tried to break in. She was looking for my old room.”
“Jesus.”
“She was harmless, but someone else might not be.”
Finn heads up the drive. It isn’t very long but hides the house from view until we round a bend. Finn’s parents’ house is an L-shaped, sprawling ’60s California-style ranch painted soft gray and trimmed in bright white that overlooks the ocean.
As soon as we pull up, the double doors to the house open and a slim, tall blonde woman comes out.
“Finnegan,” she cries, hurrying over to him as he steps out of the car. His reply is muffled in her hug.
I smile at the scene, shamelessly watching. But my car door opens, and I’m face-to-face with an older version of Finn. There are differences: this man’s eyes are light brown instead of blue. His skin is swarthy and weathered from what is clearly a life lived under the sun. And his posture is arrow straight even when apparently relaxed.
He gives me an easy smile, more of a curl of the lips and a deepening of the crinkles around his eyes. “Ms. Copper, I presume?”
“Yes, sir.” Because this man exudes authority without even trying. “You must be Finn’s dad, Captain Mannus.”
He helps me out of the Jeep even though I don’t need it, and then shakes my hand with one firm pump. “Finn has never brought a woman friend home before. Which means you’re special, Ms. Copper. Call me Sean.”
“Sean. I’m Chess.”
With a nod, he gestures toward the house. “This way. Meg will be fawning over her boy for a good while more.”
“I heard that,” Finn’s mother says from behind us.
Up close, Finn’s mother is beautiful in that golden, eternally youthful way of Californian women. I don’t know if it’s something in the air or all the excellent plastic surgeons who live here, but I want to look half as good when I’m her age.
“Finn’s been telling me all about you, Chess. I’m so glad you could make it.”
Finn got his blue eyes from her. And her smiling mouth. We are of the same height, and when she shakes my hand, her smile is genuine, but her eyes search my face as if looking for internal flaws.
I don’t resent her for being protective. I know she loves her son. But having never met a man’s family before, I find myself wanting to squirm. I can only imagine how she sees me—pale skin, black hair with colored tips, tattoo on my arm. My white halter top and rose patterned A-line skirt are feminine, but they’re no match for the casual elegance she manages to pull off with her cream-colored slacks and linen top.
“Thank you for including me in your holiday.” There, that was polite. I can do polite and mannerly.
Finn rests his hand on my lower back. “All right, all right. Can we get inside? I’m starving.”
“You ate a fish taco on the way here,” I say with a half eye roll. In truth, it had been impressive the way he ate that taco while driving. Not a drop spilled or his attention from the road compromised. But then his hand-eye coordination is better than most. And Finn never wastes good food.