“Yeah.”
She took a sip of her drink, the sweet liquid cool on her dry throat. “Being in the school got to me, but I’m okay now. Just a little panic attack—shitty but brief. Drinks and friends helped distract me.”
She could hear him shift behind her, skin against fabric, maybe tucking his hands in his pockets or crossing his arms. “Distraction’s good.”
She finally stole a glance at him, but he was shrouded in shadows, just a broad-shouldered silhouette. “You could’ve joined us. You didn’t have to eat alone.”
“Y’all looked involved in something,” he said, the gruff drawl in his voice making her think of steamy-windowed moments in the back of his car. She used to tease him that the more turned on he got, the more his country-boy accent showed. “You were reading papers. Seemed kind of intense.”
“Oh, that.” She turned back to the water, her shoulders curving inward and the sexy memories icing over. “We were opening this time capsule thing we did a long time ago. It’s probably good you didn’t come over and hear that part.”
“Time capsule?”
She picked at a splinter in the wood railing. “Just something we did that summer after everything happened—promises we made to the Class of 2005 about our futures. Kincaid decided we should open the letters tonight to see what our teenage selves hoped we’d become. I decided we should get drunk after.”
He made a throaty sound—like a laugh that didn’t quite make it out—and moved closer. He settled next to her along the wooden rail, his gaze fixed on the dark water. “Sounds like a solid plan to me.”
“I thought so.” She rattled the ice cubes in her glass and dared a peek at him. But all she got was his familiar profile, the slight bump in his nose from when he’d broken it sophomore year, and the unfamiliar scruff as he took a sip from his drink. It was hard for her not to stare and catalog all the little differences, all the changes time and experience had given him. The harder angles. The dark mess of hair that looked at least two haircuts past neat. Expression that didn’t reveal a thing. He was still Finn somewhere in there, but gone was the boy with the wide smile and the playful attitude. There was a sharpness to him now, jagged edges. Like if she met him in a dark alley, she’d have trouble determining if he was friend or foe.
He lifted his drink in agreement and turned, his green eyes gray in the darkness. “That was my plan, too. Minus the time capsule part.”
“Ha. Lucky you.” She shifted her stance and accidentally bumped her shoulder against his, sending a tendril of awareness down her arm. She wet her lips, ignoring the shiver. “Now you’ll never know if you lived up to teen Finn’s expectations.”
He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he was having the same push and pull inside as she was. On one hand, this felt comfortable. They’d always talked easily with each other. But at the same time, they were strangers now. Strangers who had this big, breathing beast between them.
He took a long swig from his drink. “Teen Finn didn’t have expectations. He just wanted to play football, not work for his dad, and get the hell away from here.”
“Guess you lived up to that last part at least. I was convinced you’d changed your name and moved to a foreign country.”
His jaw flexed. “Something like that.”
“You’ll have to give me your off-the-grid tips,” she said, trying to make light of a completely un-light situation. “I had to change all my legal stuff to my mom’s maiden name because I got tired of the phone calls from reporters and weirdos, but people still find me. Some dude cornered me at the grocery store last fall, convinced that I was part of a conspiracy with Joseph. That he’d been my boyfriend.”
Finn frowned her way, his grip flexing against his glass. “You need someone to do a security evaluation for you, lock things down tighter and give you better protection. There are sick people who get obsessed with news stories like ours. You’re too easy to find.”
She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I told the cops what happened, and I keep my stuff unlisted. I’m sure the guy just got lucky. He didn’t try to hurt me. He was just an asshole who wanted fodder for his conspiracy website.”
Finn considered her, his hair ruffling in the breeze and his expression serious. “You work as a web designer at MCT Design and live in Austin—renting not owning. You’re not married. You drive a Honda. You’re a member of an online book club, and you’ve registered an LLC for a photography business that, from what I can tell, you never opened.”
Her stomach flipped over and reared back. “And you know that, how?”
“How do you think?” He tapped the phone tucked in his back pocket. “The internet. If someone wanted to find you, they could.”
Unease curled through her. Finn knowing that information wasn’t a threat to her, but hearing that real stalkers could find her that easily was more than a little unsettling. She’d thought she’d put in protections both online and off. “Why the hell were you looking?”
He was stoic for a moment, but then his lips kicked up at the corners, some of the old Finn peeking through. “What? You never looked me up?”
Her spine drew straight, and she sputtered for a second. “I… Well, obviously, I wasn’t as successful. What am I supposed to do if you’re not on Facebook? My hands were tied.”
His smirk went to a full smile, and he chuckled. “Your online detecting skills are top-notch, Arias.”
Hearing him call her by her surname sent nostalgic warmth through her. She’d always loved when he referred to her like she was one of the guys on the football team. For some reason, she’d found it unbearably sexy. “Hey, I’m a website designer, not a security specialist. I make things beautiful and functional. Someone else at the company worries about making them safe, all right?”
He lifted his hands in defense. “Duly noted. And to answer your question, I looked you up because I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”
Okay. There was that damn word again. Her mood soured.
“I’m fine.” She turned to face him and swept a hand in front of herself like she was Vanna White revealing a new puzzle to solve. “As you can see. Fully functioning human and contributing member of society. Much to everyone’s shock, I’m sure.”
His gaze slid over her at that, accepting the unintended invitation for a slow head-to-toe appraisal. “Not mine. You were always the one going places. The one with big plans. I loved that about you.”
The way he said it wasn’t suggestive, but his attention sweeping over her made her skin tingle anyway, a slow-burning awareness that spread across her nerve endings.
She used to murmur all her crazy ideas to him when they got too worked up. They’d kiss until they were mindless, and then he’d slow them down with Tell me where you’d go next, Livvy. She’d lean into him and close her eyes, rattle off exotic locations and the photos she imagined taking, weave the fantasies until they were both presentable enough to get back to class or home or wherever they were supposed to be without revealing what they’d been doing. He used to tell her that nothing killed his hard-on quicker than hearing about her leaving.
The memory tightened her throat, and she set down her drink. “What about you? Are you okay?”
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, weariness there. “Depends on your definition of okay, I guess.”
She cocked her head, the world tilting a bit and revealing that maybe she was a little tipsier than she’d thought. “Meaning?”
He broke eye contact and glanced out at the line of trees on the other side of the creek. He was quiet for a while, pensive, and she found herself focusing on his forearms, on the way the hair dusted over his tanned skin, on the obvious tension in the muscles beneath. He wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he was trying to appear.
She wasn’t sure he was going to answer, but after a few seconds, he bowed his head. “Meaning I’m back in the town
that thinks I’m a hero when I wasn’t, talking to some reporter about stuff I wish I could forget, and standing here with the girl I almost got killed—and I still don’t know what to say to her.”
The words fell like stones between them. Heavy words that would sink in the creek and pull them both under.
She swallowed hard, her everything’s cool bravado faltering. “Finn…”
“No.” He set his drink on the railing and turned fully to her, apparently ready to dive into the murky waters of their past. “I don’t know what to say because nothing will undo it. I know nothing can fix it. But how about I start here?” He met her gaze, anguish there. “I’m sorry, Liv. I’m so. Fucking. Sorry. There hasn’t been a goddamned day that I haven’t thought about what I did to you.”
She closed her eyes. Breathed.
“I know those are just words, but they’re the truth. I was no hero that night. You know it, and I know it. It’s time everyone else did, too. And if you give me the go-ahead, I will call Daniel tomorrow and tell him everything. He can put the truth out in the documentary.”
Liv’s lungs compressed, too many things rolling through her to pinpoint one emotion. She’d imagined this conversation many times before. She’d been so angry and devastated those months following and had thrown all this blame at him in her mind.
No, she hadn’t been killed, but she’d blamed her PTSD squarely on Finn. If he hadn’t left, she’d never have had that gun pointed at her face. That image wouldn’t have haunted her for so many years. That feeling of aloneness, of knowing she was going to die, would’ve never imprinted on her psyche. But the words that spilled out of her weren’t the ones from that script. “You can’t tell.”
His brows bunched. “What?”
“That’s not what I want. You were a hero.” She reached out and touched the spot in his left shoulder where he’d been shot. “You took a bullet for Rebecca. You earned that title.”
He put his hand over hers, flattening her palm against him. His heart pounded beneath her fingers, hard and strong. “And I led Joseph right to you.”
“And it is what it is,” she said, moving her hand away and looking down. “You think some sort of public declaration or apology is going to make anything better?”
“I—”
“That’s not what I want at all.” She took a deep breath, trying to rein in her emotions and focus through the fuzz of alcohol. “You know what that would set off in the press? It’s going to be bad enough when the documentary comes out and stirs up interest again. If new information comes to light, they’ll be all over us again. How do you feel, Ms. Arias? What were you two doing in the closet? What do you think of him choosing to save his date instead of you? Did you two have some sort of sexual relationship? I can’t deal with that.” She shook her head, haunted at the thought. “It won’t change what happened. Nothing changes what happened. It’s like a rerun we’re forced to live over and over again.”
“Liv—”
“I’m serious.” She pressed her lips together, searching for the right words. “I’m tired of being Olivia Arias, the Long Acre survivor, the girl in the closet, the goth Latina, or whatever gem they’d choose to call me this time around—which would probably be something horrible like the slutty chick who was making out with someone else’s date.” Anger flashed through her, remembering all the crap that had made it through the media, all the misinformation. “I’m done. Everyone else gets to decide who we are. They get to name us, label the boxes. The Girl in the Closet. The Jock Hero. The Wounded Valedictorian. It’s why no one in my life outside of my family knows who I really am. I got so tired of all the bullshit. I’m not a character in some bad thriller novel or inspirational story.”
“Of course not.”
“And neither are you. You were a hero for Rebecca. You also left me behind that night, which hurt. But you were a seventeen-year-old kid who was scared shitless and reacted. And before that, we were totally different things, but we’re stuck with how they branded us. Everything that we were before that night got erased.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Gone. Just like that.”
“Not everything, Liv,” he said softly, lifting his hand like he was going to reach for her but then lowering it to his side again. “They can’t take everything.”
“You know, I’m not so sure.” She pointed toward the door to the restaurant. “Tonight, I had to sit at that table and listen to what my teenage self wanted. That girl you remember? She knew who she wanted to be. And all it did was remind me that those sick assholes stole not just my friends’ lives but the could be’s from us. We’ll never get to find out who we would’ve been otherwise. Before we were aftermath.”
“Aftermath.” He rubbed the spot between his eyes, shadows crossing his face. “That’s exactly what it feels like sometimes.”
She tipped her head back and sighed, her frustration on a roll now. She always got ranty or reckless when she was drunk. Those margaritas had been a bad idea. But she couldn’t staunch the words now that they were flowing. “And I hate that I’m out here with you and have to dredge this stuff up again. Other people have reunions where they drink punch and play retro music, do stupid line dances, and talk about when they were two sizes skinnier.” She looked at him. “We have ones where we have to discuss our friends dying, how we let each other down, and our failed dreams.
“And if we did drink punch and play music for some get-together, people would look at us like How could they?” She was talking too loud now but didn’t care. “If I’d rather just sit down with you and remember the good times, who we were before, there must be something wrong with me. We’re supposed to move on, but not too much. Be happy but not too happy. I’m tired, Finn. I’m so sick of it being like this. I thought I was past it, but then I come here and…I don’t know. It’s like it’s all just sitting there, waiting to remind me how we can never really escape it. How the ones who got away never really get away. Those sick bastards changed us—have their fingerprints all over our lives—and it pisses me the hell off. I don’t… I can’t… I don’t know.”
All her words fell into a jumble and her fist balled, ready to punch something that wasn’t there. But she didn’t have anything left.
“Livvy.”
The softly uttered endearment undid her. Popped the pin in her balloon of righteous indignation and deflated her. She was trembling and drunk, mad and…lost. Like she thought she’d been following the right map on her way to a place where she wanted to be, only to find out that she didn’t just have the wrong map, she was traipsing around the wrong goddamned continent. And now she had no idea where the hell she was or where she was supposed to go.
She closed her eyes, willing herself not to break down. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t feel like crying. She didn’t know what she felt like. There were too many options to pick from, and that made it hard to breathe.
But then big, warm hands landed on her shoulders, a gentle hold, a simple I’ve got you, and she couldn’t fight against it. Her muscles surrendered to the touch and her body moved on instinct, her brain shutting off. She stepped into his space, didn’t ask permission, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
He stiffened in her hold, his entire body going as rigid as the boards under her feet. But when she didn’t back off, he released a breath and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her fully into an embrace. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and breathed in the earthy scent of him, the familiarity of the minty shampoo he’d always used. Her guards fell away for a minute as he simply held her.
“I’m tired and pissed off, too,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I won’t say anything to the filmmaker. Just know that if there’s anything I could ever do to make things up to you, anything you need, you just have to tell me.”
She squeezed him a little tighter, not wanting to get dragged back into the memor
ies, the apologies, the regrets. “You can stop talking about that night. That’s what you can do. At least for now,” she said against his shoulder. “I didn’t come out here for that. I wanted to come out here and prove that the killers don’t get a say in this. We haven’t talked because of them. They’re winning. I don’t want them to win. So maybe we can just pretend for a little while that we’re old friends from high school reminiscing about the good times.”
“The good times,” he said, his breath ruffling her hair.
“Yes.”
He set his chin on her head. “Like when all I was worried about was if our landscaper’s daughter was going to be outside helping him that day.”
Liv smiled, the words digging beneath the layers of all those bad memories, unearthing some of those simple, sweet ones. Ones she hadn’t let herself think about in a very long time. She leaned back to look up at him. “Yes. Like that. Like how you were such a perv, watching me from your window. You weren’t even sneaky about it. Just standing there and staring.”
Some of the tension left his expression, and a droll look replaced it. “You wore a tank top, short shorts, and combat boots. I was sixteen and not that noble.”
“It was a hot day.”
“Oh, it was hot, all right,” he teased. “And don’t pretend you didn’t know exactly what you were doing to me.”
She stepped back from his hold with an innocent Who, me? smile.
Liv had only tutored Finn once before the day she’d helped her dad put in an herb garden at Finn’s house, but she’d already developed a mad crush. He’d been nothing like she’d expected from all those years of catching glimpses of him from a different social circle. He’d been funny and friendly. Much smarter than people gave him credit for. And way, way too good-looking.