“Minute’s up,” he said and she blinked up at him. He was acting strange.
“Sorry. Which shoes do you like better?”
He stepped close and removed the shoes from her hands, glancing briefly at each one. “The gray ones.” He tossed both shoes on the floor.
“Wh—what are you doing?”
“You’re making me crazy, Philly.”
She shook her head. “What…what do you mean?”
“Stop talking.” His head lowered and his mouth found hers.
She jerked back, her fingers trembling over her lips. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to kiss you?”
Oh my God he’s horny and Erin isn’t around. She stepped back. “Don’t.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not Erin.”
His head drew back. “Oh, I’m quite aware you’re not Erin.”
Yes, it wasn’t likely he’d confuse the two of them. That would be like mixing up a penguin with a water buffalo. Suddenly something deep in her chest began to ache. She stepped back again and her knees met the bed. He caught her elbow and she quickly tugged her arm free. “Why are you doing this?”
He frowned. “Because I want to and I thought you might’ve wanted me to.”
Her head shook like an imbecile. “I don’t.” If they crossed that line, their friendship would be over and it would only be a matter of minutes before he realized she wasn’t at all what he was used to.
His lips parted and his expression shuttered. He stepped back and dropped his hand. “Oh. Then I’m sorry.” He turned and grabbed the back of his neck, which was flushed. “I should probably get going.”
He wouldn’t look at her. No! This couldn’t happen. She said no, so nothing should change, but her stomach knotted as she realized it was too late. Her lashes fluttered as her vision blurred.
Should she call him back? Maybe she should just let him use her. She’d enjoy it. Have some self-respect, woman! “Finn, don’t go…”
He held up his hand, much like he did at the mall when she’d offended him. It must not make any sense for a man like that to be rejected by a girl like her.
“I gotta go,” he said and the next thing she knew her front door was shutting.
* * * *
Finn drove until he reached his property then he pulled over to the side of the road and punched the steering wheel. “Fuck!”
Why did he do that? He was so damn stupid. Of course she wasn’t into him. He wasn’t any prize. He’d just thought he’d seen something in the way she looked at him. No one had looked at him like that in a long time. But he was wrong.
She thought of him as just a friend. He’d thought of her as the same, but sometime over the last few days that changed. Erin disappeared from his life like she’d never existed. He’d barely given her absence a moment’s thought. Yet, when he’d upset Mallory at the mall, he could think of little else. He rushed through his workday just to run with her at the field. When he arrived and waited for her, only to have her never show, he suffered the terrible fear that he’d ruined their friendship.
But it was more than that. When she showed up after her run at the park, she looked beautiful. Her hair was a mess, her cheeks flushed, her breasts pressed against her fitted tank top. His eyes had roamed over her shapely thighs and he had to fight the entire way through dinner not to kiss her.
Listening to the water run while she’d showered was pure torture. He’d imagined her naked and wasted at least six minutes debating if her nipples would be soft pink like her lips or tan. But none of that mattered.
Yes, she was a beautiful woman, but she was so much more than that. Finn didn’t have girl friends. He got along with his sisters, but other than that, they were it. The way he was around Mallory was a totally novel experience. He liked her, really liked her. And now he was thinking like a fifth grader.
“Gah, no wonder she shot you down.”
The worst part was he might have seriously fucked up their friendship. He glanced at the clock on the dash and considered going back and asking her to forget the whole thing, but it was late and she had work in the morning.
He threw the truck into gear and barreled over the road, heading home. When he went to sleep that night his bed seemed a little colder, a little less comforting, and lot lonelier. Maybe he wasn’t meant to have a partner in this life. Maybe he should go back to Erin.
His mind immediately rejected that idea. Erin’s long legs and trim hips were no longer what he wanted. After seeing how Mallory actually listened to him when he spoke, he had no desire to return to a girl who had mastered ignoring him. Erin never cared about what he thought or what motivated him.
Mallory cared. Or she did. His last hope before sleep took him was that he hadn’t ruined what friendship they’d had together.
Chapter Seven
The first week of work did wonders for Mallory’s spirit. Everyone was nice to her and she was glad she talked herself into moving. The weather this far west of Philadelphia was preferable as well. It was still sweltering, but she took pleasure in the bursts of fall she caught here and there. Such things only presented themselves in temperature drops in the city, but here there were bursts of color in the foliage and cool breezes that snuck in.
That was the crap she forced herself to focus on every time she missed Finn. The day after he’d kissed her, she was confused. Then she was angry. How could he do that? There was no question in her mind that he was using her. He was horny, lonely, or looking for an escape to forget Erin. No way would she believe this actually had anything to do with her. Mallory was simply convenient and, maybe in Finn’s eyes, desperate enough to agree to a meaningless fling. That thought hurt, because it was clear how little he valued their new friendship.
When Thursday came she was sad. He hadn’t stopped by and no matter how much she didn’t expect him to, each day when she came home there was a sting of disappointment that he hadn’t been there waiting for her like he had the time after the mall fight.
Saturday morning it was gloomy. Rain softly pelted the windows of her apartment as she stared mindlessly at the Morning Show on the television. Some skinny blonde was being gifted with a dream wedding and her sweet, emotional story made Mallory want to fling her yogurt at the screen.
Her phone rang and her heart pinched, letting go with a sad little exhale as she realized Finn didn’t have her number. She picked it up and saw Ally’s number on the screen. Smiling, she slid her thumb over the face and brought it to her ear.
“Hey, girl.”
“Hey! How’s bumblefuck?”
Mallory laughed. “It’s good.”
“Did you start your job?”
Mallory poked her spoon through her yogurt, no longer enjoying it. “Yeah. I love it. Everyone is so nice.”
“Do they have all their teeth?”
She snorted. “How deep in the boonies do you think I am? Yes, they all have teeth.” Ally giggled and Mallory heard Savannah, her friend’s newborn, coo in the background. “How’s the baby?”
“She’s…” Ally sighed. “Perfect.”
“Good. Getting big?”
“Yes. She’s a little piglet.”
Mallory fought the envy tightening her stomach. “How’s Joe?”
“He’s good. He got that promotion.”
“That’s great, Ally! Things sound like they’re going really good for you guys.” She stood and chucked her half-eaten yogurt.
“Okay, now really tell me. How are you? You sound shlumpy.”
Mallory returned to the couch and flopped onto her back. “I’m fine. It’s raining here, so the weather’s just getting to me.”
“Mallory Fenton, don’t you dare feed me a line of bullshit when I ask you a question. What’s going on? I can tell you’re upset. Do I need to come there?”
She laughed, imagining the arsenal of baby paraphernalia Ally would need to make the trip. “No.” She huffed. “I made a friend and I think I
already lost him.”
“Him? Do tell.”
“His name’s Finnegan McCullough and—girl—he is a real mountain man.”
“Sounds delicious. Tell me more.”
Mallory spent the next twenty minutes catching Ally up on her past few weeks. When she finished Ally was quiet for a moment. “Let me get this straight. He kissed you and you automatically assume he’s just trying to get laid and that’s it?”
“He just broke up with his girlfriend, which, from what I hear, is a normal occurrence. He doesn’t see me that way.”
“How the hell do you know, Mal? Maybe he realized you’re a cool girl. You’re beautiful, funny, and people love you. There’s no reason he shouldn’t like you.”
She pursed her lips. “You don’t understand, Ally. You’d have to see him to get it. When I say he’s hot, I’m not talking turn your head and bat your eyes for a smile. I’m talking Adam Levine and Brad Pitt’s lovechild hot. Sometimes it hurts to look at him.”
“So? Mallory, you’re gorgeous.”
“No, I’m not,” she mumbled. “I’m a fat she-beast.”
“Do not make me load up the car and come kick your ass! You are not fat and you are not a beast!”
She silently ignored her friend’s reassurance. It was always flattering to hear people say she had pretty eyes or a nice smile, but when they flat out argued that she wasn’t fat it made it all bullshit. She was fat. Her doctor, who didn’t give a shit about being her friend, told her so. He even had a chart that put her in the ‘danger zone’. The truth was, unless she dropped down to one hundred and forty pounds—which was light years away—she’d remain in the obesity category.
Who was a hundred a forty pounds? She couldn’t even comprehend what that would look like on her. Currently, she was focusing on getting herself out of the red zone that classified her as ‘morbidly’ obese.
There were people who could barely walk or get anything besides sneakers on their feet. She wasn’t quite there yet, but the facts were the facts. According to the American Association of Health, she was among the thirty-three percent of the obese population.
“Mallory!”
She flinched. “What?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sorry, I zoned out. What did you say?”
Ally sighed, her voice softening. “Honey, don’t go there. I know how you get. You’re perfect, just the way you are. Don’t dismiss this guy just because you have some demons to work out. See where it goes. You deserve to be happy and happiness can come in any shape or size.”
She sighed. Never had she needed to give a pep talk like that to her friends, but Ally’s speech would be filed among the hundreds Mallory had received in her life. She was just…different. Her thin friends would never understand. “Thanks.”
Ally sighed and her disappointment was evident. “Did you ever think about straight out asking him how he feels about you?”
Mallory made a rude noise. “Yeah. That’s not going to happen. He already lectures me about being too hard on myself. I am not sharing my horrid opinions with him.”
“Why? Maybe he’d be able to get through to you.”
Or maybe I’ll convince him and he’ll finally start looking at me the way the rest of the world does. It hurt to imagine him seeing through her cheery attitude, to imagine him crossing that fine line of support that becomes chastisement every time she slipped up. Part of her liked pretending Finn might see something pretty when he looked at her, even if it was all a polite lie. She didn’t have the courage to confront him, not when it could validate everything she knew deep down. She wasn’t good enough for him.
Quietly, she whispered, “I can’t. I just want us to be friends. Friends are safe and it doesn’t matter what I weigh.”
She felt her friends scowl through the phone. “I gained forty pounds in the last year.”
“You were pregnant!”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s my point. Love is blind, Mallory. When will you learn that?”
Whoa. No one was talking about love. “Trust me, Ally. He’s just looking for filler. I don’t want to be filler.”
She sighed. “You’re not filler, honey. I wish you could see what the rest of us do when we look at you.”
She was sort of grateful she didn’t. It was always jarring whenever Mallory saw a picture of herself. She always got that same sick feeling followed by the realization that the ugly person in the picture was really what her friends saw.
The baby started to squawk and she knew their call wouldn’t last much longer. “When are you coming home?” Ally asked.
“Probably not until Thanksgiving.”
They made plans to hang out the night she returned home and Mallory mentally tried to imagine a newer her, a thinner version. Would they see a difference? She’d shed seventeen pounds since moving, but, to her eyes, she still looked the same.
Will I ever like me?
After getting off the phone she gathered up her dirty clothes and detergent. She needed to do something productive and might as well get her errands done if she couldn’t work out.
* * * *
Finn shimmied down the trunk of the oak and his boots landed with a thud. He rarely worked Saturdays, but he needed to get out. The rain was an irrelevant nuisance, only adding to his gloomy mood.
He unlatched his harness and turned when he heard a truck approaching behind him. His father parked several yards away and met his gaze. “Aren’t gonna get much done in this weather, Finnegan.”
He cut his line with a bowie knife and ignored the wisdom in his father’s voice. “These branches need to be hauled. Why wait until Monday to get it done?”
The soggy ground squished under his father’s boots as he approached. Frank’s hand pressed into the girth of the trunk and Finn eyed him curiously.
“You and Erin have a fight?”
Finn tugged his gloves up and bent to drag a limb over to the chipper. His father followed. “You could say that. We broke up.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
He shrugged and hoisted the limb into the debris piled. “Nothing to say. It is what it is.”
His father followed him back to the tree and removed a rough pair of leather gloves from his back pocket. Under the drizzle, they worked in silence lugging the branches to the chipper pile. The consistent tap of raindrops on the leaves made a soothing melody.
“I ever tell you about the woman I dated before your mother?”
“I thought you and Mom were together since you were teenagers. Wasn’t that when Grandpop shot you?”
“He missed and that wasn’t until we ran off and got married. But there was a girl before her. Her name was Elizabeth.”
This was news to Finn. His parents often regaled them with stories of their scandalous affair and how his father had stolen his mother away against her father’s wishes, but never had he heard him speak of any other woman.
They tossed a large branch and trekked back to the tree. “She was a beauty, different than your mother. There’s no one quite like Maureen. We went to school together and I was shocked the day she sat with me for lunch. Elizabeth was a popular girl, always had the cutest scarves tied around her neck and her ankles done in those little lace socks girls wore back then.”
“Did you go out with her?”
“A few times. Then I slept with her and she pretty much owned me. Kids are stupid once they start with the fornicating and groping.”
Finn raised his brow and gave his dad a comical look, biting back a laugh. “Fornicating and groping? Really, Dad?”
His father rolled his eyes. “I can’t keep up with you kids and your terms these days. Anyway, she gave me what I wanted and I gave her anything she asked for. But that was all there really was to us. I can’t even remember the color of her eyes, son. I just remember that she was pretty and she let me get under her skirt.”
“Why are you telling me this?” He stood from crouching and braced his hands on his h
ips.
“Because sometimes men think with the wrong brain, Finnegan. Don’t be one of those idiots. Don’t sentence yourself to less than you deserve. Marriage isn’t about sex. God, after you start having babies you have to become a master of stealth to even get one of those little climbers off the teat.”
“Dad!”
“It’s true. What I’m trying to say is, maybe you and Erin breaking up is for the best. You two are always arguing and I never see you really get excited to go out with her anymore. I know you were planning on marrying her, but why? Why marry someone who can’t even make you laugh? In the end, laughing is worth more than a little poontang.”
Finn nearly spit. “It’s better when you call it fornicating, Dad.”
His father shrugged. “Call it whatever you want, so long as you understand what I’m trying to say.”
“I get it. I’ve been thinking the same for a while now. I don’t think Erin and I will ever see eye-to-eye. And, you know, I think I’m all right with that.”
“So why are you out here on your day off working in the rain?”
Because he ran out of things to keep him busy and it was taking everything he had not to go annoy Mallory. “I don’t know.”
His father studied him for a long minute. “This have to do with that girl you brought to breakfast last week, the pretty, blue eyed one?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe.”
“That’s a yes. You like her?”
Heat rushed to the back of his neck. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why’s that?”
“She doesn’t look at me that way.”
His father dug his boot into the ground, dislodging a bit of moss. “Not all girls are easy, Finnegan. The good ones take the most work. No one expects you to be married by a certain date and starting a brood of your own. Sometimes slow is better. Savor it. She’ll eventually come around.”
He nodded. No point in telling his father how he messed up and kissed her. What was done was done. She didn’t see him that way and he’d either have to suck it up and go back to pretending he saw her as just a friend or lose her completely, something he knew would kill him. “Thanks for the talk.”