Dirty Rowdy Thing

I’M IN A bad way, hard up, losing my mind—and I’m not even bothering with denial. Being near Finn—even when he’s being a complete jackass like he was at dinner tonight—obliterates any other worry, and being trapped with him in that truck made me nearly lose my mind. I could smell his soap, the clean smell of his sweat. I could feel his eyes on me the entire drive, flickering up again and again in the rearview mirror.

After he drops me off, I get myself off on my couch, thinking about our night together in this very spot, before falling asleep half dressed. After all, there is no Finn here to carry me in a boneless heap to my bed and spoon me all night like a champ.

In the morning, I break routine for the second time in two weeks and head to the Starbucks where I ran into Finn his first day back in town. Spoiler alert: he’s not there.

And now, I’m standing outside Downtown Graffick, hoping Finn is spending the morning here with Oliver. Unfortunately, through the front windows, I can see Oliver at the counter, but no Finn. Dammit. I should have just gone to their house in Pacific Beach to see him since I’m clearly past the point of pride. But what am I expecting? That somehow between last week and now, our situation has become convenient for a relationship? He lives in Canada. I’m in San Diego. My mother is undergoing aggressive cancer treatment and his family business is going under unless he signs on for a glossy reality television show that stipulates he can’t have a girlfriend.

But all of the other obstacles—the ones I thought were meaningful only weeks ago, including our tendency to bicker and his bossy male act—don’t seem that relevant anymore. We’ve softened together, found some sort of easy peace. Plus, I like his kinky little rope thing. I like the fact that working with his hands, and rope, is so ingrained in his history that it makes him wild to pull me into that world, too, literally wrapping me up in it.

Oliver looks out the window and spots me, waving for me to come inside. Now I’ll have to go in and pretend I’m really looking for Lorelei because why else would I be at a comic book store? I’ve been friends with Lola long enough to hold my own with basic pop culture references, but Oliver knows the only reason I can differentiate Hellboy from Abe Sapien is because of Lola’s T-shirt collection. I take a deep, confidence-­building breath: if I’m here, I’m obviously here looking for her.

The little bell rings when I push through the door. “There you are, Lola!”

Lola looks up from where she’s reading in the front nook, and just laughs. Oliver hands a customer some change and thanks them, before looking up at me. “He’s in L.A. today.”

“Grah,” I mutter. “Busted.” My pulse accelerates thinking about Finn going alone to Los Angeles to meet with the big television executives. He’s got better life instincts than most people I know, but I feel a halfhearted spike of irritation that he didn’t ask me to come along for moral support.

Ugh, I’m in a bad way. Hard up.

Losing my mind.

“Don’t you work today?” Lola asks.

“No,” I tell her, slumping down on the chair next to hers. “I changed my schedule because Mom starts chemo today, but then Dad told me to come see her tomorrow instead.”

“What do you even do, Chandler Bing?” Oliver asks, laughing.

I look up, startled. I didn’t realize he could hear us, and for a beat I’m panicked because I mentioned Mom’s chemo. But Oliver doesn’t look even a little surprised. Either he didn’t hear that part, or Lola’s already told him and he knows he’s not allowed to ask me about it.

I wonder if he’s told Finn. But if he has, wouldn’t Finn ask me about it?

“Statistical analysis and data reconfiguration,” I lie, playing along. “What’s Finn doing in L.A. anyway?”

“Dunno,” he says, and I love the way his accent puts an “r” sound at the end of every word ending in a vowel. He frowns. “He’s not really talking about what he’s doing here at all. Finn’s always been that mysterious broody type, but I don’t know. Quite secretive, really.”

I nearly high-five myself, knowing now that I know something Oliver doesn’t. Oliver knows Finn better than almost anyone. We’ve talked about his job and his family a little, but Bedroom Finn’s history is an absolute mystery to me, and the more I want to see him, the more I hate the idea of him with hordes of girls, doing what we did at Oliver’s house, and on my couch . . . acts that had left me feeling like my view of sex and intimacy had been wiped clean of a cloudy film I hadn’t even known was there.

And now here we are, alone in the store without the man himself. No way am I going to miss this opportunity to dig.

“So you don’t know what Finn is up to down here for a few weeks”—I decide to start slowly, keeping it about professional things—“but it seems like he’s the one basically in charge of his entire family business?”

Oliver nods. “His mum died when he was twelve, right? Then a few years later his dad had a heart attack and a stroke, so Finn’s running the ship. Literally.”

“That must make it pretty hard to date.” Oops. My slow-and-subtle plan crashes and burns.

Lola snorts next to me, flipping the page in her comic book without looking up, and Oliver gives me a dubious glance.

“I know Finn would tell me anything,” I assure him. “If I asked.”

Oliver studies me for a moment, running his finger under his lower lip. “So just ask him, then.”

“I don’t want him to know I want to know,” I say, wearing my Captain Obvious expression. “Duh, Oliver.”

Laughing, he says, “You two are messed up.”

“Oh, because we are the only ones with secrets?” I tilt my gaze to Lola, still reading obliviously beside me.

Oliver gives me the touché face, and says, “Fair enough.”

He’s all but admitted out loud he has a thing for Lola! I—am—giddy!

“Besides,” I tell him, coiling my hair into a bun on top of my head, “I may not know him like you do, of course, but we all know he’s a fisherman who works all the time so basically only has time to bang skanky Canadian hockey muffs that he meets at the local Moose N’ Brew.”

“He doesn’t bang hockey muffs,” Oliver says, mildly offended.

Bingo.

“So just a parade of regulars down at the docks, then?”

Oliver scowls.

I lace my fingers behind my head, grinning at him. “You’re making this so easy.”

He starts to organize some receipts. “I can’t believe you married him for twelve hours, knobbed him at his place in Canada, and have been fooling around for almost two weeks here, yet haven’t discussed any of this.”

“We aren’t fooling around anymore,” I tell him. When he looks up, surprised, I say, “We were too good at it. It was a little too distracting.”

And here is where I know Lola has talked to Oliver about my mom: His eyes go a little sympathetic, a little soft. “Right. Sorry, Harlow.”

“Gah, don’t. She’s going to be fine.”

“Knowing your mum, yeah, she is.” He bends to pick something up from behind the counter and it’s all I can do to not hurl myself across the glass to hug him for sounding so confident. He’s met my mom three times since he’s moved to San Diego—at a barbecue, at Mia’s official welcome-home party, and at a birthday party for Lola’s dad, Greg—and I could tell Mom and Oliver have one of those unspoken über-calm-person bonds where they just automatically clicked.

“I haven’t talked about it with anyone but the girls,” I tell him meaningfully. He stands back up and nods, making the zips-lips gesture. “Anyway,” I say, “tell me more about Finn’s steady girlfriend.”

Laughing, Oliver says, “You’re relentless. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. Though I will tell you that the steady act is far more his speed than the wild trench-coat-surprise act you prefer.”

I let this settle in for a minute. Is that my preference? Trench coat flings and date-count maximums of two? It has been, I guess. My longest relationship was the four months I dated Jackson Ford in college. It never really got off the ground, though, in part because it spanned the summer I was off with Dad filming in Greece, and because spending time with Jackson was about as interesting as reading the back of a shampoo bottle. I’ve always thought of myself as wanting to be in a relationship. But most guys fail to measure up almost as soon as they start speaking.

Lola nudges me with her elbow. “Why are you trying to find a reason that you guys can’t be together?”

“Because he’s horrible?” I lie.

She snorts out a laugh. “He’s built like a man who works with his hands, has a sense of humor drier than the Sahara, and the thing that gets him off more than anything in the world is giving you orgasms. What a nightmare.”

My voice of reason is always Lola. “You’re a jackass.”

“You only say that when I’m being your voice of reason.”

“Out of my head, witch. And don’t piss me off,” I tell her. “I’ll buy you underwear one size too small for Christmas and make you hate life.”

“Come to think of it,” Oliver cuts in, walking around the cashwrap and leaning back against it to face us, “you aren’t really Finn’s type, so it’s probably for the best that you guys stopped messing around.”

“What?” I say, dropping my nonchalance to the side in favor of knee-jerk offense. “Why?”

“Well, you’re a bit of an unnecessary ballbuster.” I open my mouth but Lola elbows me again, sharper this time. “Plus, Finn doesn’t just mess around, as I’ve mentioned. I only met one of his ex-girlfriends, Melody, and—”

“Sorry,” I interrupt, holding up a hand. “Melody?”

He raises his eyebrows as if I’m proving one of his points and I bite my lips to keep from saying anything else.

“They were together for a few years before and just after Bike and Build. She was nice, just really quiet . . .” He tilts his head and winces, nonverbally suggesting maybe I’m not so quiet.

“But they aren’t together anymore,” I remind him.

“Nope.”

“So maybe he doesn’t like quiet. Maybe he likes chatty half-Irish, half-Spanish feisty gingers who call him on his bossy shit.”

“Well, I thought it didn’t matter anyway,” Oliver says with a little smile.

REGAL BEAGLE TONIGHT, I text Finn once I’m home. Lola, Oliver, me, Not-Joe. You coming?

I stare at my phone for at least a minute, waiting for him to reply, but nothing. Ordinarily, Finn strikes me as the kind of guy who will forget he even has a phone until he empties his pockets at the end of the day, but lately he’s been checking it nearly constantly, so I expect him to reply quickly.

But an hour later, he still hasn’t.

I text, How did it go? I can’t wait to hear about it.

Still no reply. Maybe he’s driving. Maybe the meeting went long. Maybe he’s sitting at a huge desk, signing contracts.

Lola and Oliver pick me up in his beater Nissan and I stare at the back of their heads as they jabber on and on about his store, her upcoming book launch, one of their favorite comics. How can they not see they’re perfect together?

I want to shout it and hear it echo in the car, but the certainty of a beheading at Lola’s hand keeps the words inside. When we get to the bar, I practically tear the car door off the hinges in an effort to launch myself onto the sidewalk, taking in a huge breath of air free of the Lola-Oliver-cuteness-overload.

But then my heart stops entirely, because parked behind us at the curb is Finn’s truck. He’s had it cleaned—probably before he drove up to L.A.—and it’s empty. He must be inside already. And he didn’t answer my texts.

I know I’ve been looking for him all day, but it’s in this moment outside, staring at his giant beast of a truck and just charmed to death that he would wash it before driving to this meeting—that I realize I’m smitten. Really smitten. I knew I liked him, and that I liked sex with him, but I’ve never felt this way about a guy before: longing, fear, hope, and the tingly thrill of desire.

“What are you wearing?”

I turn to see Finn standing at the entrance to the bar, his mouth tilted in a smirk. His forehead is wrinkled, communicating mild concern, but even so, his inspection gives me goose bumps all down my arms. Lola and Oliver slip past him, walking inside.

I follow the path of his eyes and look down at my chest. I’m wearing a navy silk tank top, covered in small, colorful hand-embroidered birds and faded skinny jeans. I spent about an hour getting ready for tonight, though only under the pain of torture would he get me to admit that. “Excuse me, sir, this is a gorgeous shirt.”

“It’s covered in birds.”

“You’re going to lecture me about fashion? You wear the same dirty baseball cap every day and own two T-shirts,” I say as I follow him inside and toward our booth at the back.

“At least they aren’t covered in birds.” He reaches the table and hands me a glass of water before grabbing his own beer. He’s already been here and he came to our booth? My inner girly girl squeals in delight. “Besides, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not wearing a T-shirt today.”

No, he is most definitely not. In my mind, I’m dirty dancing and perving all over this man, but outwardly I’m doing a calm inspection. He’s wearing pressed black dress pants and a white button-up shirt with a small gray diamond print.

“You approve?” he asks quietly, teasing but also not.

“Can we focus on the more interesting topic of conversation, please?” I ask. “Such as why you are dressed like this?”

He looks over my shoulder to where Oliver and Not-Joe stand only about five feet away. “Not tonight.”

“But did it go well?”

He tilts his beer to his lips, giving me a warning look.

“Nothing?” I hiss-whisper. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“No.”

I wish a dramatic-huff-and-stomp-away would work on Finn, but I know it wouldn’t. And I still like the way he’s staring at me. Although . . . now he’s not inspecting my shirt, he’s staring at my hairline.

“What?” I ask.

“Your hair looks . . . really red tonight.”

“I put some temporary color powder in it,” I admit, turning into the light so he can see better. “Do you like it?”

“I think you got some on your forehead.”

I deflate, dunking my thumb in my glass of water and wiping at the spot he’s pointing to. “Holy Moses, Finn Roberts, how you managed to date this Melody person for more than a week is beyond me.” I ignore his raised eyebrows at this, and continue: “You’re supposed to tell me I look pretty, and act like you’re touching my beautiful face when really you’re subtly wiping away my makeup mistakes.”

“I’m not supposed to do anything.” He gives me a dark grin. Leaning back against the side of our booth, he says, “I’m just a friend who likes to point out when you’re ridiculous. Makeup for your hair, Harlow? Really?”

“Sometimes a girl feels like she needs a little extra something, okay?”

His expression straightens, and he blinks away, looking out over the small dance floor. “Not you. You look best first thing in the morning.” I suck in a breath. I know exactly what morning he means; it’s the only one we woke up to, together. In my bed, curled around each other. I can still feel how warm he was.

“Well, then I’m surprised you didn’t make a comment about pillow creases on my face and morning breath.”

“You did have pillow creases on your face, and your hair was a mess.” His voice drops lower when he says, “But you looked perfect.”

I’m too stunned to speak, continually swallowing around the lump in my throat. My heart feels like it’s grown ten times its normal size.

He coughs and I know I’ve been quiet too long when he changes the subject. “Who told you about Melody?”

I sip my water, finally managing, “Oliver, but it was completely against his will. I brandished a musket.”

Finn nods, taking another drink of his beer. Kyle turns the music up but even still, it feels like we’re in our own little bubble, standing a few feet away from where our friends sit together in the booth.

“I only know her name and that she was quiet,” I admit. “Will you tell me about her?”

“Why do you want to know this?”

“Probably for the same reason you asked if Toby Amsler went down on me.”

He blinks over to me. “What do you want to know?”

“Does she still live near you?”

He nods. “We went to the same high school, started seeing each other a few months after we graduated. Her folks own the local bakery.”

“Were you guys in love?”

He shrugs. “I was such a different person then. Right after we got together I left school to start fishing with my family.” Seeming to consider the question more, he adds, “I loved her, sure.”

“Still?”

“Nah. She’s a sweet girl, though.”

I know the question will burst out of me whether or not I really want to appear this interested in the topic. “A sweet girl who still gets to sleep—”

“No,” he interrupts quietly. He looks back to me, his eyes making the slow circuit of my face. “Melody and I broke up five years ago; she’s married with a kid now.” At my expression, he murmurs, “There’s no one back home, Harlow. I promise.”

I swallow again, nodding.

“And if you remember,” he says, voice stronger now, “you were with another man one night before you were with me.”

Shit.

“Do you know how crazy that makes me feel?” he asks.

Honestly, I can’t even imagine. He broke up with Melody five years ago and I still sort of want to scratch her face off. This situation is ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous.

“I know there’s nothing between us, we’re just friends,” he says. “But it’s not because the sex wasn’t something really good, Harlow. Before you, in Vegas, it had been two years. I’ve been with four women other than you, and never in anything but a committed relationship, so this is weird for me. I’ll tell you anything, okay? Since I know how it is to feel desperate to know every detail, I’ll tell you. But ask me, don’t ask my friends. I’d rather we find things out from each other, okay?”

What is this mad flurry of emotions? I’m relieved and guilty, swooning and overcome with the need to kiss his perfect mouth.

With a shrug, I tell him, “I just didn’t want you to know that I wanted to know.”

He laughs, tilting his beer to his lips and saying, “Sociopath,” before taking a long drink.

“How many did you tie up?”

He swallows, and turns his eyes to me. I can tell with this question his pulse has exploded in his neck. I can see it throb with the rhythm. His voice comes out more hoarse than usual when he admits, “All of them.”

My blood turns to mercury, swirling and toxic. “All of them?”

“Yeah, Harlow. I . . . like it.” He ducks his head, touching the back of his neck as he looks at me through his eyelashes. “But I’m pretty sure most of them only did it because they wanted to be with me, not because it was their thing, too.”

“Did any of them like it?”

He nods. “My first, maybe?”

“What was her name?” I can’t help it. The questions are just falling out of my mouth before I have time to think better of them.

He steps a little bit farther away from the table, and I follow. “Emily.”

“But you aren’t sure she liked it?” It’s so weird to be here, at Fred’s and surrounded by our friends who are sitting in the booth only a few feet away and still having the most intimate conversation we’ve ever had.

“Honestly,” he says quietly, “I don’t know. I mean, she was into it, sure, but I would love to know how she remembers that night now, looking back. She moved away after graduation, but we were together a little over a year before that. I just . . .” He blinks away. “The only place we could have any privacy was on my dad’s little rowboat, down at the dock. The third time, we’d stolen beers from her dad. I just played around with her, and the rope, and it was . . .” He stops talking, finally just saying, “Yeah.”

I nod, sipping my water. I think I know what he’s telling me—that seeing his girlfriend like that did something good for him, and shaped what he likes now. But I don’t really need to hear him talking about it anymore.

“That morning I saw you at Starbucks,” he says.

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “Yeah? What about it?”

He shrugs, giving me a do-I-need-to-drag-it-from-you look. “I know you hooked up, but you didn’t look like you were particularly relaxed.”

“Ah, right. The mother woke us up,” I tell him. “In person. Second-worst lay of my life the night before.”

He barks out a delighted laugh. “Who was the first?”

“My first. I realize now he was tiny, but it still hurt. I swear I look back on it now and see my virginity being taken by a baby carrot.”

“What are you talking about over here?” Lola asks, appearing out of nowhere and sidling up to me.

Finn is barely recovered from his laughing fit. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Baby carrot,” I tell her with a knowing grin.

Lola nods, smiling at him. “Awesome, right? Poor Jesse Sandoval.”

“Our girl is a poet,” Finn agrees.

Our girl. It eases somewhat the tiny twinge I still feel when I remember Finn told me about the television show because he didn’t want to share it with more permanent members of his life.

Oliver steps out of the booth and joins our little circle. “So we’re standing tonight? Usually Harlow likes to sit and throw things at me across the table.”

I laugh because it’s true. “You just have these creepy Crocodile Dundee reflexes.”

“I’m a ninja.” Oliver pushes his thick-rimmed glasses up his nose in a nerdy gesture that makes us all laugh. “And you know how much I love your limited Australian cultural knowledge.”

“I try.”

Behind him, Not-Joe is still sitting in the booth, high as a kite and dancing in his seat as he stares at a group of coeds out on the floor.

“Oliver, you and Not-Joe should go boogie down with those girls over there.”

“Why not Finn?” Oliver asks with a knowing grin. “He’s also single.”

I shake my head. “He is, but look, he’s all dressed up. It’d be like A Night at the Roxbury and everyone would be embarrassed for him.” Not only will Finn refuse to dance, but if he’s going to be out there, the cavewoman inside tells me he’s going to be there for me and no one else. At least until he leaves.

Suddenly, I feel panic rise in my throat. Is Finn leaving tomorrow? He’s had his meeting with the L.A. crowd; does that mean he’ll go home?

Laughing, Oliver looks over at the dance floor, but not before taking a peek at Lola’s reaction. “Those Sheilas are tiny.”

“ ‘Tiny’ like young?” I ask, leaning to get a better look. The girls are definitely in their twenties. “Or short?”

“Very short.”

“But look at you,” Lola says, frowning. “You’re over six three. Statistically speaking that means you’re going to end up with someone under five three.”

“That hurts me in my logic,” Oliver says, smiling down at her.

“If you’re not going to dance, then get me a beer,” I tell him.

“I would but I’m paralyzed from my toes down.”

I shove him playfully. “Take Lola, too. She needs another drink.”

Lola protests that she doesn’t, but follows him anyway, and I watch them as they go. She’s tall, but he still looms over her, and seems to tilt in her direction as he walks, as if they’re magnets. I wonder if Oliver realizes what it means that Lola has seamlessly made him one of Her People. It’s a pretty exclusive club, including me, Mia, Lola’s dad, my parents, and now Oliver.

“He’ll never try it,” Finn says beside me, and when I look at him I realize he means Oliver will never try to make something happen with Lola. “He’s convinced she isn’t interested.”

“I’m not sure she is,” I agree, “but it’s mostly because Lola is clueless about guys, and all she thinks about is work.”

He hums in response.

Turning to him fully, I say, “Okay, they’re all the way over at the bar for a few minutes, Not-Joe is stoned out of his gourd and probably can’t even hear the music in here. Can you relax? Tell me: How did it go?”

Finn swipes a hand down his face and exhales a long breath, glancing to make sure they really are out of earshot. “I liked them. I mean, there were a couple of idiots in the room who asked things about our love lives, and what kind of women we date”—he ignores the way I do a little victory moonwalk, and continues—“but the two guys who would be producing this show are pretty sharp. They’ve clearly done their homework on the industry, and . . .” He sighs. “I liked them. I liked their ideas. It didn’t sound horrible.”

“So why do you look so miserable?” My heart aches a little. I realize while I’m watching him struggle with this that I sincerely just want Finn to be happy.

When have I cared so much about his happiness versus my own orgasms? Lola isn’t the only one who has seamlessly pulled one of these guys into her inner circle. Finn is officially one of My People.

“Because it’s easier to feel strongly against it,” he says. “This morning, I was convinced this was just a going-through-the-motions meeting. Now I see how this could work much more easily than the alternative. The alternative being we lose our family business and have nothing.”

Not to put too dramatic a spin on it, but I’m really starting to think I know what drowning feels like. Mom has finished her first day of chemo—a treatment where the goal is to kill the cancer just slightly faster than killing the host—and all I have is a few texts from my dad saying she feels good. Finn is struggling with what is arguably the hardest decision of his life. I’ve just acknowledged that he’s My Person, and now I’m powerless all over again to help either of them through this.

It sucks because I know that what would make us both feel better right now is some naked wrestling in my bed. But the more I realize I have genuine feelings for him, the more I know I couldn’t just take him home tonight. Finn would be the first person I would have sex with who I might also love. Ugh.

He shrugs, sliding his hands into his pockets. “And that’s pretty much it.”

I’m feeling a little light-headed and have to force myself to breathe, to focus on the conversation at hand. I can lose my shit later. “When are you heading home?” I ask, going for casual, yet concerned.

He shrugs. “Couple of days.”

A sharp spike drives into my chest. “Boo.”

He smiles down at me, gaze hovering on my mouth. “Are you admitting that you’re going to miss me, Ginger Snap?”

I give him the finger and don’t answer.