FULL NOVELXO Finn Rhodes Forever: Chapter 2
ONE MONTH later
Sadie and I stood in the bar, arms crossed and staring up at the enormous alien dildo mounted on the wall beside the TV.
“I can’t get it down,” I told her.
Sadie chewed her lip, studying it hanging there. It had been sent to her by mistake last year and I had put it up to make her laugh, but now the fucker wouldn’t detach from the wall.
“Pull harder on it,” Sadie suggested.
Behind us, sitting at the counter, Sadie’s husband Holden choked on his beer.
My expression turned horrified. “You pull on it.”
Her snort turned into a full-out laugh. “Let’s just leave it up.”
My dad walked out of the storeroom carrying a case of beer. His eyes went straight to the alien dong and he winced. “Still can’t get it down?”
I shook my head at him and he laughed.
“Sorry, Joe,” Sadie said.
“Yeah, sorry, Dad,” I added.
He waved us off, shaking his head and grinning. “If that’s the most trouble you got into while we were away last year, we’re good.”
Last year, while my parents went traveling, I ran the bar while working on my PhD dissertation. That’s how I became friends with Sadie—she needed a job while she and Holden fixed up the inn they’d inherited.
“Are you okay to close up?” he asked me, standing and dusting his hands off.
I nodded. My apartment was over the bar, so I usually closed. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Sounds good. Goodnight, honey.” He dropped a quick kiss on the top of my head before he headed out, something he had been doing since he married my mom when I was five years old.
Joe wasn’t my biological father, but he was my dad. He’d raised me, he loved me and my mom more than anything, and I couldn’t imagine a life without him. He taught me how to ride a bike, how to make a whiskey sour, and how to make pancakes. Where it mattered, he was my dad. The guy who knocked my mom up at twenty and slowly faded from my life? I didn’t call that guy Dad. I didn’t call him anything because I hadn’t heard from him in years.
As Sadie and I cleaned and prepared to close, I glanced around my dad’s bar at the regulars finishing up their drinks, at the old wood floors, the mismatched collection of photos and artwork. I’d been working here on and off since university, over a decade. Every year while I was in school I’d come home to Queen’s Cove, a small town on the coast of Vancouver Island, to help my dad with the summer tourist rush, and in the fall, I’d return to school.
I’d been back in town full time for almost two years working on my dissertation, and after the conversation I had with my advisor this morning, a new sense of urgency weighed in my gut.
“What’s up with you?” Sadie asked beside me at the bar. “You’re quiet tonight. Quieter than usual.”
I flattened my lips into a tight line. “I spoke to my advisor this afternoon.”
Sadie leaned in. “Okay, and?” She knew I’d been dodging my advisor’s calls and emails all week.
“She’s not dropping me like I thought.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, replaying the conversation in my head before I winced. “She took a position at the University of Toronto.” She currently held a position at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “It starts in September but she can delay my deadline until October.”
“What does this mean for you?”
“It means that I need to find the flower by October or I’m dropped from the program.”
For years, I’d been trying to prove that certain plants could adapt to climate change, and that the pink sand verbena from the Queen’s Cove area, rumored to be extinct, had changed location because of the increasing coastal temperatures.
A memory popped into my head—the only memory I had of the flower. It was floating down a creek in the woods, its pink petals standing out against the dark stones as it meandered downstream before it disappeared.
I saw that flower. No one believed me, but I did. I knew it was still out there, but now I was running out of time to prove it.
Sadie reared back, frowning. “They can’t do that.”
I winced. Fuck, this was so embarrassing. “Yes, they can. I’ve been ‘finishing my research’ for two years.” I used air quotes around the words. “Most people finish their dissertation in one year, maximum.”
“Can you switch to another advisor, someone staying at the university?”
Shame twisted in my gut and I could barely meet her gaze. “I asked, and she said no one else wanted to take my work on.”
Meaning everyone else thought I was on a wild goose chase. My face heated in embarrassment, thinking about all the advisors in a meeting, discussing my work.
“She said the longer I take on my dissertation, the lower my chances of finishing are.”
Sadie blinked. “Shit. That’s harsh.”
I shrugged. “She’s right. I’ve been working on it for two years.” And three years of school and lab research before that. My stomach rolled as I remembered the tentative tone my advisor had used on the call. “I think she thinks I’m wasting my time.”
Sadie shifted, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter. “You’re out in the mountains looking for the flower all the time.”
“And I still haven’t found it.”
We stood in silence, listening to the music and quiet chatter in the bar.
“What are you going to do?” Sadie asked, studying my face.
A knot formed in my throat and I frowned down at my hands clasped on the countertop. It was May, and based on data from the flower in other parts of the world, it should be in bloom from now until the end of August.
“I have one last summer to find it before I get kicked out of my program.” I shrugged and looked at her. “So I’m going to get out there as much as I can and find it.” I straightened up, trying to brush the bad vibes away. “I’m going on a hike tomorrow. I’ll send you my route before I leave.”
She didn’t like that I hiked alone in the back country, especially because the terrain wasn’t for beginners and cell service was spotty, so to keep her from worrying, I always sent her my itinerary and route—even though between school and growing up here, I’d spent countless hours in the mountains. I knew what I was doing.
Sadie tapped her nails on the bar counter and chewed her lip, glancing at me.
I frowned. “What?”
Her mouth twisted to the side and I stared at her. I knew that look. That was the same look she had when she explained that the person I hated more than anyone on the planet would be at her and Holden’s wedding a few months ago.
My gut flipped.
“What?” I asked again, leaning in. “Spit it out, please.”
She blew out a long breath. “He’s moving back.”
I froze before shaking my head. “Nope.” I wiped the spotless counter.
“Olivia.”
“He’s not.” I was practically rubbing the varnish off.
She sighed. “He left Whistler a couple days ago.”
Fuck. This was bad. My stomach dropped.
Finn Rhodes and I had an unspoken agreement. In the summers, Holden’s youngest brother left Queen’s Cove to fight wildfires around the province, and I worked in my dad’s bar. In the fall, I returned to school and he came home until he inevitably got bored and left for the summer.
And then last year, my dad needed help running the bar while he and my mom went on their dream trip around Europe, Finn moved permanently to Whistler, a ski town in BC, and I figured my problem was solved.
As kids, we were best friends. We grew up next door to each other, and we did everything together. We even had the same birthday. When most kids hit puberty, they thought the opposite sex was gross, but not us. We were inseparable all the way up to the night of our high school graduation.
He was everything to me, and he ditched me. My stomach dropped with the memories of that night before I pushed them away.
Finn Rhodes was a cruel joke from the universe. He had smashed my heart into a thousand pieces without a second thought, and I would never, ever let it happen again.
That day I saw the pink sand verbena in the forest? Finn had been standing right beside me, watching the flower disappear down the creek.
I adopted an apathetic expression, shrugging at Sadie. “Here’s the thing about Finn,” I said in a low voice so Holden wouldn’t overhear. “He’s an adrenaline junkie. Compared to fighting raging wildfires, our town isn’t interesting enough for him, so even if he does come home, I don’t expect him to stay.”
Sadie lifted one eyebrow, looking uncertain.
“Trust me,” I told her. “I know him.”
He said he was coming back to town, but if I knew one thing about Finn after growing up with him? It was that I couldn’t trust a fucking word he said.
“It’s been a long time,” Sadie offered.
I remembered the way he had looked at me at Sadie and Holden’s wedding, and the zap of electricity down my spine when our eyes had met. I hadn’t seen the guy since we were teenagers, and seeing him standing there in his suit, with his unruly dark hair looking perfectly rumpled, his sharp gray eyes assessing me in my dress—my heart had nearly stopped.
God, he had looked so good. His frame had filled out, probably from the physical demands of his firefighting job. His tattoos had poked out beneath his collar and the hems of his sleeves, and the way his gaze had raked over me with a mix of longing and heat?
A shiver rolled down my back at the memory.
He hadn’t changed. Not one bit. Same cocky, reckless, thrill-seeking Finn.
Rage flooded my blood and I scowled.
Asshole.
Sadie yawned and her eyes watered.
“Go home,” I told her, grateful to end this conversation.
She shook her head. “I’m good,” she warbled through another jaw-breaking yawn.
Holden glared at me and I threw my hands up. “I told her to go home.”
“Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t hear you,” Sadie said, walking around the counter to sit beside Holden. She was only two months along, not even showing yet. His arm automatically came around her waist, and when she smiled at him, the corner of his mouth ticked up.
Before Sadie, some people would call Holden grumpy. Now? I saw him smile at least once a day.
“Stop,” I told them.
Sadie laughed. “What?”
I gestured between them. “Gazing. Quit it.”
Holden turned back to the game on the TV above the bar with a little smile on his face, his hand lingering on her knee, and Sadie shook her head, still grinning.
It was sweet how much they loved each other, but sometimes being around people who were madly in love got old.
When they headed out moments later, I waved goodbye then I closed up the tabs on my other tables.
Something weird rolled in my stomach. I was happy for my friends. They’d fallen for each other in this very bar last year, right in front of me. Sadie was one of my best friends, and I was relieved she chose to make Queen’s Cove her home. She moved here almost two years ago when she inherited her aunt’s inn. She and Holden had had this weird arrangement for her to find him a wife, but it turned out differently than they expected.
Well, differently than she expected. Holden always had a thing for her. It was only a matter of time.
I was just stuck after the call with my advisor. Twenty-nine years old and in the same place as five years ago, while all my friends fell in love, progressed in their careers, and started families.
My last tables finished up and left, and I headed to the front door to lock up after them.
He’s moving back, Sadie had said.
I dragged in a deep breath to calm myself down. No, he wasn’t. What the hell would Finn want here?
Besides, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care about Finn Rhodes anymore.