Learning Curve

Finn

“All right, ladies,” Ace whispers as the elevator stops on the fortieth floor. “It’s showtime!”

Blake lifts the two-thousand-dollar camera Ace handed him downstairs and starts filming, and all six girls file out of the cart on a synchronized jog, their Kelly Financial uniforms sparkling in the office lighting. The heels of their gym shoes tap their asses with each step, and their hands clap in perfect timing.

I trail behind, embarrassed, but unwilling to miss any of the action.

Frankly, it’s impressive that they’re this in time, seeing as Ace did no more than a ten-minute briefing of the plan on the thirtieth floor. The fucker had a notebook full of cheers and shit that he wanted them to do, but McKenzie—who is one of Dickson’s cheer captains—told him to shut up and let them handle the cheerleading. It’s beyond obvious now that Ace agreeing to it was the right move.

Ace is so damn amped I can practically see his body vibrating with joy. “Dude,” I comment and grab him by the back of the neck. “Take a breath.”

“Oh, Finnley, I cannot,” he exclaims on a whisper as we walk down the marble hallway that leads to his dad’s office. “I can’t wait to see my dad’s face when I one-up that fucker with something he’d never expect.”

The receptionist waves to Ace as we walk past, not in the least surprised by the Kelly brand of shit, and we follow the cheerleaders down the hall and around the corner to the office he showed them on his hand-drawn map.

When the girls reach the desk in front of his dad’s office door that’s occupied by Thatch’s assistant, the red-haired woman smiles so big it looks like her face might crack. Without hesitation, she gestures for them to go straight into the office behind her. A gold plate on the door reads Thatcher Kelly, CEO Kelly Investments.

McKenzie starts up as soon as she crosses the threshold. “Give me a K!”

“K!” Scottie and the other girls respond as they trail through the door, doing their little ass-kicking run thing again. I watch Scottie for longer than I’d like to admit, only stopping when Ace elbows me to stop at the assistant’s desk.

“Give me an E!”

“E!”

“Tell me you planned this, Acer,” Thatch’s assistant begs, her glee not even remotely concealed. According to Ace’s breakdown, she’s been his dad’s assistant since before he was even born.

“You bet your gorgeous ass I did, Madeline.”

Madeline falls back into her chair, a fit of giggles consuming her, and Ace leans forward to high-five her when she puts a hand in the air.

“I’ve been warning him for decades that he would reap what he sowed with you and your brother. Goodness, I’m so thrilled to see it playing out in real time.” She smiles at Blake and me before glancing over her shoulder into the office and then back at us. “Grab some popcorn, boys. This is going to be good. He’s in the middle of a call!”

Ace’s eyes widen in fear for half a second before Blake shoves him into the office and points the camera at Thatch, who’s sitting behind a giant mahogany desk while all six cheerleaders dance in front of it, shaking their pom-poms.

“I looked at the projected reports, Thatch, and I can’t deny they’re good. Real damn good. But what are you going to offer us that our current investment firm isn’t?” a male voice questions from the computer.

“We love Kelly Financial. Yes, we do! We love Kelly Financial. How about you?” McKenzie cheers, and Scottie and the other four girls don’t hesitate to respond.

“We love Kelly Financial. Yes, we do! We love Kelly Financial. How about you!” They point their poms directly at Thatch at the end of the line, shaking their ribbons until the noise of it is so much, I almost have to cover my ears.

Thatch leans closer to his computer, trying to block it out and save the call. “Bradley, you need your money at Kelly Financial. I know it, and you know it—”

“Stronger than steel!” Kayla exclaims as she jumps in the air.

“Hotter than the sun!” Emma cheers and does a fucking backflip.

“Thatch won’t stop!” McKenzie shouts, shaking her pom-poms.

“Until he gets the investment job done!” Scottie yells and jumps up to stand on Tonya’s and Olivia’s prepped hands. A second later, they toss Scottie into the air, and she does the fucking splits before landing perfectly in Tonya’s and Olivia’s outstretched arms. Thank fuck Thatch’s office has twelve-foot ceilings.

I’d be lying if I said I’m not mesmerized or that I can keep my eyes off Scottie after that.

She smiles and cheers along with her friends, and the amount of pride I feel for her talent is insane. She’s not my girl—I made damn sure of that. But she is that girl.

“Thatch?” a booming male voice echoes from the speakers of the computer. Thatch waves commandingly at the girls to stop, but they’re ready for it, continuing anyway just as Ace’s briefing suggested they should.

More voices filter from the speakers.

“What is going on?”

“Do we have a bad connection?”

“I can see him sitting there. I’m positive we don’t have a bad connection.”

“Then what is he doing? Some kind of gesture?”

“Everything but convincing us why we should invest our money with him, that’s for damn sure.”

Thatch’s annoyed eyes finally break away from the cheerleaders and land on Ace, and for the first time since we entered the office, realization dawns. Ace gives his dad a big smile and two thumbs up, and I nearly choke on my saliva.

Holy shit, this family is crazy.

“You’re doing great, sweetie,” Ace calls toward his dad through cupped hands. “The Kelly Financial cheerleaders are so proud of you!”

In a split second, Thatch’s face goes from ticked off to cool, calm, and collected. It’s a face I’ve literally never seen my father make.

“Thatch? Hello?”

“Sorry, Todd,” Thatch responds with a neutral smile on his face. “Your surprise arrived earlier than expected.”

“Surprise?”

“Oh yeah. Just give me one second, boys,” Thatch states and stands up from his desk chair. “Ladies, can I just say that you are looking very gorgeous today?” He winks, and I don’t miss how all six cheerleaders smile at the compliment. “And…” He drops his voice to a whisper. “I would like to compensate you for your time.”

“What the fuck?” Ace starts to complain, but his dad is too busy schmoozing his accomplices to turn against him.

“Compensate us?” McKenzie asks, her interest more than piqued.

“Wait a minute, I—” Ace tries to stop what is happening, but Tonya holds her hand in the air in a very obvious shut up.

“Five hundred dollars each,” Thatch elucidates before winking at Ace.

“Hell yes,” McKenzie agrees, followed by a “That’s what I’m talking about,” from Kayla.

Scottie glances back at us, avoiding actually making eye contact with me, of course, but ultimately agrees to the generous offer. Thatch, the charming bastard that he is, even strides around his desk and gets them in a little pow-wow huddle as he tells them what he wants them to do.

I grab Ace’s shoulder and squeeze in support, and Blake continues to film as Thatch guides the now official Kelly Financial cheerleaders over to stand in front of the screen of his computer.

“Ladies, how about we show the boys at the Redstone Corporation how excited we are to have them on board.” Thatch’s grin is smug as his cheerleaders start up in another cheer.

This time, though, it’s all about the Redstone Corporation. By the end of it, the sounds of claps and laughter echo from the speakers of the computer, his audience completely swayed.

“Sorry to break it to you, Ace,” Blake comments on a laugh and wraps an arm around Ace’s shoulders. “But I think your dad just one-upped your one-up.”

Not only did Thatch run with being surprised by the Kelly Financial cheerleaders, but he actually used them to secure a deal with Redstone Corporation.

“V-I-C-T-O-R-Y,” I say with a shrug.

Ace shakes his head as the cheerleaders collect their money from Thatch and leave the office in smiles. Scottie doesn’t glance at me once on her way toward us at the door, and I can’t blame her.

Still, that doesn’t stop me from putting my body just slightly in the way of her exit.

“Sorry,” she mutters as she bumps me, falling into my body enough that I have to steady her by the shoulders. When she looks up and glares, I release them and clear the discomfort from my throat.

“No big deal.”

Silence forms a cloak over us and chokes the oxygen out of the air. I don’t know what to say to her. I know my goal after going home Sunday was to stop leading her on, so she’d have the freedom to find someone else—someone she deserves—but I don’t know that saying absolutely nothing at all was the way to go.

I don’t want her to hate me. I just… I want her to know she deserves better than what I have to offer.

“You…uh…going somewhere?” I ask dumbly. Clearly, she’s not planning to stay at Kelly Financial for the foreseeable future.

“I’m going back to school to study and catch up on the assignments I have to do. We have an away game in Ithaca this weekend, and the bus leaves tomorrow. I’ll be missing all of my classes after our English test.”

“How long is the drive?” I ask, unable to do anything but make lame small talk with her. It’s so fucking pathetic, but I’m desperate to keep her talking to me at all at this point.

“Four hours on the bus.” She shuffles a little on her feet, and she averts her eyes from mine to look down at her white gym shoes. But when her gaze lifts back up again, I’m shocked when she asks, “Why does it feel like you’re always playing games with me?”

“I’m not,” I refute, more offended than I have the right to be after everything I’ve put her through.

“Are you sure?” Her eyes narrow, and her normally gentle voice starts to rise with irritation. “Because you invited me back to your dorm Saturday night. You kissed me. You asked me to stay. But then, I wake up, and you’re gone. No explanation. No nothing. No call or text or carrier pigeon after the fact. Why? Because if it’s not a game, I want to understand it. Give me a real reason why.”

Because I don’t want to fill your head with the bullshit I’ve been dealing with since I was a kid.

Because I didn’t want to wake you in the middle of the night to tell you I had to go save my baby sister from our father.

Because I came to this school to make my half brother feel the kind of pain I’ve been feeling ever since I was born.

Because I’m too fucked up for a girl like her.

I could tell her a million reasons, but I don’t. I can’t. Scottie shouldn’t have to shoulder the bullshit hand the game of life has dealt me. She shouldn’t have to think about the ugly realities my siblings and I have faced our whole lives.

And no matter how much I like her, no matter how drawn I am to her, she sure as shit shouldn’t be close to a guy like me. She deserves better.

“You don’t have anything to say, Finn?”

“I told you not to need me, Scottie. You’re too fucking good to need me,” I say like a total asshole.

“You know what, Finn?” she snaps, and a defiant hand goes to her hip. I feel proud of her and sad at the same time. “All this bullshit with you…it’s worse than what I went through with Dane.”

Her words have claws, and they slice through my chest until they draw blood.

I’ve had a lot of nasty things tossed my way. My dad’s called me stupid and pathetic and weak. He’s told me I’ll never amount to anything. In the midst of one of his drunken rages, he said that I was a mistake he wished they would’ve aborted.

But right now, none of those words have ever hit as hard as this.

I’m worse than her asshole ex, whom I literally saw manhandling her with my own two eyes. That’s how she sees me.

Scottie stands there for a long moment, but when I don’t say anything to that, can’t say anything to that, she walks away. Down the long hallway and out of sight, she’s gone.

And I have the unshakable feeling that she won’t be back.

Fuck.