SWNOVELS Finn Rhodes Forever: Chapter 21
“WHAT’S your favorite hiking spot around here?” I asked her later, when the sun had almost set.
Her eyes narrowed as she thought about it. “Sitka Mountain, I think. The hike is tough but not too tough, just a short overnighter, and when you wake up in the morning and stick your head out your tent with a view of those turquoise lakes, it’s—” Her expression melted into something relaxed and nostalgic, and I couldn’t look away. “—gorgeous. Serene. It feels like I’m the only person on the planet.”
“Sounds nice.”
Her eyebrows bobbed. “It is. You should go.”
“You should take me.” My brows lifted and she smiled. “Where will you work once you finish your PhD?”
“There’s a forestry research center in Port Alberni.” That was a town near Queen’s Cove, about a two-hour drive. “They don’t have much funding, so I’m not sure if I could get a job there even with a PhD.” She chewed her lip and her eyes met mine. “I might have to move to Victoria.” That was the biggest city on Vancouver Island, a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Queen’s Cove. “Or the mainland, Vancouver or something in the interior of BC.”
I nodded, taking this in. People had to move for work, that wasn’t a big deal or out of the ordinary. Still, my stomach tipped over as I pictured Liv moving away.
I’d go with her, if she let me.
“Are you ready to leave?”
She pressed her mouth into a line, frowning. “No. I love this place. I hated leaving to go to school. Vancouver’s nice but it’s so busy and chaotic, there’s a lot of traffic, and—” She cut herself off, shrugging and shaking her head. “It’s not here.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“Do you miss firefighting?” She played with a tassel on the blanket. Her eyes flicked up to me, curious. “Forest fires, that is.”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “It’s an organized chaos out there when the fires are raging.” I shot her a lopsided grin. “I feel in my element there.”
“And here?” Her gaze stayed on her fingers.
I swallowed. “Sometimes I’m in my element here, too. Like when we go hiking.”
She glanced up and gave me a smile. My chest squeezed, warm and tight. I’d be replaying this moment for the next few days.
I knew she felt it too.
She nodded. “You’re good at it. I feel safe hiking with you.”
“Yeah?” My brows lifted and my mouth curled into a smug smile. “You feel safe with me?”
She rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. “You know what I mean. You talk enough to scare the bears away.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. So fucking adorable.
“Mhm.” I gave her another grin. Her ankle was inches from my thumb so I drew a line over it. Her breath caught. “You feel safe with me.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, grinning at the thread on the blanket, pulling her ankle away.
She wore a playful smile on her lips and something tugged under my heart, but her smile faded.
“You’re going to get bored in this town,” she whispered, and my gut tensed. We were as close to Liv finally telling me the truth as we’d ever been, and I felt like I was walking around fucking landmines. “You’re going to miss the chaos.”
I shook my head. “I won’t. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t miss about it, Liv. Living in camps, falling into bed exhausted every night, missing my friends and family. This is my home.” Our gazes held, and something big and bright pulsed between us. “You’re here.”
Her eyebrows pulled together in worry. “You can’t stay somewhere for one person.”
“I can, and if you got a job in Victoria, I’d happily move there for you.”
“What about your family?”
“We’d visit.”
She glanced over at where they were setting up the screen, worry clouding her gaze. “You can’t last more than seven or eight months in one town.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
I rubbed my jaw, frowning down at the blanket. The time to tell her was now. “Before I ran into your dad. Your biological dad.”
Her gaze whipped to mine. “Cole?”
I nodded. “In Whistler. He lives there now. Runs a handyman business.”
She chewed her bottom lip, listening and watching with a wary expression. “I looked him up a few years ago.”
“You didn’t reach out?”
She shook her head.
“He has your eyes.”
She nodded, playing with a loose thread on the blanket. “I know. I remember.”
“Your laugh, too. Kind of quiet and sarcastic.”
Pain flashed across her expression and I had the urge to haul her into my chest. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because…” I huffed another deep breath. Shit. I was losing her. I was upsetting her, but she had to know. “He’s why I changed my mind. I was ready to come back and convince you to get your degree before I left again, but—” There was a rock in my throat.
Her gaze snapped up.
“The guy was sad, Liv.” I leaned forward, gaze locked on hers. Discomfort washed over her face and she hugged herself tighter but she had to hear this. “Sad and lonely. He was in there a lot, and always alone. He drinks a lot.” Fear twisted in my gut. “I don’t want to be like him. He hurt you by leaving and everyone paid the price. He never fixed it, never apologized and never made it better.”
When someone on a neighboring blanket glanced over, I realized how sharply I’d spoken. I didn’t care, though. Liv needed the truth.
“Liv, I never want to be Cole. I know I hurt you. I know I fucked up. I told Sadie that I was coming back, and that was because I thought you weren’t going to finish school. I was going to…” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I was going to do. I’d been thinking about you for years. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life regretting that I wasn’t good enough for you, and that I didn’t even try.”
She frowned at the picnic blanket. The sky was dim now, and more people filtered into the park, taking their seats, but the woman across from me held my full attention.
“I’m going to do everything I can to fix us, understand?”
She gave me a tiny nod, eyes still on the blanket.
“Please look at me, baby,” I whispered.
Her chest rose as she inhaled before she let it out slowly, raising her gaze to mine. She nodded again. “Okay.”
In my chest, my heart thudded. Something lifted in my chest, and it felt a lot like hope.
Her hands brushed her arms and she shivered.
“Is the poo shirt not warm enough?” I asked, cocking my head.
She grinned. “Shut up.”
I moved to standing. “I have a jacket in the car. Be right back.”
When I returned to the blanket, I took the seat directly beside her, holding out my jean jacket with the shearling collar for her to slip into.
“Thanks,” she said, pulling it around her.
“You look cute wearing my jacket.” My mouth hitched and I pictured her wearing other items of my clothing. My t-shirt. My hoodie. I imagined her waking up in my t-shirt, and me pushing the hem up with my head between her legs.
Fuck, I liked the idea of that.
Across the grass, the screen flickered to life and the movie started. Liv shifted, tucking her legs beneath her.
“You remember when we saw this movie in the theater?” I whispered to her.
She nodded at me, smiling. We had just been teenagers.
I leaned in a bit closer. “During the movie, your knee brushed mine and I got a boner.”
She choked, snort-laughing. “What?” she whispered back, grinning. “Ew. Why are you telling me this?”
I shrugged. “I had a crush on you.”
“Keep your boner story to yourself.” She shook her head but amusement lit up her eyes.
I winced. “Liv, there are lots of boner stories. Basically, anytime I was in your bedroom.”
She groaned and I laughed again.
“No,” I continued, ducking lower so my mouth was a few inches from her ear, “but during the whole movie, all I could think about was how to get you to hold my hand.”
She turned her head, giving me a side-long look. “Really?”
“Mhm.” I nodded, holding her gaze.
She turned back to the screen, the corner of her mouth turning up a little. “I guess that’s a little cute.”
Fireworks burst in my chest. Liv said I was cute.
She shifted again, and a second later, her hand settled on the blanket in between us. I glanced between her hand and her face with a question in my eyes.
She rolled hers. “It’s not a big deal. Don’t get a boner over it.”
My grin broadened and I settled my hand over hers. “No promises.”
She snorted and turned back to the movie, a smile playing at her lips as my thumb stroked over hers. At one point, she shifted, stretching her back, and I patted my chest.
“Lean back,” I said.
She arched an eyebrow at me.
“I should have brought chairs. Lean back on me so I don’t feel guilty.”
To my total fucking surprise, she didn’t put up a fight. She just turned around, scooched between my legs, and settled back into my chest. My arms wrapped across her front and my head rested on top of hers as we watched the rest of the movie.
Like this, Liv and I didn’t feel like best friends… we felt like more. Like partners. We belonged together. My heart expanded in my chest, squeezing out any doubt or worry that she wouldn’t come around.
She already was coming around. Maybe it was this stupid shirt or all the time we were spending together. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I wanted more of this. More cuddling in the park, more hand holding, more talking about hikes.
My chest swelled with affection for her, wrapped in my arms, her back warm against my chest, looking fucking delectable in my jacket. It was huge on her.
Liv was it for me, and I was going to be as patient as she needed. I’d play this dumb game with her pretending to be my girlfriend and trying to get me to dump her, because moments like this were worth it.