Daring the Wild Sparks (24 page)

“Really, Hadley? Sheesh. When he thought you left him, he was crying.”

Never
. I gape at her. “Finn? He never cries. We’ve been together three years and I’ve yet to see him cry. Though, he did come close when I told him to pick one: the New River Gorge Bridge or me.”

Both Julie and Simone gasp and then laugh. “He picked you!” Julie claps her hands.

I nod and smile. “I’m shocked, too.” Julie offers me her hand for a high-five and I give her one, giggling.

Simone reclines against a fluffy pillow. “Well, you missed it then. He wasn’t bawling, but that’s because he was around all of us. He did have tears in his eyes. I saw them.”

I sigh and argue, “Okay, but he just found out his mom and stepdad are getting divorced. I’d cry, too.”

Simone counters, “He wasn’t crying for them. He was crying for
you
.”

I still shake my head in denial. “Finn Wilder is a hard ass. He wouldn’t cry over me, no matter what happens. He would never want anyone to see him cry. He once told me that it’s weak for guys to cry.”

Simone rolls her eyes. “You two are perfect for each other because you’re both so morbidly stubborn.”

I roll my eyes back at her and change the subject. “Anything else about Finn that I should know?”

Julie laughs. “He constantly had girls chasing after him in school, but he didn’t have any steady girlfriends. If he did, they weren’t together long because I’d probably remember them. At his baseball games, there would be girls wearing his name and number they drew on white T-shirts. Some held up signs for him, too. They screamed his name when he was up at bat or got an out for the team. Most boys would’ve loved the attention, but Finn didn’t. He seemed aggravated by it.”

Simone sneers, “Maybe because he liked boys instead.”

“Simone.” Julie smirks at her and then looks at me. “He’s definitely into girls. One in particular.” I smile and stare at the teddy bears covering my leg.

“Tell Hadley how you figured out he was dating her. That’s a funny story.”

Julie shifts on the bed and takes a chip, looking thoughtful. “Well, Simone told me that when Finn took her to the ER for bronchitis, he had chatted up a woman. I didn’t think much of it because he has fans and he probably did go on dates with some. I’m not exactly sure of that since he never talked to me about who he was dating. Well, about three weeks later, I was talking to him on the phone and noticed he was acting kind of weird.”

“Weirder than normal?” Simone retorts.

“Yes.” Julie chuckles. “He was acting more evasive than usual. He didn’t want to talk about anything outside of his job. He seemed afraid that he’d say something incriminating if he talked about something else, even the weather. I could tell he was definitely hiding something. The strange thing was he sounded happy. I thought maybe he had met someone, so I started digging more. I asked him about the awards banquet he had coming up for work. He kind of blew it off and said he wasn’t going for long. That was odd since Henry, Jack and I all came down to Richmond for it because Finn was getting a big award.”

“He did?” I ask, crestfallen. He didn’t tell me that.

“Yes, but he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it, which was also peculiar since he liked getting recognized for his crazy stunts. That’s one thing he always enjoyed: accepting awards. He loved it.”

“I don’t remember him going to a banquet.” I try to think back to when we first were dating. “I do recall him having to ‘work late’ one Friday night, but he still came over to my apartment. He hadn’t been on the Air because I remember asking him why he hadn’t been. He said he had to do some work for an assignment. I didn’t question him about it.” Finn showed up at my door in jeans and a T-shirt, which means he went
home to change after getting his award.

“Oh, sweetie. Now that I think about it, Finn didn’t even want to hang around until the end of the banquet. He was antsy for some reason. He took Jack and me back to his apartment and said he was meeting Ricky for some party.”

“He just left the three of you…to see me?”

“I guess he did!” Julie laughs and Simone rolls her eyes.

“My brother had it bad for you from the moment he saw you at the hospital. It was extremely obvious he was falling in love. I knew he was.”

Julie smiles happily. “That is so adorable. I wish I’d been there to see him.” This is awkward.

Simone’s face turns sour. “Hold on. You mean to tell me that he left an awards banquet he was being honored at because he wanted to get laid?”

I adamantly shake my head. “He wasn’t getting it from me.”
Oh, shit. What is wrong with me
?

“Yeah, right!” Simone laughs in disbelief. “He wouldn’t have cheated on you, Hadley!”

I anxiously play with my hair and mumble, “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?” she asks.

I sigh, knowing that my huge, fat mouth just got me into trouble again. Simone and Julie expectantly stare at me, waiting for me to expound. Clearing my throat and briskly gazing down to the bedspread, idly picking at the material, I say, “I mean, we weren’t having sex, so he wasn’t rushing out of there for that reason. He knew he wasn’t getting any from me.”

Simone’s eyes widen and she sits up, clearly blown away. “So, unlike a typical Finnatic would’ve, you didn’t jump into bed with him right after you started dating?” I didn’t even know who he really was when I met him, seeing him only a couple times on TV.

“She’s not a ‘typical Finnatic,’” Julie defends.

I want to spontaneously combust. “No, I didn’t.”

Simone presses, “And he was okay with it?”

“Simone,” Julie intervenes.

I tentatively look up, nervously answering, “Yeah. Well, he seemed to be. He was very respectful of my wishes. He never pressured me or made it a big deal.” That is, until he made a scene at the club last Sunday stating otherwise.

Simone, clearly stunned by my disclosure regarding her brother’s urbane conduct, asks, “So, he was rushing out of there just to watch TV with you?”

“For the most part,” I shyly reveal, omitting that he did it with his hand up my shirt and his lips glued to mine.

Julie puts a hand on her chest, asking in astonishment, “My Finn Robert was a gentleman?” Thankfully, not too much of one, but I quickly nod.

“Very much so.” Although, every last ounce of his gallantry went out the window when I first called him
Finnigan
and he nearly ripped my clothes off.

Simone scowls. “I bet now he’s not a gentleman. He probably makes you do all kinds of dirty things to him.”

Julie smacks her daughter’s arm. “Simone!”

“What? I’m sure it’s true!”

I glance down to the bed. “He’s still a gentleman, Simone.” I’m still excluding last Sunday since he was drunk and he wasn’t himself. “He takes excellent care of me.”

“He’d better take good care of you or I’ll put his ass in a sling,” Julie huffs. “Back to our phone conversation.” She glares at Simone for sidetracking her and continues, “I point blank came out and asked Finn if he was dating someone, but he hedged around the answer. I reminded him that I’m his mother and I know when he’s lying. That’s when he finally caved and admitted he was seeing someone. When I pushed him for a name, he said, ‘Her name is Hadley.’” I smile at the thought of him calling me that, though it sounds better when it’s wrapped in his silky voice.

Julie then says, “I wanted to know more about you and after telling me the truth about seeing someone, he stopped trying to hide his happiness. I could hear how
giddy
he was, even though he was trying to keep his cool. It was adorable. He sounded like he was a little kid again on Christmas. I asked him if he considered you his girlfriend and he said yes. I knew then that he wasn’t just offhandedly dating someone. I could hear it in his voice. My baby boy had
finally
fallen in love.”

I beam at her, feeling my love for Finn surge.

Simone inputs, “When he called me after I left Richmond, I asked him if he had asked you out, but he said no. I didn’t know when he asked you to be his girlfriend, either. He’s so secretive.”

“He didn’t ask me out until he called me the third time.” Simone rolls her eyes. “He’s so slow about
everything
!” I don’t think he’s slow. I think he’s calculating. Big difference.

Julie hits Simone on the shoulder. “He loves keeping his family in the dark. I asked him if I could meet Hadley, but he tried to keep me away by saying he was ‘busy.’” She turns back to me. “So, I showed up in Richmond later that week. He wasn’t going to hide you from me.”

I giggle and flip my hair over my shoulder so I’ll stop playing with it, but my hands move to my key. “I remember. He actually did look nervous when he introduced us.”

“He was afraid of what I was going to say, but he had nothing to worry about.” Julie smiles and pats my knee.

I smile in response and say, “I’m going to go to bed.”

Simone loudly announces, “Ooh! Mom, I invited Hadley and Finn with us to Henlopen!”

“Really?” I nod and Julie says, “Henry and I used to take the kids there, especially on Easter Sunday after Mass. Then Jack and I took Leighton, Finn, Beau and Simone there when Chrissie was in college. Finn liked jumping off the dunes or hanging from trees. He was all over that park.” She smiles and wipes away the tears suddenly clouding her eyes. “You’d want to go with Simone and me?”

“Yes… I’ll talk to Finn in the morning. I know he’ll go, too.”

Simone appends, “After he makes you pay it forward first.” She laughs until tears fill her eyes, too.

“Simone, please!” Julie implores with an exasperated chuckle.

Standing, I vaguely smile and wave as I leave the room. Going into Finn’s dark bedroom, I close the door and it’s reminiscent of Bethany’s pitch-black guestroom. Except for nearly scaring me to death at first, it evolved into one of the sexiest things he’s ever done for me.

I slowly make my way over to the bed, not wanting to trip and break my face on something. That is the story of my life, breaking my wrist in a parking lot on a sliver of ice. When I make it to the bed, I happily slide under the blanket, noticing Finn still has his back to me. I sidle up against him and put my left arm around his warm body. My Sparks mumbles, “Hey, baby.”

“Hi, baby,” I whisper back, laying my head on my arm, wanly smiling behind him. He hugs my arm to his chest and sighs as he falls back to sleep. I lean my forehead onto his muscular shoulder, over his Yankees tattoo, and silently cry for him, thinking I had already met my crying quota for the day. However, his strife, and the fact that he kept it to himself, shred my soul. I wish I had known about how hard he took his parents’ divorce, and now having to endure another one. Even if he’s an adult, it still has to be hard. I want to help him through this.

Why is he keeping things from me? Finn and I have been together for three years, yet sometimes I feel like I barely know him. He’s cagey about himself and it hurts me so much. Why couldn’t he have told me his secret? He said he tells me every time he’s with me, but I guess I’ve not been paying attention. Has he been asking for my help and I’ve just been blowing him off? He got drunk twice last weekend, probably because I’ve been pestering him for us to get married, and Friday I told him I want a baby. After that, I left him alone with his family after his mother’s bombshell. Plus, yesterday, he was practically begging me to have sex with him, and I rejected him for a lighthouse. Then, I wouldn’t talk to him after church tonight. I am the worst girlfriend. Maybe
I
should win an award.

I quietly inhale him through his shirt; his spicy body wash makes me smile through my tears and I contentedly exhale. I hate that I’ve made him so unhappy lately. The only time he was happy was when I agreed to move in with him.

Everything he said to me tonight confounds. He doesn’t care that I’m not baptized? He doesn’t want to go to Heaven if I can’t?
Wow, Sparks
. I rest my cheek on his back and squeeze him, gripping the front of his shirt between my fingers. He lightly moans and I snuggle closer. I’m usually asleep before he is; therefore, I don’t get to see him sleeping that often, only on mornings during the week when we’re together, which doesn’t happen often, much to Finn’s irritation.

But that’s about to change.

Moving in with him. That’s huge for me. I didn’t think I would do it if we weren’t married. Thus far, I’ve stuck to my principles, but now, I can’t take it anymore. I miss him so much and my yearning for him is only growing deeper each day. I feel so empty without him. What is wrong with me? I’ve tried holding my ground, but damn it, he’s holding on to his too, and he’s 10 times stronger than me.

Wilder wins.

He said he hates my mother. I’m dumbfounded. He’s never said two words about her before. I had no idea how he felt about the whole situation since he didn’t say anything when I told him, and I really didn’t want to know. The most shocking part of all: he’d strangle my mother if he ever met her. I’m sure it’s talk, yet I can’t even wrap my mind around that. Although it’s unfathomable, he’d actually do that for me? I know it’s horrible to think, but when he confessed to what extent he’d go for me, I fell even more in love with him.