“No one here wants your kind in Havenbrook.” He spat the words like they were weapons.
Finn stared at the older man, waiting for the shame to come. But it never did. He knew his worth now, knew it didn’t rest solely on where he lived or what part of town he was from, or whether or not his daddy was in the picture. Knew it stemmed only from the kind of man he was. “Once upon a time, that might’ve hurt me, but I’m not a kid anymore, and preying on what you perceive as weaknesses isn’t going to do jack shit. I’m not quite as easy to get rid of as I was back then.”
“You think giving you fifty-thousand dollars to get the hell out waseasy? How much’ll it take this time? Seventy-five? A hundred?”
Anger mixed with regret swirled in his gut. Dick knew damn well the money hadn’t been why Finn had left—it’d been the threat of what would’ve happened if he’d stayed. If he’d gotten hauled off to jail, there would’ve been no way Drew could’ve taken care of things with their momma. And Dick had known it, had used it to his advantage, like the prick he was.
Finn had no idea why he’d tried to protect Willow from this man, tried to salvage their relationship. The man was an asshole, and it was about damn time his daughter realized that.
Finn stepped up until he was toe-to-toe with him, getting some pleasure in the fact that Dick had to tilt his head back to look Finn in the eyes. “You could promise me a million—hell, abillion—and it still wouldn’t do jack. Try to come up with some more bullshit charges for me. See what blackmailing me does. It would make my fucking year to go down that path with you. I’m stayin’, Dick. And there’s nothin’ you can do to stop me.”
With that, he turned and walked away, his head held higher than it had been so many years ago. But just like all those years ago, his stomach churned. Dick wouldn’t give up. Wouldn’t stop until he’d gotten his way, or he had something else to focus his efforts on. Seeing as how Havenbrook was about as hopping as Mayberry, there wasn’t much else for him to focus on. And seeing as Finn wasn’t going anywhere… Well, it was going to be a long rest of his life.
But one that was worth it a thousand times over if it meant he got to spend that life with Willow.
* * *
By the timeFinn got home, his anger had dissipated some. Not much, but some. Instead of focusing on what a piece of shit human being Dick was, Finn’d thought about what his next steps needed to be.
The money, for one thing. The money Dick had paid him off with to “ensure he didn’t have any reason to float back to Havenbrook” needed to be given back. Despite the circumstances surrounding it, Finn couldn’t deny what a lifeline the money had been, a tiny bit of light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.
It’d been just the three of them for as long as he could remember, their daddy having never been in the picture at all. And Momma had been sick. Fucking cancer. Working four part-time jobs—the only things that’d been available in a small town like Havenbrook—meant no health insurance. No relief from the mounds of bills sure to pile up—the prescriptions and the treatments and the office visits. At nineteen, he and Drew had had to discuss things with their momma a child never should, debating between bankruptcy or her death.
The shadows on his momma’s face, the resignation in her voice when she’d told them she hadn’t wanted her sickness to follow them even after she was gone still haunted him to this day. He’d hated that that’d been the hand they’d been dealt, that they’d never been able to get a leg up, no matter what they’d done. Even knowing how desperately they needed they money, he’d turned Dick down flat when he’d approached Finn in the first place. Back then, he’d thought that would be that.
But, of course, Dick always got what he wanted. And he’d wanted Finn gone.
Finn walked through the empty bar, the workers long since gone for the day. Pride swelled in his chest over what he, Drew, and Nola had accomplished—three troublemakers from the wrong side of the tracks. The opening was close now. Real close.
The bar top shone, the stone they’d picked out for the front a perfect contrast to the corrugated steel and barn wood throughout the space. Accent walls in that same stone were interspersed throughout the bar—a strategy Rory had come up with and he’d just nodded along to. Industrial lighting hung from the open rafters of the ceiling, a few lantern sconces—and yeah, he now knew what those were—on the walls. It was everything he’d imagined when he hadn’t even known what to dream up. There was no denying Rory knew what the hell she was doing, and she was damn good at it.
He climbed the stairs to the apartment before unlocking the door. Drew sat on the couch, TV on and beer in his hand. He lifted the bottle in a wave without turning around.
“We need to talk.” Finn tossed his keys on the beat-up card table posing as a dining table and strode into the living area.
Drew furrowed his brow as he looked at his brother. “What the hell happened tonight? It didn’t go well?”
“With Willow? Nah, it went great. Perfect.”
“Then what’s all this?” He gestured in Finn’s general vicinity.
Finn didn’t take time to wonder how Drew already knew something was up. Par for the course with the two of them. “History repeated itself tonight.”
Drew’s brows shot up. “No shit? Dick?”
“The one and only.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his spread knees. “What’d he say?”
“The usual. How much money’ll it take to make you leave, get out before I make you, that sort of thing.”
“I see his originality is still horseshit.”
Finn hummed as he collapsed onto the couch next to his brother. Originality Dick didn’t have, but hedidhave something he could hold over Finn’s head, and Finn wanted it gone. It’d always be there, of course. He could never take back what he’d accepted, but he wanted to wash his hands of it as best he could. “We still have that fifty-thousand set aside?”
Drew took a slow sip of his beer, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“I need it.”
