My laugh is loud as I slouch over my lap and shake my head.
Three hours later,I’m alone in my condo with my phone open to Finn’s contact. I hover my thumb over where I should be pressing down to call him, but I hesitate.
I’m chilled where I sit in the living room, with my red dress draped over the couch and my feet already tucked into my matching heels. The expensive fabric feels like sandpaper on my skin as I adjust the bust and stare at my cleavage in the deep V. It’s a beautiful dress, and for what I paid, it should be. I wanted to wear something that I knew would draw eyes and make Spencer look like a complete chump when he approached me for the first time, but now, it just feels like a heavy weight I didn’t need.
Brielle spent an hour on my hair alone, curling small chunks of it only to pull it into a fancy bun at the base of my neck. My diamond stud earrings go along perfectly with the necklace I found hidden at the bottom of my jewelry box this morning, never worn out of fear of losing it. It was a graduation present from Finn that I swore I’d wait to wear when I made name partner at my first firm.
I didn’t know at the time that my first would hopefully be my last and that I’d already be a junior partner at twenty-seven.
I’m not sure what possessed me to put it on tonight, but I was too tired to deny myself. I run a finger over the curve of small diamonds and stare at my phone again, willing myself to call him. A knock on the door makes me jump.
I stand quickly before rushing to answer it, trying not to hope too hard that it’s?—
Asher.
It’s Asher.
Adjusting his bow tie, the giant centre fielder stares at me with wide brown eyes. He clears his throat harshly before dropping his hands and slipping them into the pockets of his black slacks. I force a smile and give a quick once-over, realizing that he wore a tuxedo like I asked. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him so dressed up.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi. I’m not late, am I?”
“No.” Pushing open the door, I step aside so he can come in. “You’re right on time.”
Why do I feel like I might puke?
Asher hesitates in the doorway, avoiding looking at me again. My stomach sours further when I start to worry I’ve made the wrong choice with this dress. If he doesn’t like it, does that mean Finn would hate it?
The black hair on his head has been trimmed and gelled back, and he’s even shaved his face so only a dark shadow remains over his chiselled jaw. Guilt pricks at my sides when I realize that as handsome as he is and how deeply I appreciate his friendship and his agreement to accompany me to this event, I can’t go with him.
I pinch my lips together before prying them apart. “I need to go see Finn.”
39
I don’t makeAsher hang around.
He followed behind me in his car all the way to Finn’s house, and only after I promised him that I’d be okay if he left did he finally drive away. I still haven’t shaken the guilty feelings away, but they’ve been forced down by the nerves that have grown the closer I get to seeing Finn.
Now, as I stand a few feet away from his front porch, I think I might pass out in the grass instead.
I only had a few minutes to come up with a speech, but I’m pretty sure as hard as I tried to memorize it, I’ll forget every word once I get myself to move any closer. It isn’t just the fear of his rejection that’s keeping my knees locked, either. I know he’d be kind to me regardless of how frustrated and hurt he may be, and that does nothing to soothe me. If anything, that makes it worse.
There have been at least a dozen times in my life where I feared I wasn’t good enough for him, but not one of them has felt quite like this.
He has never made me feel like my blunt, sometimes cutthroat personality was a negative thing. I’ve loved him for that from the moment we met and I let him take my hand andpull me away from the group of jeering seven-year-old boys who were tugging on my braids. They deserved to swallow my sparkly pink flats for the way they teased me, yet once Finn had taken my hand and said that I was too good for them, he was the only person who mattered to me.
I’ve always known how opposite we are, not only in what we chose to do for our futures, but also in our outlooks on life and the way we approach relationships. Where I see things in black and white, he points out the hidden flecks of colour. If I’m dealing with a bad case by drinking a bottle of wine and taking a scalding shower, he’s dumping glitter into my glass and offering to rub my feet, even though I know he secretly hates toes. I see his disappointment when he has a bad game and show up at his doorstep with a case of Dr Pepper and a new autobiography for him to read to me until I inevitably pass out from boredom.
Finn makes me want to be a better person, and that pressure has led me to dig myself into a hole more often than I’d like to admit. Tonight, I’ve started burying myself in one that I didn’t know I’d be able to fight my way out of. But seeing Asher at my door was more than enough to remind me that if I let the dirt suffocate me, I’d lose my soulmate this time. It was a bone-deep realization that I still can’t shake.
I’ll never know how we work when we’re so opposite or why I was so drawn to him that day as a child when I’d never been swayed by anyone, but maybe I’m not supposed to have those answers.
For once in my life, I don’t care about going into a situation blind.
Without allowing myself another moment to delay the inevitable, I walk up the sidewalk. It’s dark, but the grass smells freshly mowed, like maybe he was as upset today as I was and busied himself with landscaping. The mental picture that follows that thought corrupts me in the best way.
Finn without a shirt, his hat on backward, and shorts hanging low on his hips, as he pushes the lawnmower and drips sweat down his rock-hard abs. I’d bet his shoulders would be damp, too, while all of those thick muscles bunch and ripple with the effort it takes.
