“All joking aside, he’s been a model son, part-time fisherman, full-time paramedic, brother and father. But yet, that last role he still doesn’t get to do on a full-time basis.”
“Bethany still not into shared custody?” I ask about Logan’s ex and the mother of his four year old son, River.
“Nope. Ma finally convinced Logan to get the courts involved. There’s been a hearing and a social worker got assigned to assess the situation. He’s worked out a non-negotiable schedule where Logan picks up River after pre-school two days a week and gets him one day a weekend. It all fluctuates based on his work schedule. Still no overnights, but after the social worker gets a better look at everything I’m sure that’ll change.”
I think of River. He was fifteen months old when I moved to King’s Rock. He wouldn’t remember me. Finn scrubs at the short beard on his face. And then motions for me to stand. “Get up. If we don’t get downstairs soon, Ma is going to come up here and drag us down. You are, after all, the belle of the ball.”
I roll my eyes. “Please don’t say this is a big thing. I’m not ready for a big thing. I just want to hang with Hawkins and Hawkins-adjacent crew.”
“That’s who we invited,” Finn says as we leave the apartment. He doesn’t bother to lock the door, just swings it shut and starts down the stairs. I follow. “But you know Ocean Pines. Word gets out. People want to see the new and improved Jake Maverick.”
“I’m not improved,” I reply and grin. “Because you simply can’t improve on perfection.”
“Someone got cocky living in the middle of nowhere, huh?” Finn chirps, his blue eyes twinkling. “FYI hot shot, there’s some real competition for attention—and women—in Ocean Pines. Not like King’s Rock where your only competition for the six available women were mountain men who don’t shower and geriatric fisherman.”
“There were only four single women near my age and I never hooked up with any of them,” I clarify and Finn stops so abruptly I bang into him.
“Wait… so you never had sex in King’s Rock? For three whole years?” He looks like he might faint. I laugh.
“I did, just not there,” I pause. Should I tell him? I know I can trust him. “I came back down south for my interview for this position and… I got some then.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you were in town?”
“I hadn’t even told you guys I was applying for the job yet,” I explain with a shrug. “I didn’t want to jinx it I guess.”
“So instead you snuck into town and had sex with a stranger,” Finn grins. “I would have picked that over hanging out with me too, I guess.”
“Not a stranger. Aspen.”
His jaw slowly descends, leaving his mouth wide open in shock. “What. The. Fuck.”
“I know. I just happened to run into her and we were both just… desperate, I guess,” I think about that night with my ex. It was truly just two people who needed a fix. “It was fun, but not anything more than that. We’re on the same page.”
“If you say so,” Finn says clearly not believing me. “Ex sex has a way of biting you in the ass, my friend.”
“Not this. I mean it was over two months ago and knowing Aspen, she doesn’t even remember,” I say.
“So you’re that good in bed, huh?” Finn jokes, and I flip him off this time.
We round the corner of the restaurant to the front door. “I take it you’re still single.”
“Happily,” Finn replies. Unless there’s something I don’t know about that occurred in the last three years, Finn Hawkins has never had a long-term girlfriend. He has semi-long-term arrangements, with willing bed buddies, but that’s about it.
“Logan?” I question.
“No one since Bethany,” Finn replies. “For a while there I thought Declan would be the only Hawkins to give wedded bliss a shot, but Terra—”
“She’s married?” I blurt out because the idea is so upsetting I lose it for a second.
Finn stops, his hand on the door to the restaurant and looks back at me like I’m insane. “Oh fuck no. But she’s finally dating someone. Seriously. Although it’s long distance. He works and lives in Portsmouth New Hampshire so they don’t see each other more than a couple times a month.”
“Oh. Cool.”So not cool. “How long has that been going on?”
“Six or seven months,” Finn shrugs. “Dude is nice. She seems happy. I mean, she’s Terra so you know, it’s hard to tell. Girl likes to keep her emotions locked up in a vault somewhere in that head of hers.”
I’ve never agreed with that assessment of Terra. Her whole family sees her that way but I know if you look close enough, every feeling that girl has is visible. I guess the guy I saw her kiss is this Portsmouth guy Finn is talking about. I was really hoping that he’d have gone away by now.
“How’s she been feeling? You know, health-wise?” I ask as we walk into the restaurant. I can’t help but notice the hand written note on the glass door that says ‘closed for private party’. “They closed for me?”
