“Ha ha.” I roll my eyes. “You need to win this round to stay in the game. You’re sure you don’t want to try for an obscure World War II movie?”
“I’m sure.”
“Fine. I could say, Leonardo DiCaprio.” I linger over the vowels of his name with obvious pleasure, and Finn snorts. “But I’m going with Tom Hardy.”
“Layer Cake.” Finn looks over at me smugly.Shit. I vaguely remember Finn loving that movie in high school, but could not for the life of me remember who’s in it or what it’s about. “Edward Norton,” I bluff.
“Wrong. That’s m-o-v-i for you as well. The easiest answer would have been Daniel Craig. Pre-Bond, obviously.”
“Obviously.” And now we’re tied. It’s time to pull out the big guns: musicals. “Les Misérables.”
But to my surprise, Finn responds immediately. “Anne Hathaway.”
“The Princess Diaries,” I say instinctively. As my brain processes what I’ve said, my hand automatically reaches for my wallet, trying to snuff out the flicker of regret that always flares to life when something reminds me of my dad. For an instant, I’m eight years old, sitting on our front steps, my eyes glued to the spot where his Jeep Wagoneer had turned off our cul-de-sac. I remember sitting on the stoop, running my finger back and forth over the edge of the ticket. We were going to have popcorn and Reese’s Pieces for dinner. Mom begging me to come inside, and—
“Julie Andrews.”
Finn brings me back to the current moment. I swallow down the memory.
“Wow, look at you, Finn Hughes!” I say, my mocking tone tempered by genuine warmth. Somehow, knowing that Finn has seen this classic movie of my childhood makes me feel slightly better than I did a moment before. I stare a beat too long into his dark eyes, until traffic moves and he’s forced to look back at the road, and I’m forced to get back to the game at hand. “Um, okay, my turn?The Princess Diaries… Two.”
“Oh, come on. Challenge. Sequels don’t count.”
“Are you telling meThe Godfather Part Twodoesn’t count?”
He presses his lips together. “The Godfather Part Twois a cinematic masterpiece.” I clutch my coffee to my chest and fail at keeping the shit-eating grin off my face. It’s a weak counter, and he knows it.
“Oh, I didn’t realize we were playing thecinematic masterpiecegame, Finn. That’s a lot more letters. We’ll be at this through the end of Sybil and Jamie’s honeymoon. I’ll obviously need you to define usage for the terms ‘cinematic’ and ‘masterpiece.’ Just so I’m clear, does that mean nothing ever released straight to streaming counts because it didn’t run in acinema? That knocks offat leastone Scorsese movie—and I know how much you love him. Does the film have to be one of AMC’s top one hundred? Does Criterion have to put it out on DVD? What makes something a flawless masterpiece? Truly—”
“Amasterpiece”—Finn cuts off my questioning—“doesn’t have to be flawless. It just has to make you feel something, even years later. Something you go back to over and over, and you’re still surprised and delighted by it.” He looks over at me as hesays this, a playful gleam in his eyes, like maybe movies aren’t the only things that still manage to surprise and delight him, even after all this time. I shiver, letting his words settle onto my skin like stardust.
Our brief moment of harmony is obliterated as Finn swerves, and a horn blares behind us. The seat belt jerks tight against my chest. One of my hands braces against the ceiling of the Singer while the other crushes the paper cup in my hand. The plastic top pops off, and the cup’s entire contents fly out and splash down the front of my shirt. On instinct, I lift my hips and spread my body over as much of the seat as possible to keep any of the—still very hot—liquid from staining the leather. Finn pulls the car over to the side of the road, and I inspect the damage. The Singer remains unscathed, butIam soaked in coffee.
“Finn! What the hell?” I begin dabbing at my shirt, but the three tiny napkins I’d grabbed from the coffee shop are not up to the task of drying my shirt.
“Sorry! There was an animal. A kit fox, I think,” he says apologetically, and peers into the rearview mirror. “He seems okay.”
“Okay, well, I’m glad he’s all right at least.” The words come out more sarcastically than I mean them to. Obviously, I don’t want to run over any animals. I twist to look through the back windshield, and sure enough, there’s a four-legged, furry creature with oversized ears several yards back sauntering away, completely unbothered by his near brush with death. Unaware that he was saved only by the soft heart and fast reflexes of Finn Hughes.
Once he seems confident that the fox has made it completelyoff the road, Finn turns the blinker on to merge back onto the highway. He looks over at the mess that is my shirt, and says, “I told you that you should have gotten the tea.”
“How would that have changed the situation at all? I’d still be soaked in hot liquid.”
“You wouldn’t have been so edgy about slowing down.”
“‘Slowing down’?” I say incredulously. “Finn, we didn’t ‘slow down.’ You swerved and slammed on the brakes.”
“Well, at least it wouldn’t have stained.”
“Ugh, this is pointless.” Pulling the shirt over my head, I use the driest parts to mop up the coffee that has pooled in my sports bra.
The car lurches again, and I cry, “Finn!”
“Sorry, thought I saw another fox,” he says tightly. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to get dry.”
“You took your shirt off.”
