Especially when there’s someone else who does.
Finn hearted my response, and I rolled over, a giddy smile overtaking my face.
In that moment, it felt like wewouldfigure it out. Like maybe now, with the air cleared, and all our miscommunications resolved, the time was finally right for Finn and me. He was clearly planning to break up with his girlfriend. And Preston? I knew in my heart that it was over. It should have been over sooner. I’d been playing along, playing a role, playing the girlfriend while some deeper yearning in me lay dormant.
Until now.
Of course, what I didn’t know then, that night on the rooftop, was that trusting Finn would become just another horrible mistake.
15
THURSDAY NIGHT
(Two days before the wedding)
THEVEGASEIFFELTOWERstraddles the Paris casino, and even in its cheesiness, it still manages to be romantic. It’s helped by a glow that sparks off the windows of the hotels and settles into every crevice of the city. We’re well past sunset now, but with all the manmade light around us, everything is infused with a luminosity. The Strip seems to wink back at the sky, providing its own glitter in a million twinkling lights and flashing neon signs. New York might be the official “city that never sleeps,” but I think they got that one wrong—clearly that moniker should belong to Las Vegas, Nevada.
Finn is already there when I arrive. It looks like he was able to find somewhere to steam his jacket, and I’m grateful for thehost’s forcing him into it. For a moment, guilt spikes through me when I realize how happy and relieved I feel to take a break from chasing Sybil, but I try to push it down. Of course I still want to find her, and help her repair whatever went wrong, get her back on track, and make this wedding happen. It’s my duty as a friend. But there’s this quiet voice in my head, one that doesn’t get a lot of airtime, that’s saying,What about me? When does it get to be my turn to be top priority?Maybe it’s the wish in the fountain, or just Finn’s presence, but I feel myself wanting to pause time and stop running to fix things for other people. Just for this one evening. Not even the whole evening—just this onedinner. The world won’t come falling down around me if I take this one little break to actually enjoy myself.
With Finn.
And besides, we may have missed the welcome party but we still have all day tomorrow to find Sybil and bring her back in time for the rehearsal dinner Friday night—and, of course, the wedding on Saturday.
We will just have to figure out a way to keep Jamie feeling positive and distracted. And what better place to do that than Vegas?
“You look really beautiful,” Finn says, when I’m close enough to hear. We start walking, and his fingers barely graze my elbow, like he doesn’t trust himself or he’s worried I’ll bolt.
“Wait!” I say, and Finn’s hand pulls back like he’s been stung. “Shouldn’t we snap a picture for Sybil?”
Finn blinks as if he’d completely forgotten, which prompts a crooked smile from me. He’s basically just admitted that the whole thing was a ruse, and that he’s gotten swept up in the moment as much as I have. “Yes. Right. A picture for Sybil,”he says, nodding. I stand beside him and try to angle our two bodies so that the Eiffel Tower sparkles behind us, but I can’t get enough of the background in the photo. “Here, my arms are longer, I’ll take the selfie.” Finn slips the phone from my hand and pulls me to his side. I’m looking up at him as I hear the camera app click. Startled, I turn toward the camera and put on my happiest and most carefree smile. After a few more shots, Finn hands me back my phone, but leaves his arm around me. As we walk under the Eiffel Tower and into the Paris casino, Finn says, “I managed to get us a reservation at a place called Chez Nous. Is that okay?” He smiles down at me. “I know you love pommes frites.”
“I’ll eat anything.” And I mean it. The boxed turkey sandwich from the Del hasn’t been enough to make up for the fumes I’ve been running on for the last few days.
“Anything except pure unadulterated kale,” he says.
“Anything but that,” I agree.
The restaurant Finn chose is unequivocally French. The ceilings are high, and the mostly white floors are peppered with small black tiles. The mirrors that ring the restaurant double, triple, and quadruple the twinkling of the chandeliers. but the lights are dim enough that it still feels intimate as the host leads us to our table. Finn’s hand settles on the small of my back, and I feel the warmth of it through the thin silk of my dress. We slide into either side of a small booth upholstered in a soft peach velvet.
“I have to say, I would have been okay with food court Panda Express, but this is nice too.”Nice?More like the most frickin’ romantic evening I’ve had infartoo long. “Besides, I need to refuel so I can be at full strength to cheer on my guy,Ibarra, later. Or maybe I’ll root for Kuzmin. Who’s the underdog? I’ll root for whoever that is.”
“I really do hate boxing,” Finn says.
“Aww, your kind, otter-and-fox-loving heart just can’t take a little pugilism, huh?”
“No, it’s actually because I got into a pretty awful fight on Sixth Street the fall before my dad died. It was me and this white kid, and of course, I was the one that got dragged to the police station.” Whatever quippy zinger I planned on tossing his way next dies on the tip of my tongue, anger rolls through me at the injustice, and I grip the napkin in my lap. “That was a really rough time for me,” Finn continues. “I didn’t know how to deal with everything I was feeling…” He trails off but I remember his black eye, from back at Katie Dalton’s pool party all those years ago.
“That makes sense.” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.
“After he passed, I was in a pretty bad place for a while. Got into a few more fights. None as bad as the one in Austin, but it’s like…” He shakes his head and looks around, as if hoping the right words will appear on the tray of a passing waiter. “Strange as it sounds, it felt like the only way to make the pain stop.” Finally, he looks straight at me, like he’s desperate for me to understand. “I’m not like that anymore, Emma. Therapy helped a lot. And anyway, that’s why I can’t stand to watch violence now—even stupid boxing matches make my stomach churn.”
I remember Finn’s words from years ago:I haven’t been making the best life choices. I think back to all the nights senior year when he and Sybil had holed up with plastic bottles of Azteca tequila and cheap weed. I thought they were justslacking off—feeding off each other’s worst impulses. But maybe there was something more going on. At the time, I was too close to it and too in my own head to really see what Finn was going through. But when you’re a teenager and your dad is dying, maybe reaching for another cold drink or another warm body—to punch or to kiss—makes the most sense. I look at him in his freshly pressed suit jacket, and for the first time, when he says he’s changed a lot since those days, it sinks in. I actually believe him.
“I’m sorry. I was just teasing about the match.” I release my death grip on the napkin, and reach across the table to grab his hand. “We’ll be on our way back to LA with Sybil by the time the fight starts.” At least I hope we will.
Finn squeezes my hand, and I expect him to let go after a beat. Instead, heat sparks up my arm and through my whole body as Finn’s middle finger begins making small circles on the inside of my wrist. My mind races back to the roulette table. My body arched against Finn’s, and his lips against my ear:Not here… but soon. I inhale sharply at the memory, and Finn’s finger pauses. His eyes meet mine, and the small smile on his lips makes it clear he knows exactly how he’s affecting me. His finger starts circling again. My lips part, and I press my thighs into the soft velvet of the booth. I wish he would grab my wrist and pull me across the table. It’s taking every ounce of my self-control to stay on my side of the booth, and my mind flashes to the hotel room just a block away.
Just when I feel myself starting to break, the waiter comes by, and I pull back my hand and swallow, thankful for the opportunity to get control of myself. Finn looks down at his menu with a devilish grin.
