The crowd settled into a giddy collective hum.
“I’m not going to win,” I said.
“'course you’re not. There’s over two hundred people in here, and the universe has never once done you a kindness.” Finn leaned back with his beer, content as a cat in a window. “But put your phone away and let the lady pull the ticket. You’ve gone and relaxed by accident. I’d hate to startle it out of you.”
I glanced at the phone in my hand. There were three voicemails and eleven texts. I sighed and turned it face-down on the table. It was such a small thing, but I felt Finn notice it. To his lasting credit, he didn’t crow, just let something warm cross his face before he buried it in his bottle.
“There he is,” he murmured, to no one.
“Don’t.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
On stage, Ineeda Phalis plunged one bejeweled hand into the fishbowl, swirled it with the slow ceremony of a woman who understood that the suspense was the whole point, and drew out a single ticket.
“All right, my loves, settle down, settle. We’ve given away all the spa packages and dildos. Now it’s time for the big one . . . and I know how you all love your big ones!” She held the tiny paper at arm’s length and squinted at it past the fringe of her lashes. “This is the week-in-paradise, somebody-donated-a-truly-irresponsible-amount-of-money, change-your-miserable-little-life prize. And the winnin’ number is. Four. Seven. Two. Six. One.”
Beside me, Finn went very still.
Freakishly still.
Still in a way Finn could never reproduce.
Then he seized my wrist.
Then he flipped the strip of tickets over on the table.
Then he stared at it.
His whole face came apart into something disbelieving and joyful all at once.
“Mark.”
“What?”
“Mark.” His voice climbed an entire octave. “What number is on that ticket?”
Chapter 2
Ididn’t sleep that night, and not for any of the reasons a normal person doesn’t sleep after winning a free vacation.
I lay in bed and did math.
The Hargrove job was three weeks behind because of a drywall situation, which meant the framing inspection would slip, which meant the electrician would have to be rescheduled. Everyone knew Dave the electrician held grudges the way other men held mortgages, for thirty years and with interest. If I lost my slot with Dave, I lost two weeks minimum. If I took a week off on top of that, I was looking at a month. A month was the kind of delay that turned a happy client into a bad online review.
So by the time the sun came up, I’d already decided.
I’d give the prize to Finn. He could take whatever poor soul he was currently failing to date, lie on a beach, and send me a postcard I’d pin to the trailerwall and resent quietly.
I told him this at seven-forty the next morning, on the Hargrove site, over the whine of a saw.
“No,” Finn said.
“It’s a good plan,” I countered, slowly turning to face his glare.
“It’s a coward’s plan dressed up as a generous one, which is somehow worse.” He’d brought me a coffee. I should’ve recognized that as a tactical maneuver, because Finn only brought coffee when he wanted something. A rebellious lock of red hair had fallen across his forehead. He shoved it back with the heel of his hand without breaking eye contact. “You won it.Yournumber,yournight. The universe finally did you a kindness, and your first instinct is to hand it off like a hot scone.”
“You’re the one who wants a vacation,” I said. “Besides, I don’t eat scones.”
