Page 50 of Cabin Fever

I shake my head. “How? How did you do this?”

“Which part?”

I walk closer until the fence is the only thing between us. It’s eerie how familiar it feels. “Is this why you disappeared after the wedding? I looked up, and you were gone, and I spent the whole reception wondering if what I said⁠—”

“This is why,” he says, his eyes soft.

“I bribed Garrett with an early piece of cake to check the men’s room.”

Finn laughs. “You had me surveilled?”

“Tried! Didn’t work because you weren’t there. And then you gave that toast, and disappeared again, and . . .” I drop my eyes.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

I laugh. “Well, success.” Tears brim in my eyes again, and I wonder if I’m ever going to go back to not needing waterproof mascara every day of my life.

Both of us jump as the speakers crackle beside us, then laugh as music starts to play. We look at each other and say, “Pam,” at the same time.

There wasn’t any ice to break, but as the strains of “You’ll Always Be My Girl” by Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors starts to play, we sink into ourselves. Just Finn and Harper.

Finn tells me how he came off the beach half out of his mind. “You, in that dress and Theo and Dahlia’s vows.” How he grabbed a rideshare to the closest thing to a hardware store on the island and, after finding what he needed, went on to a plant nursery to find whatever looked most like honeysuckle.

I walk over and smell it. “Honestly, it’s similar.”

He explains how he had to bring Theo into the plot so he could get Pam’s number from Dahlia⁠—

“So they knew?” My jaw drops.

He grins and goes on, telling me how Pam met him at the crew gangway with a flatbed cart, cleared the aft sun deck, and stood security at the stairwell during the reception. And how her price was a dance floor for her niece's quinceañera in March. In Fort Lauderdale. Which he would be building.

I’m laughing so hard, my cheeks hurt.

He drops his head, resting it on his arms. “Did you like my speech?”

I lean against the fence, refusing to answer.

“Did I make you cry?”

I roll my eyes and turn my head. “It’s not fair, you know.”

“What?” he laughs.

“That you can withhold all of this information, then pull it out in moments like this and turn us all inside out.”

“Well, emotional constipation has to have some perks.”

I snort.

Finn reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. The hairs rise on my neck. “That's actually the part I came up here to finish. With you. I only told half the story down there.”

My heart picks up speed.

“That night you came over for my birthday, I went to bed scared.”

I frown. “Why?”

His eyes trace the edges of my face. “Because I knew what I had. And I also knew I loved you.” He lets that sit for barely a second before continuing on with, “I didn’t know what it was, but I just knew that my heart fell a little whenever Dahlia or Theo came over without you, and anytime I saw you in the backyard, I’d find every excuse to be out there or at a window.”