The Finn Factor

He smothered a yawn. “How long do you think they’ll stay?”

“Hard to say. Until they feel the wind change. Going on their past record, it could be a few weeks, or we could get home tomorrow and they’ll have moved on to my brother’s house.” They were nomads at heart. When we’d been in school, they’d tried to stay put during the term, and were mostly successful, but as soon as we’d graduated, all bets were off.

“Well, I don’t mind how long it is.” He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. Fi

I squeezed my eyes shut. This was a dangerous path to take. I’d already decided I was keeping him as a friend. Only a friend.

The whole time we’d been helping my parents set up outside, in the back of my mind I’d been thinking about what Fi

I picked up a cushion and plucked at the corner. “Before they arrived, you were going to say something.”

His eyes shifted to the left. “I was?”

“We were talking about”—when your mouth took me to heaven—“last night.”

“It was nothing,” he said quickly. “We should go to bed.” His eyes widened. “I mean—”

For one long moment, the blood in my veins stilled, then I noticed that he was flustered, which was rare—and adorable—and I gri

He nodded once, without meeting my eyes, and I left the room, not sure if I was glad we’d avoided the conversation, or relieved.

Chapter Four

Scarlett

The next morning, eyes barely open, I headed down the hallway toward my second favorite kitchen appliance—the coffeemaker. I sent up a prayer that Fi

“Good morning, baby girl,” my mother singsonged a bit too loudly as I made it to the kitchen.

I peered around the room and found my parents bustling away, pulling fruits and vegetables from a large box on the counter and shoving them into their ancient juicer.

Fi

“To say thank you for letting us stay¸” my father added, passing me a glass. “Here you go.”

“Er, thanks.” I thought about asking if I could squeeze past to make some coffee, but ironically, I wasn’t caffeinated enough to face the disappointment on their faces. It seemed from Fi

My father chuckled. “We’ve been up since dawn, walking around the neighborhood, and we found a great organic fruit shop a few blocks over.”

“Don’t worry,” my mother added, “we’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes. We have a big day pla

I had tingles in my toes just thinking about being that high up, but I knew my parents would love the feel of the wind in their hair from that height.

They packed their assorted purchases into the fridge and wiped down the counters. “We bought some produce for ourselves, and it’s all out in the icebox in the tent, so this is for you. But we’ll pop in and make the smoothies for you each morning while we’re here.”

“As a thank you,” I said faintly, still not daring to taste mine.

“Exactly,” my mother said, and beamed. “We’ll see you both later.”

With a kiss on the top of my head from each of them, my parents left the kitchen. Fi

“I’m sorry about that.” I tilted my head to his empty smoothie glass.

“No problem. My liver is probably exceedingly happy about it, even if it was awful. Are you going to have yours?”

“Yeah. After coffee. When I can face it.”

He nodded and took another sip from his mug. He looked sleepier than usual. His almost-black hair was getting a bit long and stuck out in all directions. The worn, pale blue T-shirt he slept in was paired with the shorts he’d dragged over his sleeping boxers like he did every morning. But today there were also dark circles under his eyes.

I nudged him with my elbow. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I just didn’t sleep well,” he said dismissively.

“Is it my parents staying?” They were sometimes hard for me to cope with, and they were my family, so I knew it was hard for Fi

“No, it’s—” He swallowed and something in his eyes changed. Heated. My pulse picked up speed and my gaze dropped to his mouth.

“You’re doing it again,” he practically growled.

He’d done it first, I wanted to point out, by thinking whatever it was that had made his eyes change. But that wouldn’t get us anywhere. “Sorry,” I said instead and took another sip of my coffee.

“Look, Scarlett, about what happened.” He rubbed a hand down his face and was silent for a few beats as he studied the counter in front of him. “What happened between us. I have to check. You’re not interested in anything happening between—”

“No!” I said, a little bit too fast and too loud. “I don’t want to lose this friendship. It’s way too important to me.”

He gave me an awkward smile. “Agreed. I feel the same way.”

I looked at him over the curls of steam coming from my mug. “And we would lose it, wouldn’t we, Fi

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I think there’s a good chance we would.”

A tight band formed around my chest, making it difficult to breathe. “So we’ll go back to being just friends, and I’ll go out with the guy Cathy knows. And you’ll date someone new, and you’ll bring her back here, and she’ll be jealous of me like always, and you’ll—”

“Tell her that you’re non-negotiable in my life, as always,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“—and everything will be like normal.”

Yep, normal. That was exactly what I wanted. No more kissing Fi

“And to really make things normal again,” he said, in the teasing tone he only used with me, “you’ll go back to finish your degree?”

“I’m not quite ready. I haven’t saved up enough money yet.” Though even I could hear how feeble that sounded.

“Scarlett, if you can’t bring yourself to finish your degree, then something’s wrong. If you were really committed to a career in accounting, you’d have finished it by now and be working as an accountant.”

This was better. We were acting like the old Fi

He gri

“Painting isn’t my only skill. I can take my pick of jobs to earn my crust because I’m a woman of many, many talents.”

This time it was his gaze that dropped to my mouth, and I immediately regretted my choice of words. Even so, my pulse spiked at the memory, but I dragged in a deep breath and pretended we were both only thinking about our careers.