Deep Surrendering (5 page)

“There’s not much to tell. I told you about my grandmother and that’s…that’s really all there is to know.” I didn’t want to get into my family history this early in a relationship. Most guys were satisfied with me saying that I didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t think Fin would be that easy to distract.

He wasn’t.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. We all have our secrets.” From the way he said it, I could tell that there was a lot more to him leaving last night than I could probably imagine. Much more than a crooked penis.

“Thanks. I really appreciate that.” Our food came and we talked about work and school.

“So, are you one of those people who just never leaves school and gets a million degrees?” Fin asked, swiping a shrimp from my plate and flashing me a smile that said he knew he was going to get away with it. If only he wasn’t so good looking. I would have a much easier time resisting him if he was a little less attractive. But it just wasn’t how he was put together. It was the way his eyes flashed, letting me know that he had devilish thoughts in his mind, and the way his smile tipped just slightly to the side.

“No. I just want to defer my loans as long as possible.” I had added up how much I owed, and the figure made me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry.

“That makes sense,” he said, nodding.

I sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I just want to prove that I’m smart.” It sounded so stupid when I said it out loud like that, and I cringed inwardly and wished I could take it back.

“Who would say you weren’t smart? I knew you were smart five seconds after meeting you.” That was very flattering. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said to give him that impression. It must have been something good. Maybe Chloe could fill me in on my supposed brilliance.

I shook my head and tried to put it into words. I’d been asked this question over and over and I didn’t have a set answer. “Listen, I’m not going to go into my family situation. I mean, I don’t normally go into it with people I’ve just met. It tends to change how people see me and I don’t like that. Let’s just say I’m being totally mature and trying to prove to my parents and the rest of my relatives that I can make it on my own, and that I don’t need them.”

Fin thought about that for a minute. I could see him rolling it over in his mind. Yes, I’d told him that I didn’t discuss this kind of thing with new people, but somehow I knew Fin would understand in the way Rory understood my family drama. We might have completely different lives, but families were all pretty much the same when you got down to it.

Complicated.

“I get it. I do. Plus, you get to be called doctor and you don’t have to go to medical school. Unless you wanted to, of course.” I’d toyed with the idea of medical school once upon a time. The reason I’d rejected it was because my parents had been semi-supportive of the idea. Well, as long as I went into something prestigious. Like neuroscience or cardiology. I could have gone into pediatrics and stuck it to them, but instead I went into something that would piss them off even more. Education.

Just the memory of the look on my mother’s face when I’d told her made me smile to this day. It was second only to telling her that my childhood boyfriend and I had broken up, and weren’t getting married after all. Ironic, considering Rory’s mother wanted her to marry Fin and here I was on a date with him.

My mother would be all over Fin like a new exclusive pair of Manolos. Even more so. He was exactly what she’d wanted for her little girl. So much for disappointing my parents. But I was going to keep Fin a secret from them as long as humanly possible. Forever, if I could, depending on how this went. I was getting a little ahead of myself.

“Let’s talk about something else. Tell me something…tell me something about your grandmother. Your face lights up when you talk about her.” Not on purpose.

I remembered the lilacs that were waiting for me back at the apartment. I almost couldn’t wait to get back to them to bury my face in their blooms and lose myself in their scent.

“Well, her name was Rosemary and she was terrifying, at least to a lot of people. Very strict, very old-fashioned. No elbows on the table, tea in the sunroom, no yelling, crossed ankles, the whole shebang. She tried teaching me to be a lady, but I don’t think much of it stuck, although I definitely hear her voice in my head whenever I put my elbows on the table, or use the wrong spoon like a caveman. The horror!” I used to mess with her and do things like that on purpose. Instead of getting mad, she would just laugh and tell me that I was her wild child.

Of course my mother would pick up the slack and give me a good tongue-lashing later, but Gram never yelled at me once for breaking one of her precious rules. As a result, I actually tried, because I wanted to make her happy. To this day I could probably balance a book on my head, cross a room, and sit in a chair without having it fall to the floor. When you learn something like that in your childhood, it doesn’t really go away.

“What did she look like?” Fin seemed actually interested, so I continued.

“Well, she was tall and she had the most glorious hair. It was long and thick and curly, and she took great pride in it. She used to let me brush it and braid it. I always wished mine was the same shade of silver.” She would always hum when I brushed her hair and I found myself humming one of her songs right in front of Fin.

He smiled and I blushed.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I said, and went back to eating. He just laughed at me and stole another shrimp.

“You are cruising for a bruising.”

I meant it as a joke, but there was an odd look that passed over his face when I said it. It was gone so quickly, like a blink, that I wasn’t sure if I’d even seen it in the first place. Could have been a trick of the light.

“So, would you like to get dessert?” he said.

“What kind of a question is that? Who says no to dessert?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea. No one I’d be friends with.”

He paid the bill again, and I was starting to feel a little odd about making him pay for so many meals, even though that was traditional dating practice.

“So, you get to pick where we go since you know the city better than I do.” It was a balmy evening, the heat wafting up from the pavement.

“How do you feel about gelato?” I asked as we strolled down the street.

“I’m definitely in favor of it. Plus we did agree that ice cream was part of the third date.”

I took him to one of those tiny places that’s crammed in between two buildings and only has one table, which was almost always occupied. I got sea salt caramel and Fin went for dark chocolate cherry. We swapped bites with each other as we walked down the street. Pedestrians streamed around us, each on their own mission.

“Tomorrow is Monday,” I said, realizing too late that I had to go to class tomorrow. Hell and damnation. Why had I decided to complete my degree early by taking summer classes? It had seemed smart at the time, but now I was cursing myself.

“Yes, yes it is. I’m guessing you have a full schedule.” He tossed the empty gelato container in a trashcan.

“I have class nearly all day, and I have a study session and I also have a meeting. God, I’d nearly forgotten. You distracted me. I wasn’t paying attention.” I bumped him with my shoulder.

“I hope it was a good distraction.”

“Very.” He pulled me to a stop and turned to face me. I knew that he was going to kiss me, and I raised myself on my tiptoes in preparation. He leaned down and brought his face toward mine and…

Pulled away at the last second.

I slammed back down on my heels and nearly lost my balance.

“Is something wrong?”

He looked away from me. “No. Nothing. I just think that you have a busy day tomorrow, and I have a busy day, and we should…probably call it a night.” It was like being dunked in a bucket of ice. Things were so easy and free with Fin, and then it was as if he slammed a door in my face, turning into a stranger that was cold and distant and locked in his own head.

“Absolutely. You’re right. At least one of us should be responsible.” My voice was false in my own ears and made me cringe.

He started walking again, and I had to rush to keep up with his long legs. I took two steps for every one of his. We’d walked to the theater on this date, since it wasn’t that far from my apartment. I wondered if Carl got the night off, or if he still had to be at the ready to drive Fin around. My mother had a driver, and the poor man was on call twenty-four hours a day, but she paid him very well, so I guessed it worked out.

“Is everything okay? You’re acting like you did last night when you left, and we made a deal that you wouldn’t do that again.” I grabbed his hand to make him stop and face me. It was exhausting keeping up with him.

He stopped and I nearly crashed into him. “I know I’ve been acting strangely, and I’m sorry again. Maybe this isn’t the best idea. I knew you were a bad idea the second I saw you at the bar, but I’m a sucker for educated women who aren’t afraid to say what they think. Plus, you already had the Rory Clarke Seal of Approval, so that was another bonus.”

“So what’s the problem? Do you have some deep dark secret that you’re afraid to share with me because you think it’s going to make me run the other way?” It didn’t take a Master’s degree to figure it out. At first glance, he seemed to have his shit together, but on further inspection, there was something dark hovering beneath the surface. He just hid it well.

“This isn’t a joke, Marisol. There are things that I could tell you that…”

“That what?” Apart from the fact that I didn’t like him behaving so bizarrely, I was also exceedingly curious about this secret. What could be so bad? The possibilities were endless—far beyond that of a crooked penis.

“That what, Fintan?” I hadn’t used his full first name before, but this seemed like as good a time as any.

He leaned in close and a slow smile spread across his face that sent a shiver down my spine. “Things that would make your skin crawl.”

For a moment, I didn’t breathe as Fin’s eyes flicked across my face, testing my reaction.

“I’m not scared,” I said, sounding like a little girl who had just been dared to steal a pair of earrings from a store in the mall. His face moved just a breath closer. Close enough that I could count his eyelashes and smell the chocolate from the gelato on his breath.

My entire body was screaming for him to kiss me, to touch me, to do SOMETHING to me. I’d never ached for someone more. I didn’t know I could feel this way, as if something was throbbing and growing inside me, and if I didn’t let it out, or satisfy it, it would consume me.

It was like being on fire.

“I’m not scared of you, Fin,” I said, my voice so quiet I didn’t even know if I’d spoken aloud.

“You should be, sweet Marisol.” His voice caressed my name, played with it, made me think about bare skin sliding against sheets, and moans of pleasure and all manner of fantasies I’d never entertained with another person.

“You’re so,
so
sweet.” He snapped his eyes closed and stepped away from me. He might as well have shoved me to the ground. “I’m going to get a cab and go back to my place. I don’t think we should see each other anymore. At least not alone. Tell Rory nice try, but we’re not…suited for one another. Goodbye.” At least he looked at me when he said it. He had the decency to do that.

He also had the decency to hail me a cab and hand the driver a fifty to take me home, even though it was only a short walk. As the cab pulled away, I watched him standing there, silhouetted by the lights from buildings and vehicles.

I imagined screaming at the cabbie to stop, getting out and rushing toward him, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him passionately. But as he vanished from my view, the idea of doing that got further away, and soon I turned around and stared straight ahead.

I had the cabbie take me right to Chloe’s place. I definitely didn’t want to be alone right now, and those damned lilacs were still at my apartment. I texted her before I got there, to make sure she wasn’t indisposed with someone before I barged in. It had happened a few times in the past.