Lured In (17 page)

Whap!
The flying cushion caught the edge of his book for a second before they both crashed into his face.

“Hey!”

She didn't say anything else, just lifted her book up higher to hide her face, and that's how she stayed for a long while. With the cushion now tucked behind his head, Finn gave up trying to read and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

In all the times they'd sat in the room together, it had never been as quiet as it was tonight. Somehow, through the silence and without even looking at her, he knew there were things she wanted to say and there were things she wanted him to say. But one of them needed to start.

“We need to—”

“What are we—”

They both stopped, laughed hesitantly.

“Come on.” Finn swung himself up to a sit, then patted the cushion beside him.

With her remaining cushion and blanket in tow, Jess plunked down beside him, leaving just enough space between them that no part of her touched any part of him.

Smart girl.

She tucked her knees up to her chest and then pulled the blanket over her, tugging it high enough to hold it against her mouth.

When Finn tried to ease it away, she held on tighter.

“Okay, look,” he said. “There's nothing you can say that I haven't already thought myself, so whatever it is—”

“Sam'll be here in a few weeks.”

Everything inside Finn dropped.

“Well, shit,” he muttered. “Apparently there is one thing I haven't already thought of.”

How the hell had he forgotten about Sam?

Shit
.

He couldn't not ask, but before he did, Finn lowered his chin to his chest and inhaled slowly.

“Is he…Are you and he—”

“No.” The relief that whooshed out of him immediately filled right back up when Jess added a quiet “But—”

“There's a ‘but'?” Finn pushed off the couch and paced with his fingers interlocked behind his head. It always seemed easier to breathe like that. “I don't mean to be nitpicky here, Jess, but you either are or you aren't, and if you are, then we—”

The blanket fell away, giving him a full view of her face and the disbelief splashed across it.

“You think I'd do
anything
with you if he and I had something going on?”

“Well, I didn't, no, but anytime a ‘but' gets thrown into a sentence, it tends to change things.”

Huffing out a sigh, Jess let her head drop against the couch and closed her eyes for a couple of painfully long seconds. “You know we went out for a while.”

“Sure,” he said, clamping his mind shut against the idea of her kissing Sam. Or doing anything else with him.

“And then before I moved back here,” she said, now a little hesitant, “we both agreed it was probably best to just let it go, because, really, how often would we ever see each other? Yeah, he's called a few times, but…”

“But what?”

“God,” she sighed. “Do you really want to hear this? Honestly?”

Gone was the hesitant Jess, and in her place was ticked-off Jess, who didn't wait for Finn to answer.

“Fine. Sam Ross is probably the cutest and sweetest guy I've ever met, and if I hadn't moved back here, yeah, it's possible we might have had something.
Maybe
. But I did move back here, and even though we ended it, he's reached out a few times to say hi or whatever.”

He should have left it alone, but he didn't.

“Kate thinks there's still something between you.”

“That's because Kate
wants
there to be something between Sam and me. If it was up to her, I'd jump his bones the second he set foot on the dock.”

“I knew she'd be trouble. Liam should've turned her ass around and sent her packing the minute she got here.” His forced smile felt sad and pathetic as he worked up a little more nerve. “What do you want?”

Jess tipped her head and looked at him with dismay, as if he was letting her down, but Finn couldn't stop himself.

“I'm not imagining it, Jess. Just an email from the guy makes you blush.”

“Yeah, because I know the mere mention of an email from him gets everyone speculating on details of my personal life they have no business speculating about.”

“Maybe, but I was standing right there when you were talking to him on the phone a couple weeks ago, remember? You tried to hide it, but I saw how red you got just talking to him.”

“Oh my God, Finn.” She was off the couch in a flash, but she didn't go near him; instead, she stomped over behind the big recliner, gripped the back of it with both hands, and tried to shake it. “Do you really want to know what made me blush like that? Do you?”

“No.”

Sure, he did a second ago, but not now, when her temper had turned her usually soft brown eyes almost black. But it didn't matter what he wanted, because she was already telling him, and she was making damn good and sure he heard her, too.

“You!” She lifted her hands up and opened her eyes wide enough to give him a “so there” kind of look. “Yes, dumbass, you! There I was, listening to Sam remind me of the good times we had together—”

Fuck.

“—and saying that he had something important he wanted to talk to me about when he got up here so he's hoping we can spend some time alone. Isn't that nice? Of course it is, because
he's a nice guy
! And yet the whole time he was talking, the only thing I could think about was how much better my stupid name sounds when you say it!”

Don't smile don't smile don't smile.

Screw that—Finn didn't care if smiling at that made her yell louder. He took a step toward her, but she waved him away with the point of her finger.

“Do I want to like him? Hell yes, I want to like him, because in case you missed the memo,
he's a nice guy
and he doesn't make me yell at him and…and everything around here would be infinitely easier if I liked him!”

“But you don't.”

“But I don't.” She snapped it back so fast he wasn't even sure she realized she'd said it.

“Because you like me.”

“Because I like—” Jess stopped and clamped her mouth shut even after Finn kept pushing.

“And you like the way I say your name.” He took another step closer.
“Jess.”

Her nostrils flared a little, but the warning still blazed in her eyes.

“I could have made myself like him,” she said. “I could have. And everything would have been just fine. But then you…if you hadn't…”

“If I hadn't what? Kissed you?” Finn chuckled. “Oh, sweetheart, you kissed me first, remember?”

He had her there, but that didn't mean he liked watching her lose her bluster.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's sit down and you can explain why you think everything would be so much easier if you could only bring yourself to like the cutest and sweetest guy you ever met. And don't worry, I'll try not to let any of this bruise my ego too much.”

There: That made her smile again, small as it was. And eventually she even gave in and flopped down on the couch next to him.

“What's there to explain?” she asked. “Sam and his show are coming here, and with their endorsement we'll finally be back on the map again. But if we do anything to piss them off, we lose that.”

“So let's not piss them off.”

“Ha!” she barked, so loud Finn actually jumped. “Little late on that one, don't you think? He told me flat out that if things work out,
Hooked
might make us an annual stop.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So?” she cried. “So them coming up regularly means more bookings, and more bookings means more income, and more income means we can give Olivia the raise she so very much deserves, which means she might actually come back next season, which means we won't have to serve our guests…
Kraft Dinner
…which means they might come back, which again means more income, which means we might not have to sweat our way through every goddamn bill that comes through here!”

Wide-eyed, Finn waited a second after she stopped yelling to see if there was anything else she could possibly still get out on that one breath.

“Is that all?” Too slow to dodge her backhand, he laughed quietly, stretched his legs out across the coffee table, and shrugged. “For the record, there's nothing wrong with mac and cheese once in a while.”

“Finn!”

“What? I'm just sayin'—a little salsa, maybe some hot sauce…” He shouldn't laugh at her, but listening to her buzz on like that, what else could he do? If he had half that shit running through his head, his brain would explode. “I think it's possible you might be overthinking this just a touch.”

“Really?” she grunted. “Then, please, feel free to give me your take on the whole thing.”

“Okay.” He folded his hands over his stomach. “Let's see. You and Sam were…
whatever
…but it wasn't anything serious.”

“No.”

“And it's over. Like
over
over.”

“Yes.”

“And so…what? You think he wants to start something when he gets here?”

“I don't know. Maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“Well, I didn't at first, but then he got kind of weird and nervous, and he said…” She huffed out another breath, this time cocking her jaw to the side and rolling her eyes for effect. “He said he still thinks I'm amazing.”

“So that's a yes.”

Jess lifted her hands as Finn rested his head against the couch.

“How much and what kind of time does he want to spend with you?” He tried to rein in the possessive tone, but by the look on Jess's face, he'd failed miserably.

“Well, I doubt very much he's intending to pick out china patterns,” she snapped. “But he's probably not expecting to find me making out with you, either.”

“Making out?” Finn chuckled quietly. “Trust me, sweetheart, we haven't even come close to making out yet.”

“Whatever!”

“And you think if you blow him off before they shoot here that that'll screw things up for us?”

“If by ‘us' you mean the Buoys, then yes. He's all horned up about getting out on the water with ‘the fish whisperer.' ” Jess lifted her hands and finger-quoted the words. “And we need to do whatever we can to make that happen, because Liam's money from the A's isn't going to last long around here, so we need to do whatever we can to build up a cushion.”

Finn couldn't argue with that; the Buoys was managing to squeak by but only because Olivia was the only one cashing her paychecks.

“Look,” Jess said. “Sam wouldn't tell me what he wanted to talk about, and maybe I should have pushed, but I was a little busy trying to wrap my head around what he was saying while you were standing there…being you and distracting me…so for all I know, he might only be interested in Grandma Todd's cinnamon roll recipe.”

“It
is
a good recipe.” Finn's chuckle died halfway off his tongue. “You're right about all of that; it would be huge for us to get
Hooked
here every year, but that doesn't mean you need to kiss up to him.”

“I know, but no matter what happens, it'll probably make this first
Hooked
shoot a little less awkward for everyone if he doesn't find out that his ex-girlfriend has something going on with the guy he's stuck on a boat with for two days.”

She stopped, her exasperation changing to quick, nervous blinks.

“I mean, if that's what we…if we have someth—not that I think—Shit! I don't know what I mean.”

God, she was cute.

Finn bit down on the inside of his cheek for a second to keep from laughing at her. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

He loved how she said that so easily, without even the slightest hesitation.

“I really hate it when people call me the fish whisperer.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He rolled his head to the left so he could look straight at her. “You do?”

“Well, duh—you cringe every time someone says it.”

“No I don't!”

“Yeah, right,” she said, snorting quietly. “Just like your eye doesn't get all twitchy when you're trying to keep something from me.”

And all this time he thought he'd done such a good job hiding those things.

“Can I tell you something else?”

“You're really pushing your luck tonight, aren't you?” Her sigh was long and loud and would have been much more effective if she hadn't grinned the whole way through it. “Fine, but if this has anything to do with how many toppings you can use to dress up your mac and cheese, then keep it to yourself.”

“Funny, but no.” He laid his hand flat on top of hers, then threaded their fingers together. “I think your name sounds better when I say it, too.”

Jess's smile faltered, wobbled, then broke across her face in a sheepish laugh.

“And,” he said, running his thumb over hers softly, “I should probably warn you right now that I'm not even a little bit happy about you spending any time alone with the cutest and sweetest guy you ever met.”

Jess squeezed his hand, which eased that tight Sam-knot a little.

“Relax. We'll have coffee and catch up, and that'll be that.”

“Have you seen you?” he asked. “Trust me, Sam's not stupid; he'll be wanting a hell of a lot more than coffee and a catch-up.”

“Okay, fine, he can have a cinnamon roll, too.”

She could joke all she liked, but Finn's gut feelings were rarely wrong, and it sounded to him like Sam was after something.

“And I guess I should probably warn you,” she said, “that Kate and Olivia are pretty much Team Sam, so you should get used to the idea of them pushing me at him.”