Skin (McCullough Mountain 2) (12 page)

“He’s good. He got that promotion.”

“That’s great, Ally! Things sound like
they’re going really good for you guys.” She stood and chucked her
half-eaten yogurt.

“Okay, now really tell me. How are you? You
sound shlumpy.”

Mallory returned to the couch and flopped
onto her back. “I’m fine. It’s raining here, so the weather’s just
getting to me.”

“Mallory Fenton, don’t you dare feed me a
line of bullshit when I ask you a question. What’s going on? I can
tell you’re upset. Do I need to come there?”

She laughed, imagining the arsenal of baby
paraphernalia Ally would need to make the trip. “No.” She huffed.
“I made a friend and I think I already lost him.”

“
Him?
Do tell.”

“His name’s Finnegan McCullough and—girl—he
is a
real
mountain man.”

“Sounds delicious. Tell me more.”

Mallory spent the next twenty minutes
catching Ally up on her past few weeks. When she finished Ally was
quiet for a moment. “Let me get this straight. He kissed you and
you automatically assume he’s just trying to get laid and that’s
it?”

“He just broke up with his girlfriend,
which, from what I hear, is a normal occurrence. He doesn’t see me
that way.”

“How the hell do you know, Mal? Maybe he
realized you’re a cool girl. You’re beautiful, funny, and people
love you. There’s no reason he shouldn’t like you.”

She pursed her lips. “You don’t understand,
Ally. You’d have to see him to get it. When I say he’s hot, I’m not
talking turn your head and bat your eyes for a smile. I’m talking
Adam Levine and Brad Pitt’s lovechild hot. Sometimes it hurts to
look at him.”

“So? Mallory, you’re gorgeous.”

“No, I’m not,” she mumbled. “I’m a fat
she-beast.”

“
Do not make me load up the car and come
kick your ass!
You are
not
fat and you are not a
beast!”

She silently ignored her friend’s
reassurance. It was always flattering to hear people say she had
pretty eyes or a nice smile, but when they flat out argued that she
wasn’t fat it made it all bullshit. She was fat. Her doctor, who
didn’t give a shit about being her friend, told her so. He even had
a chart that put her in the ‘danger zone’. The truth was, unless
she dropped down to one hundred and forty pounds—which was light
years away—she’d remain in the obesity category.

Who was a hundred a forty pounds? She
couldn’t even comprehend what that would look like on her.
Currently, she was focusing on getting herself out of the red zone
that classified her as ‘morbidly’ obese.

There were people who could barely walk or
get anything besides sneakers on their feet. She wasn’t quite there
yet, but the facts were the facts. According to the American
Association of Health, she was among the thirty-three percent of
the obese population.

“
Mallory!”

She flinched. “What?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Sorry, I zoned out. What did you say?”

Ally sighed, her voice softening. “Honey,
don’t go there. I know how you get. You’re perfect, just the way
you are. Don’t dismiss this guy just because you have some demons
to work out. See where it goes. You deserve to be happy and
happiness can come in any shape or size.”

She sighed. Never had she needed to give a
pep talk like that to her friends, but Ally’s speech would be filed
among the hundreds Mallory had received in her life. She was
just…different. Her thin friends would never understand.
“Thanks.”

Ally sighed and her disappointment was
evident. “Did you ever think about straight out asking him how he
feels about you?”

Mallory made a rude noise. “Yeah. That’s not
going to happen. He already lectures me about being too hard on
myself. I am not sharing my horrid opinions with him.”

“Why? Maybe he’d be able to get through to
you.”

Or maybe I’ll convince him and he’ll
finally start looking at me the way the rest of the world does.
It hurt to imagine him seeing through her cheery attitude, to
imagine him crossing that fine line of support that becomes
chastisement every time she slipped up. Part of her liked
pretending Finn might see something pretty when he looked at her,
even if it was all a polite lie. She didn’t have the courage to
confront him, not when it could validate everything she knew deep
down. She wasn’t good enough for him.

Quietly, she whispered, “I can’t. I just
want us to be friends. Friends are safe and it doesn’t matter what
I weigh.”

She felt her friends scowl through the
phone. “I gained forty pounds in the last year.”

“You were pregnant!”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s my point. Love is
blind, Mallory. When will you learn that?”

Whoa. No one was talking about love.
“Trust me, Ally. He’s just looking for filler. I don’t want to be
filler.”

She sighed. “You’re not filler, honey. I
wish you could see what the rest of us do when we look at you.”

She was sort of grateful she didn’t. It was
always jarring whenever Mallory saw a picture of herself. She
always got that same sick feeling followed by the realization that
the ugly person in the picture was really what her friends saw.

The baby started to squawk and she knew
their call wouldn’t last much longer. “When are you coming home?”
Ally asked.

“Probably not until Thanksgiving.”

They made plans to hang out the night she
returned home and Mallory mentally tried to imagine a newer her, a
thinner version. Would they see a difference? She’d shed seventeen
pounds since moving, but, to her eyes, she still looked the
same.

Will I ever like me?

After getting off the phone she gathered up
her dirty clothes and detergent. She needed to do something
productive and might as well get her errands done if she couldn’t
work out.

* * * *

Finn shimmied down the trunk of the oak and
his boots landed with a thud. He rarely worked Saturdays, but he
needed to get out. The rain was an irrelevant nuisance, only adding
to his gloomy mood.

He unlatched his harness and turned when he
heard a truck approaching behind him. His father parked several
yards away and met his gaze. “Aren’t gonna get much done in this
weather, Finnegan.”

He cut his line with a bowie knife and
ignored the wisdom in his father’s voice. “These branches need to
be hauled. Why wait until Monday to get it done?”

The soggy ground squished under his father’s
boots as he approached. Frank’s hand pressed into the girth of the
trunk and Finn eyed him curiously.

“You and Erin have a fight?”

Finn tugged his gloves up and bent to drag a
limb over to the chipper. His father followed. “You could say that.
We broke up.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

He shrugged and hoisted the limb into the
debris piled. “Nothing to say. It is what it is.”

His father followed him back to the tree and
removed a rough pair of leather gloves from his back pocket. Under
the drizzle, they worked in silence lugging the branches to the
chipper pile. The consistent tap of raindrops on the leaves made a
soothing melody.

“I ever tell you about the woman I dated
before your mother?”

“I thought you and Mom were together since
you were teenagers. Wasn’t that when Grandpop shot you?”

“He missed and that wasn’t until we ran off
and got married. But there was a girl before her. Her name was
Elizabeth.”

This was news to Finn. His parents often
regaled them with stories of their scandalous affair and how his
father had stolen his mother away against her father’s wishes, but
never had he heard him speak of any other woman.

They tossed a large branch and trekked back
to the tree. “She was a beauty, different than your mother. There’s
no one quite like Maureen. We went to school together and I was
shocked the day she sat with me for lunch. Elizabeth was a popular
girl, always had the cutest scarves tied around her neck and her
ankles done in those little lace socks girls wore back then.”

“Did you go out with her?”

“A few times. Then I slept with her and she
pretty much owned me. Kids are stupid once they start with the
fornicating and groping.”

Finn raised his brow and gave his dad a
comical look, biting back a laugh. “Fornicating and groping?
Really, Dad?”

His father rolled his eyes. “I can’t keep up
with you kids and your terms these days. Anyway, she gave me what I
wanted and I gave her anything she asked for. But that was all
there really was to us. I can’t even remember the color of her
eyes, son. I just remember that she was pretty and she let me get
under her skirt.”

“Why are you telling me this?” He stood from
crouching and braced his hands on his hips.

“Because sometimes men think with the wrong
brain, Finnegan. Don’t be one of those idiots. Don’t sentence
yourself to less than you deserve. Marriage isn’t about sex. God,
after you start having babies you have to become a master of
stealth to even get one of those little climbers off the teat.”

“Dad!”

“It’s true. What I’m trying to say is, maybe
you and Erin breaking up is for the best. You two are always
arguing and I never see you really get excited to go out with her
anymore. I know you were planning on marrying her, but why? Why
marry someone who can’t even make you laugh? In the end, laughing
is worth more than a little poontang.”

Finn nearly spit. “It’s better when you call
it fornicating, Dad.”

His father shrugged. “Call it whatever you
want, so long as you understand what I’m trying to say.”

“I get it. I’ve been thinking the same for a
while now. I don’t think Erin and I will ever see eye-to-eye. And,
you know, I think I’m all right with that.”

“So why are you out here on your day off
working in the rain?”

Because he ran out of things to keep him
busy and it was taking everything he had not to go annoy Mallory.
“I don’t know.”

His father studied him for a long minute.
“This have to do with that girl you brought to breakfast last week,
the pretty, blue eyed one?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe.”

“That’s a yes. You like her?”

Heat rushed to the back of his neck. “It
doesn’t matter.”

“Why’s that?”

“She doesn’t look at me that way.”

His father dug his boot into the ground,
dislodging a bit of moss. “Not all girls are easy, Finnegan. The
good ones take the most work. No one expects you to be married by a
certain date and starting a brood of your own. Sometimes slow is
better. Savor it. She’ll eventually come around.”

He nodded. No point in telling his father
how he messed up and kissed her. What was done was done. She didn’t
see him that way and he’d either have to suck it up and go back to
pretending he saw her as just a friend or lose her completely,
something he knew would kill him. “Thanks for the talk.”

The heavy weight of his father’s gloved palm
landed on his shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for. Now, come on
home. This shit can wait until Monday.”

* * * *

The rain dried up by that afternoon. Mallory
was carrying her laundry back from the Laundromat when her breath
caught at the sight of Finn’s truck outside her apartment. She did
a quick inventory of her appearance. The yoga pants and T-shirt
weren’t really working for her, but that was good. They needed to
get back to basics and she didn’t want to address the kiss
situation again.

She turned the corner and there he was,
leaning up against the railing of her steps, looking all mountain-y
delicious.
Shit.

“Hey,” he greeted her, softly.

She shifted her basket on her hip.
“Hey.”

“I missed you.”

Alert! Alert!
Her heart did something
totally inappropriate and seemed to flutter madly in her chest.
“How was your week?”

“Long. How was yours?”

“The same.”

They stood in awkward silence for a bit.
This was what she feared. They wouldn’t be able to get past the
kiss.

He took a few steps toward her. “Here, I’ll
carry that up for you.”

She was relieved of her basket and headed
for the stairs. His steps echoed behind hers as her heartbeat did a
drumroll in her ears. When they reached the small landing she
reached for her keys, coming up short when she realized she didn’t
have pockets.

Turning, she said, “My keys are in the
basket.” Fumbling, she awkwardly fished out the keys. They were too
close. The metal turned in the lock and she stilled when he
spoke.

“I like those pants.”

Change!
“Th—thanks.” The door slid
open and she quickly dashed inside.

At the kitchen she busied herself, cursing
that she’d done all the dishes that morning.

Finn dropped the basket on her couch and
came to lean his hip into the counter as she pulled out a can of
tuna. Tuna salad took a while. She’d make that. Her fingers twisted
the can opener and stinky juice spattered on her hand when he
startled her by asking, “Should we talk about it?”

Her shoulders tensed as she proceeded to
drain the tuna. “I don’t see why we should.” She dumped the fish
into a bowl and began forking the chunks apart.

“Mallory?” He was standing right beside
her.

She continued to fork and sprinkled some
pepper in the bowl.

“Mallory,” he repeated. “Can you at least
look at me?”

She shut her eyes and wished she were
somewhere else.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I
thought…it doesn’t matter what I thought. I just want you to know I
regret it and I’m sorry.”

That sounded about right. She knew he would
regret anything remotely sexual with her, thus why she didn’t want
to ever go there with him. “It’s okay,” she mumbled, skirting past
him to grab some fat-free mayo and cottage cheese from the
fridge.