Skin (McCullough Mountain 2) (27 page)

“I don’t know. Don’t make out with your
ex!”

He growled. “I wasn’t fucking making out
with her. I can’t stand her.”

“Four months ago you intended to marry
her.”

“Well, a lot’s changed. Come on, Mallory,
don’t leave. Please. I swear it wasn’t what it looked like.”

She sniffled. She was pretty sure her heart
was actually breaking. “See, Finnegan, that’s the difference. I
would never let another man get close enough to me for there to be
a question of what ‘it looks like’. You let her get to you. You had
your mouth against hers. God, all I can see is your hands on
her!”

“I was pushing her away!”

“Please let go of my door.”

“No. I don’t want you to drive this
upset.”

“Well, there’s no fixing that now.”

His voice softened. “Come on. We’re supposed
to have a fun night and leave for the city tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ve had all the fun I can take.”

“Don’t do this,” he begged. “Please.”

She saw him, but her mind’s eye was
torturing her. She shook her head. Her heart was being ripped
through her chest. “I have to go.”

“No, you don’t.”

She put the car in drive. “Yes. I do.” As
she hit the gas he cursed and let go of her door.

She should have just gone home, but he would
have followed her there. She took the main road out to the highway
and cried the entire four and a half hours back to
Philadelphia.

When she parked her car outside of her
childhood home, she simply sat there with her head resting on the
wheel. Her phone had been going off the entire first hour she’d
been on the road. Eventually, she shut it off and was currently too
tired to look at all her missed calls and texts from Finn.

Leaving her luggage in the car, she grabbed
her purse and headed up the stoop to her parents’ house.

Her keys slipped into the lock like feet
slide easily into a favorite pair of slippers. The door opened and
she stepped into the dark living room.

“Who’s there?” Her father’s voice called
from the top of the steps where the bedrooms were located.

She stepped into the glow coming from the
hall. “Daddy?”

“Mallory, is that you, buttercup? I thought
you weren’t coming until tomorrow afternoon.”

Something broke inside of her. As she stood
there in her home, surrounded by the scent of her childhood
memories and the sound of her father’s voice, she shattered and
fell into a fit of tears.

Her dad rushed down the steps and wrapped
her in his arms. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

She sobbed into his soft chest and hiccupped
out words that barely made sense. The light flicked on and she
heard her mother’s voice. “Vince, you better not be picking at
those pies!”

“Mallory’s here,” he called as he ushered
her to the sectional sofa that was badly out of date.

“What? But she’s not coming until
tomorrow.”

Her dad sighed. “I know, but she’s here now.
Get down here. She’s all upset and I can’t understand her.”

“Let me get my housecoat.”

Her mother appeared a moment later.
“Mallory? Is that you, baby? What happened to you? I barely
recognize you.”

The comment about how different she looked
should have registered, but it didn’t. None of it mattered. “Oh,
Mom,” she cried. “He kissed her.”

“Who?”

“Finn! I caught him kissing his ex. He’s not
coming and…I think…oh God…I think we broke up.”

Her parents glanced at each other like they
had a secret and then calmly rubbed her back. “Mallory, baby, we
never expected you to bring a boy home. It’s okay. We were excited
just to have you.”

She frowned and wiped her eyes. “What?”

Her dad cleared his throat. “Buttercup, we
sort of assumed you’d be here by yourself.”

“You assumed…why?”

They looked guilty for a second then
shrugged. “Well, it’s just always been you.”

“But I told you about Finn.”

They gave her a skeptical glance.

She gasped. “He’s real!”

“Of course he is, sweetheart,” her mother
crooned.

“He is!”

“It doesn’t matter, pumpkin. You’re home
now. Your mom made a bunch of pies and I think she should let us
tear into one now, with you being upset and all.”

“Vincent!” he mother snapped.

She stood. “I don’t want any pie. I think I
just want to go to bed.”

They stared at her as if she’d grown a
second head. How pathetic was she that even her parents didn’t
believe she had a boyfriend? Well, she didn’t anymore. Today was
officially the worst day of her life.

* * * *

The next morning, she woke up and smiled as
she realized she was in her old bed. The scent of turkey cooking
was incredible.
Ahh, Mom’s cooking.

Knowing today would be an ordeal involving
lots of food, she went to clean herself up in the bathroom. She
looked wretched.

She headed out to her car to grab her
suitcase. After lugging it up the stairs she changed into her
stretch pants and a sweatshirt. She might not be able to control
certain parts of her life, but she still had control over her own
choices and today she chose to do something that made the move away
from her childhood home worthwhile.

She laced up her sneakers and skipped down
the steps. “Where are you going?” her mother called from the
kitchen. Mallory turned to say good morning and her mom dropped the
saltshaker right in the gravy.
“Mallory?”

“Yeah?”

“You look so…your legs…I’ve never seen you
so…”

She smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Are you eating out there?”

She laughed. “Yes, I’m eating. I’ve just
been exercising.”

“How much have you lost?”

“Only thirty-seven. By the doctor’s
standards I’m still obese, but no longer morbidly so.”

“Well, I think you look gorgeous. I mean,
you’ve always been beautiful, but you look really good, sweetie.
I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

It was odd. She expected some sense of
accomplishment to accompany those words, but she felt the same. She
knew she looked better. She felt better. She had more energy and
her self-esteem was a little stronger. Her parents’ praise didn’t
seem to matter. What mattered was her own opinion of herself.

She stood, in the kitchen where she had
consumed countless meals, and realized that being home didn’t
matter. Her family wasn’t the most sensitive crew, but…none of it
mattered. She’d already proven her value to herself. She didn’t
have to be skinny to be happy. She’d always thought that was what
it would take.

It wasn’t about reaching a certain size or
weighing a certain amount. It was about liking herself. At some
point over the last few months, she’d begun to like herself and see
that she deserved to be happy as much as anyone else.

Today she was going to make herself happy.
“I’ll be back in a little bit, Mom.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to run out for a bit. I should be
back in an hour or so.” She grabbed her keys and a bottle of water
and headed out the door.

As she pulled her car into the street, she
took the one way and turned at the intersection toward Market
Street. She parked on the corner of Thirteenth and Market, grabbed
her iPod, and stuffed her keys in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

She stretched for a few minutes then hit
play. The horns started and then came the drums. Her feet hit the
pavement and she was off.

Her pace built as she turned and ran under
the blue rails of the El. Her heart was really pumping as she cut
the corner by the brick row homes, slapping her hand against the
stained concrete that marked Rocky’s home. When she spotted JFK
Plaza, she grinned and picked up her pace. Almost there and she was
barely breaking a sweat.

Her iPod was set on repeat and as the theme
song continued she continued to push herself harder. She could do
this. Nothing was stopping her. Nothing!

It occurred to her that she didn’t need to
hide from the world to prove something. She only needed to shut
them out. All of the media and trendy pop culture that was jammed
down her throat on a regular basis made it impossible to see beyond
her shortcomings.

Center County had given her the escape she
needed. Moving had silenced the judgmental world, hidden her from
the critical onlookers, and helped her see
her.
She finally
saw herself as a woman capable of anything.

The peaks of the cathedral showed on the
horizon and she was soon cutting around the curve of Race Street.
Then she was almost there, on Ben Franklin Parkway, the fountain
flowing behind her.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art stood like a
castle in the distance. To her right was the famous statue of the
boxer. Mallory panted and threw up her arms, mimicking his cast
pose, gloves held high.

Just a little further and she would have
done it. Her sneakers smacked over the pavement. At the top of
those seventy-two concrete steps were Sylvester Stallone’s shoe
prints and she wasn’t stopping until her feet filled the marks.

Her thighs burned as she took the stairs
hard. Skyscrapers towered behind her, but nothing stood as tall as
her in those moments. She crossed the first landing and was
climbing again. The next landing arrived and she lengthened her
strides. So close. More steps. Her blood was pumping. The bass was
thrumming in her ears. There was no stopping her. She was a
machine. She was doing this, doing it for herself and she was
almost there.

The peaks of the museum crested the horizon
the higher she climbed and then the long columns. Just a few more
steps and she’d be there. Looking down, she watched her feet cross
those last few steps, her arms pumped at her sides as her lungs
sawed in her chest and she was finally—

She slammed into some asshole that was
standing in her spot!

Her knees hit the pavement hard. Who the
hell was standing on her Rocky footprints? She yanked her ear plugs
out of her ears, cutting off her awesome theme song, and turned,
prepared to give someone hell for screwing up the biggest checkmark
on her bucket list yet.

The guy was down. She crawled to her knees
and froze in the process of getting to her feet. She knew that
flannel.

Oh my God.

He wasn’t moving. She rushed to his side.
“Finn? What the hell are you doing here?”

He grunted. “It was the only place I knew to
find you.”

She shook her head and panted.
“
What?”

He moaned and sat up. “We have to stop
running into each other like this.”

“You’re in Philadelphia.”

“I know. You did the steps a lot faster than
me.”

This was her happy moment. He was ruining
it. The sight of him reawakened all those horrible emotions she’d
put away to do something nice for herself. “Why are you here?”

He sat up. “You left before I could give you
something.”

“Did you drive all night?”

“I left around three in the morning when it
occurred to me I’d probably find you here at some point. I’m glad
you didn’t make me sleep on the steps.”

“You were going to camp out at the Museum of
Art? Why?”

He met her gaze and smiled sadly. “Because I
love you.”

Oh no.
She started to blink rapidly
and her throat tightened. “What did you have to give me?”

“This.” He reached in his pocket and pulled
out a small keychain with a little pink Converse sneaker on the
end.

“You drove all this way to give me a
shoe?”

“It’s also a keychain.” She frowned at him
and he said, “It has a zipper. Open it up.”

She took the little shoe—it was actually
kind of cute—and tugged the little zipper. The sun caught on
something and she squinted. Her fingers reached inside and cold
metal met her fingertips. She gasped as she pulled out a solitaire
diamond ring on a platinum band. “What is this?”

“This is what I was trying to tell you. I
bought it a few weeks ago. There’s no one else, Philly. You’re it
for me. I love you and I want to marry you. Not because I need a
wife and want a family, but because I can’t imagine one single day
without seeing your beautiful face or hearing your laugh. I want to
wake up every morning and look into those blue eyes of yours. I
don’t ever want to have to worry about you being home alone at
night, because I want to always be there, keeping you safe and warm
and I want you to do the same for me. Keep me warm, Mallory. It’s
too cold and lonely in this world without you.”

Her chin trembled as she stared at him. He
was proposing? To
her
? “What about Erin?”

“I have five witnesses that will tell you
she’s the one who cornered me and I was trying to get away from her
the moment I saw her. I was looking for you. I’m always looking for
you. You’re who makes me happy, happier than I’ve ever been.”

Her fist closed over the ring and she shut
her eyes. “I’m glad you asked me now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’ll always know we got married
because you wanted
me
and not for any other reason.”

“What other reason would there be?” he
asked, his brow crinkling.

She smiled. “Remember that time in the woods
with the rain?”

“How could I forget?”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

“
What?”

She held out her hand as his eyes went wide.
“I’m not sure. It just occurred to me this morning as I was lying
in bed. My stomachs been upset and—”

He kissed her. He kissed her long and hard
right there on Rocky’s footprints. “You could be carrying my baby?”
he asked, his smile pressing against her lips and his hand curving
over her belly.

She grinned and kissed him some more.
“Maybe.”

“Oh, you’re definitely marrying me now,
because if you’re not pregnant I’m gonna get you so.”