“Well, Alicia Rogers’s favorite hobby is judging others.” Mr. Clark barked out a laugh.
“She’d been so proud, thinking I didn’t know the mail had already been taken out of the box. But when Alicia called the police… Holy shit balls.” Finn was laughing so hard, a wide grin spread across his face. “You made me promise to visit you every day in the slammer.”
“Well, I had a wild imagination back then. Luckily, they just made me pick up trash at the park for the next few weekends. It was a fair trade. And then this one…” I flicked my thumb at the charming bastard beside me. “He gets nothing but a slap on the hand for running naked through downtown.”
“I wore body paint, and I had a sling over my—johnson.” He smirked.
“I always knew you two would end up together,” Mr. Clark said.
“Yeah? How’d you know?” Finn asked as he walked around, looking at the jewelry in the glass cases.
“It was the way you looked at one another, even way back in the day. Like, as long as you were together, nothing else really mattered. Never saw you look at Dr. Barley that way, Reese.”
Awkward.
But also very true.
It had taken me a while to realize I was hopelessly in love with my best friend. I think I’d settled on a future with Carl because it seemed… easy.
Possible, even.
I loved him in the way I thought mattered.
And I’d thought my world was ending after he started dating someone else, and I was coming home with no plan.
But in the end, it had never been Carl.
After being home, I realized that I didn’t miss him.
I missed the idea of him.
I didn’t like being single. I wanted a partner. A best friend. A lover. Someone to raise a family with and laugh and grow old with.
And now that Finn had shown me how good sex could be, the connection that I felt to him—I knew what I had with Carl didn’t compare in any way. I wasn’t myself with him. With Finn, I could just be me. I could ask for what I wanted and not feel ashamed to have dreams of my own.
But now I had a whole new set of problems because Finn was leaving soon. The man was going to have temptation every which way he looked. I believed him when he said he loved me. I’d never felt more loved by anyone in my life than by Finn Reynolds.
But he’d tire of the distance. He would be traveling the world for his career. He’d go back to being with different women and remembering how exciting it all was.
And I couldn’t ask him to give me something that wouldn’t make him happy.
I loved him enough to let him go figure it out.
If he came back to me, I’d be here waiting.
Because now that I’d had him, no one else would compare.
But I wasn’t going to say any of that to him. I’d move into my own place and focus on work and being okay with being alone.
“I agree with you,” I said, and his head snapped up to look at me. “I never looked at Carl the way I look at Finn.”
His gray eyes locked with mine, and his lips turned up in the corners. “It’s because you already knew you belonged to me.”
“Maybe,” I said, feeling this pull toward him that was impossible to avoid lately.
“Do you have that gift wrapped for me, Mr. Clark?”
“I sure do, Finny boy. Let me go grab it from the back for you.”
“What did you get?” I asked as he stepped closer and wrapped one arm around my lower back, tugging me against him.
“It’s a surprise.”
“For me?”
“Yep. And you don’t get it until Christmas morning.” He nipped at my bottom lip, and I tugged his head down to kiss me.
We used to do this just to put on a show for people when we first came up with the idea to fake date. But now, I wanted to kiss this boy everywhere I went.
“Well, somebody needs to call the fire department if you two keep going like that.”
We pulled back and laughed, and Finn reached for the small box wrapped in black paper with a white satin bow on it. He dropped it into the large shopping bag from The Tipsy Tea.
We said our goodbyes, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulder as we walked toward Reynolds’。
“Is that where Carl got your engagement ring?” Finn asked.
“Yeah. He bought it from Mr. Clark.”
“Man, I hated that ring,” he said as we waved at a few locals passing by.
I laughed. “You really didn’t care for it. I remember you making that very clear from the minute I got it.”