Page 75 of The Hot Shot

The look in his eyes is almost self-deprecating, but there’s a thread of stubbornness beneath his gentle tone. “I said I wouldn’t push you, and I meant it. But one day, Chess, you’re going to feel safe enough to let go. And I’m going to be there to catch you when you fall.”

Twelve

Chess

Finn is waiting to catch me.The thought haunts me more than I want to admit. It runs through my head in the weeks that lead up to our trip to California. It looms large when James finally comes home and slyly offers to let me stay with him, both of us knowing full well that I’m not going anywhere.

I like living with Finn. Though I want my condo back desperately, living anywhere else doesn’t appeal.

Actual Thanksgiving rolls around. James and I spend it with Finn and his friends.

Finn’s team plays that day, but he gets us tickets, which nearly makes James cry. Wrapped up in team scarves and woolen caps, James and I sit at the fifty-yard line and scream ourselves hoarse.

At one point, Finn taps his fist to his chest and salutes in our direction. Which causes the crowd around us to go wild and speculate why he’d singled out our section; James, however, wraps his arm around my neck and gives me a happy noogie.

“Who’s caught the quarterback?” he sings.

I do a very bad job of pretending to be annoyed. And don’t even try to hide my joy when Finn and his team win the game.

Dinner is catered and better than any Thanksgiving meal I’ve ever had. Since Finn’s dining room is an unfurnished space he uses for exercise, James, Jake, a lineman named Russell, Finn, and I crowd around his coffee table, sitting on the floor to eat.

Shoulder to shoulder, Finn and I laugh and eat and trade jokes. He is a warm presence at my side the whole time. True to his word, he doesn’t try anything, but his promise keeps spinning in my head.I’m going to be there to catch you when you fall.

Now we are in San Diego where the sun shines lemon yellow and the sea air is a warm kiss on my cheeks.

Finn has rented a lime-green convertible Jeep and put the top down.

“This feels very 1980s,” I say over the noise of the wind.

His teeth flash white within the tan of his face. Jeep could sell dozens of these vehicles just by using a picture of him driving.

“Too much?” Finn asks me.

It is; my hair whips around me like a lash, even though I started out with it in a secure ponytail. But it’s also fun. After hours of being stuck in a stuffy plane, the open sky and fresh air acts like a balm. “It’s perfect,” I yell back.

He laughs and then guns the Jeep up the curving road that hugs the coast. The scenery is stunning, with massive homes carved into the coastline, their endless glass windows glinting in the afternoon light, and the Pacific stretching west like a dazzling sapphire and gold-studded canvas.

Finn pulls up to a gated drive and punches in a number.

“I had these installed after I was drafted,” he tells me, somewhat grim. “Dad didn’t like the idea, but I liked the idea of some crazed fan trolling around even less.”

“Someone would do that?”

“Someonediddo that.” The gates slowly open. “Young woman last year tried to break in. She was looking for my old room.”

“Jesus.”

“She was harmless, but someone else might not be.”

Finn heads up the drive. It isn’t very long but hides the house from view until we round a bend. Finn’s parents’ house is an L-shaped, sprawling ’60s California-style ranch painted soft gray and trimmed in bright white that overlooks the ocean.

As soon as we pull up, the double doors to the house open and a slim, tall blonde woman comes out.

“Finnegan,” she cries, hurrying over to him as he steps out of the car. His reply is muffled in her hug.

I smile at the scene, shamelessly watching. But my car door opens, and I’m face-to-face with an older version of Finn. There are differences: this man’s eyes are light brown instead of blue. His skin is swarthy and weathered from what is clearly a life lived under the sun. And his posture is arrow straight even when apparently relaxed.

He gives me an easy smile, more of a curl of the lips and a deepening of the crinkles around his eyes. “Ms. Copper, I presume?”