Page 8 of Something Unforgettable

“Finn,” Ev said, voice soothing. “It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be. So you had some fun on the mechanical bull with a hot guy. You realize if he didn’t want to go with you, he could have said no. Right?”

Maybe. Or maybe Finn had just been so drunk and pathetic that Xavier had been nice to him. What if they were all disgusted by him this morning? Finn rubbed his nose with his sleeve to head off the burn of tears.

“He could have said no,” Ev repeated, a hard edge creeping into his voice.

“And when I kissed him?”

There was a pause. “You really don’t remember any of it?”

Finn shook his head, nearly dropping the phone. “Micah and I were doing shots at the bar. It’s all blank after that. I don’t even know how I got home.”

“You told me Ryan drove you.”

Ryan. That wasn’t so bad. Ryan was kind and patient. Finn would have to do something to thank him. The plan had been to walk home. The Lookout was only ten minutes from his place.

None of that told him how or why he’d kissed Xavier and, frankly, he wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. Maybe if they stopped talking about it, it would go away.

As good as crawling back into bed and sleeping for a year sounded, he had a shift in the store starting in half an hour, and Pops had been down there by himself all morning, since it was Grace, their part-timer’s, day off.

“Hey, Ev. I have to get to work.”

Ev huffed into the phone. “Fiiine,” he grumbled. “But don’t think you’re off the hook. Get more details from Micah and call me back tonight.”

Finn mumbled an agreement that he didn’t mean and got off the phone. It took a minute to locate his boots, then he steeled himself, jogged down the stairs, and entered the store.

His eyes throbbed when the bright fluorescent lights hit them. Ugh. His headache was going to linger. Making his way past the office, he spotted a delivery that needed to be shelved, but it would have to wait until later. He was pretty sure he’d keel over if he did any manual labor right now.

As Finn tied on his apron, he breathed in the familiar, comforting scents of old wood, sweet feed, and leather oil. He could do this.

A customer near the joint supplements flagged him down, looking overwhelmed. When he was done helping her, someone else asked about feed for an aging pony. It was a long line of questions after that, and Finn fell into the rhythm of it. He’d been working there for so long that helping people was automatic. He enjoyed it, too. Somehow, people were much easier to talk to when he knew what they wanted.

When he led a customer interested in stall-door hinges for their bathroom—Finn had learned not to ask too many questions with remodelers—to the front of store, he gave Pops a wave. He got a grin and a wink in return. Pops must be having a good day. That was a relief. There’d been a string of rough ones recently. No matter how much Finn wished otherwise, it was just one of those things that happened as you got older. At least he was capable of picking up the slack when Pops needed him to.

Finnegan’s General Store and Feed Shop had been in his family since Pops was a kid, and around even longer than that, though with a different name. The afternoons were generally busy as local farmers stopped in to place orders and tourists wandered through to look at the historic building and buy some of the old-fashioned candy and vintage toy replicas set up in a corner near the front. Finn had ideas about expanding that part of the store. Anything that helped their bottom line was a good thing. They made a profit each month, but they’d lost business to the online retailers as well as the big-box stores outside the town limits. If they could get people through the doors, even if it was just for some soft peppermints or a soda with real sugar from the red, antique Coca-Cola cooler that sat beside the front counter, they would be fine.

Once he’d taken care of the customer’s stall-door hinges, Finn settled in at the front of the store and sent Pops off to lunch—but not before enduring his good-natured teasing about Finn’s late night. Apparently, Finn had left his keys, wallet, and jacket on the floor just inside the front door and Pops had had to move them to open that morning.

“You’re young, Corey,” Pop said with a toothy grin. “Enjoy it while you can. Before you know it, the only reason you’ll be up at three a.m. is your damn sciatica.” He rubbed his hip and grimaced comically.

Finn bit back his amusement. “That sounds like something most people would go see the doctor about, old man.” He’d given up on correcting Pops about his name ages ago, just like he’d accepted that Pops wasn’t going to the doctor unless someone a lot stronger than Finn ambushed him and dragged him there. He was too damn stubborn. Finn shook his head and ignored his grandfather’s snarking about how he might look old to Corey, but he was still as healthy as a horse.

“I guess you can have hay for lunch, then,” Finn shot back with a mock scowl that made his grandfather laugh.

Pops reached into the cooler and set an ice-cold bottle of ginger ale on the counter in front of Finn. “For your stomach,” he said before heading up to their apartment.

Finn only managed a few sips, though it seemed to be helping, before the bell rang over the door and he looked up with a polite smile to greet the new customer.

It was Frank King, a local horse trainer they’d done business with since before Finn was born. Long-time customer didn’t mean “good,” though. If his presence didn’t tell Finn something was wrong, his pinched expression would have.

“How can I help you, Mr. King?” Finn asked as soon as the man was close enough. He crossed his fingers below the counter, hoping this wasn’t what he thought it was.

“My delivery was incorrect. Again,” Mr. King said. His voice was calm and professional, but Finn could feel the anger simmering under the surface like a razor-sharp knife against his skin. It made him lock up and his heart start to race.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. King,” he said, hoping he sounded steadier than he felt. “I must have counted wrong. If you let me know what’s missing, I’ll have the rest of your order delivered by the end of the week.”

Mr. King rested his palms on the counter, his hands large and fingers splayed. “And, of course, you’ll waive our next delivery fee.”

Finn didn’t argue. He couldn’t afford to upset Mr. King more than the screwed-up order already had. The man had reach in the community. Finn was going to have to put a rush in with their supplier. Waiving the delivery fee would cut into their profit on the order, but that didn’t matter. He nodded in agreement. No matter what, the error wasn’t Mr. King’s fault.

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