Page 107 of Better Luck Next Time

Then she loaded Tyrion up in her car and drove to Buchanan Brewery. She snuck in through a back door, and luck was on her side for once, because she didn’t see anyone. She raided discarded bottles and boxes, along with a few other items left over from a batch of beer River must have made that morning.

Her stomach rumbled, so she detoured to a drive-through and picked up a sandwich for herself and a burger for Tyrion, and took everything back to the studio.

After she brought her latest haul inside and fed Tyrion and provided him with a clean bowl of water, she stared at the pile of stuff she’d pulled together, realizing why her preferred medium was to work with discarded items. Every person important to her had left her: Georgie when she went to college, then Lee. Her mother, through no fault of her own. Boyfriends and friends. She had never been the person to leave someone behind. She was always the person left. She could fast-forward the inevitable with Finn and take control of her own life.

She could leave first.

She felt a freedom she’d never experienced before, even if her heart wept at the thought. She loved him, of that there was no doubt, but sometimes love wasn’t enough. Sometimes it was flawed.

Maybe Adalia was meant to live her life alone, and she needed to learn to be okay with that. Because in the end, there was one love that meant more than the others—self-love.

Maybe that had been her problem all along.

Grabbing the pallet, she dragged it into the middle of the room, then seized one of the metal poles while Tyrion watched with a puzzled look.

“Better settle in, boy,” she said, picking up a piece of wire she’d found in the dumpster. She didn’t have all the tools she needed, but she could get started. “We’re going to be a while.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Finn couldn’t stop thinking of the look on Adalia’s face as she shut the door—literally—between them. It had looked like her heart was broken. But why? He’d bumbled his explanation of the consulting company, but surely that wasn’t what had pushed her away. Or at least it wasn’t the only thing that had.

Which made him think it had to be wrapped up in the Alan thing. Something he didn’t even know about and, it seemed, wouldn’t.

Finn had promised himself he wouldn’t text her until the end of the weekend. That he wouldn’t be that guy who refused to give her an inch of space when she’d asked so clearly. In the meantime, he poured everything he had into work. Because any time he had a spare moment, he thought of her. Or the fact that he was still finding stray Tyrion hairs in the house, and each time he did, it felt like his heart had lodged in his throat.

Actually that happened a lot—every time he saw her painting, heard about the Biltmore on the radio, ate anything in his kitchen, saw those candlesticks…the list went on. It would have been easier to put away the things that reminded him of her, but he didn’t want that. It would have been like burying his heart.

Other people in his life texted—River, to confirm he had the go-ahead for the Big Catch beer festival and ask why Finn hadn’t been around; Dottie, to say she’d had an alarming dream about him and would like him to come for tea; Maisie, to say sheknewsomething had happened, and he’d better text or face the consequences; his father, to say that this wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he’d suggested Finn get together with the Charlotte Robotics folks. But he didn’t answer any of them. He couldn’t. In a weird way, it felt like if he answered them, it would be real. He would be acknowledging Adalia wasn’t coming back.

By Sunday night, he’d stopped being able to convince himself any news would be good. And that was when she finally texted.

Finn, I know it’s shitty not to talk about this in person, but I think we need to take a big step back. You were right in the beginning. I’m not ready for a relationship right now. There’s a lot I need to take care of before I’ll be ready for that. Maybe it would be best if we communicated through Dottie for art-show related matters for now.

And there it was. His heart, which hadn’t been doing so great, seemed to burst into pieces. The worst part was that he couldn’t argue with her, not really. He’d thought all along that he should give her some space, and fool that he was, he hadn’t stuck to it. But he did allow himself to speak his mind, to say:I could support you through it. You don’t need to be alone to work on yourself.

Those three awful dots appeared, then reappeared, then disappeared, like a magic trick designed to mess with him.

But she didn’t say anything else. And he didn’t say anything else. For once, he did the smart thing and shut off the phone. And sat there with these feelings—these awful, heart-wrenching feelings.

Had he ever made a woman feel this way? Most likely, and the knowledge didn’t sit easily. Maybe he deserved to feel this broken. Maybe he’d casually and unwittingly caused more pain than he realized.

That night, he found himself watchingPride and Prejudiceby himself, something that both wrecked him and made him feel closer to her.

The next morning he texted Dottie to say if the invitation were still open, he would very much like to come over for tea, and she immediately responded to say the invitation was always open, and anyway, she’d been expecting he would come today.

Of course you were, he responded, smiling a little for the first time since Wednesday.

When he arrived that afternoon, there was no room to park in the drive, because River’s car was there, with Maisie’s Jeep next to it. Were they having a party? He wasn’t so sure he wanted to see them yet—especially River—but before he could seriously contemplate turning around, Dottie came out the door.

“Dear, don’t even think of it,” she called out.

And he couldn’t exactly leave with her looking at him like that.

He got out and met her on the stoop, and she wrapped her arms around him and held him close. Finn hadn’t grown up in a family of huggers, buthewas a hugger, and he melted into her embrace.

“Go on inside,” Dottie said fiercely. “I’ve called an emergency meeting of the…what is it you call yourselves? The Bro Club.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” Finn said. But it struck him that she’d asked River and Maisie to come, and they had. In the middle of the day. On a Monday. He had a flexible schedule, but this would have taken some doing for them. That meant something to him.

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