Page 64 of Riptide

“How long have you been friends?”

“About four years,” I say. “After the divorce, I moved into this place. He lived across the hall and made it his personal mission to get me to stop eating frozen waffles for dinner, hence why he always brings me leftovers.”

Finn smiles into my chest. “And now you go to the farmers’ market every weekend?”

“Yeah,” I say. “He gets cranky if we miss it.”

“He’s pretty cool. I like him.”

“He’s persistent,” I say, but it’s soft. “And loyal. I think he saw something in me when I didn’t.”

Finn shifts, propping his chin on my chest to look at me. “You do that, too.”

“Do what?”

“See people,” he says. “Even when they don’t see themselves.”

I blink at him, thrown by the honesty in his voice for the second time this morning. But I try not to read into it. I guess having Eugene as my best friend over the years has taught me a lot more than I realized. Not just how to cook an actual meal, but how to show up. How to be patient. How to see past whatever someone’s trying to hide and wait for the truth to catch up. It’s all he’s ever done for me.

“When we first met, he immediately called that I was a teacher,” I say through a chuckle of the memory.

“How is that possible?”

“Well, I had to go straight from work to collect my keys, and I was wearing my three-piece suit. I had a few I used to rotate. He popped his head out, seeing a grand total of about ten boxes with my whole life inside, looked me up and down, and said ‘math teacher or undertaker.’”

Finn laughs, the sound muffled against my chest. “No, he did not.”

My body shakes with laughter beneath him. “I told him it was math, and he just nodded and said, ‘We need to get you new suits.’”

Finn’s shoulders shake with laughter. “God, I love him.”

“I didn’t know what to make of him at first. He was just this nosy, wildly opinionated guy with a cat who kept showing up. But he never asked for anything. He just…stuck around.”

I think back to those early days when Ryan had left and all I had was two garden chairs in my living room. Eugene found an old coffee table, the one that I still have today. He made me feel less alone.

“He also used to get mad at me, still does sometimes, if I’d work late. So eventually, I let him have access to my calendar so he could see when I’d be at work. Now we even have a playlist that we share.”

Finn tilts his head so I can see his face. “Well, now I’m going to have to make one for us too. Eugene better watch his back.”

A chuckle rumbles in my chest. “He’d rise to that challenge.”

“Good thing I’ve got Friday through Sunday with you to make our playlist the best ever then.”

Running my hand slowly over Finn’s back, I feel the rise and fall of his breath under my palm. It’s quiet between us, for long enough that I wonder if he’s fallen asleep, just as he speaks again.

“You ever think you’d end up teaching?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I always had a plan. Math was the one thing I was good at. The one thing I could trust to make sense. I knew if I followed it far enough, I’d end up somewhere stable. Predictable. Safe.” Finn shifts to look at me. “Teaching was always part of that. It wasn’t a fallback. It was the goal. I never did the traveling thing. At the time, it didn’t cross my mind.”

Finn watches me for a beat, like he’s seeing something new.

“But the thing no one tells you,” I continue with a sigh, “is that you can plan your whole life down to the decimal point, and it still won’t stop the floor from falling out. You can do everything right and still lose the things you thought would stay.”

Finn presses his lips to my chest again, just over my heart. “Would you want to travel now?”

“Maybe. It depends on a few things…”

“Like?” he asks, resting his head on me.

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