Page 57 of Hearts Adrift
Even if you just tell me to give up and fuck off?
I’m on my fourteenth lap when I hear the knock.
I freeze in place.
Finn. It’s Finn. He finally decided to put me out of my misery, heed my annoying texts, and came here in person.
I rush eagerly to the back door—only to realize there’s no one there.
The knock comes again.
From thefront.
I turn, alarmed.
He wouldn’t knock at the front door. Why would he do that? To drive the point home that he’s being professional? That whatever we had is truly over with? That I really am, by all definitions, simply his family’s tenant?
I go to the front door and put an eye to the peephole.
What the fuck?
I open the door. “Anya??”
Anya, my loving lesbian lawyer friend whose height is always greater than I remember, sidesteps her way into the house andshuts the door on my behalf without a word. All six-foot-yikes of her faces me, her short hair matted to her head and sweaty from the heat, despite her short shorts and tank top. “I’m gonna step out on a limb and assume your team is, as of yet, still completely fucking useless.”
“How’d you find me?” I blurt out before anything else.
“Remember the night your booty-call boy toy showed up with food? You never hung up with me. I heard it all.”
I blink, completely lost for a second. “You mean Finn? The night Finn came over—?”
“And after you had words, you offered to rub his dick, or his shoulders—I don’t know, I tuned out by that point as I’d gotten what I needed to track you down. Hopewell Fair. Rentals. Dreamwood. Bungalow. Took little effort to figure the rest. So after I sorted out some affairs at the office, I packed a bag and—Do you have water? You’re being a terrible host, and I’m fucking thirsty.” She marches right to the kitchen, leaving me at the door, head spinning.
Anya is very quick.
And aggressively smart.
So it takes no time at all to catch her up on everything that has happened over a pair of plain-ass water bottles at the table by the back door. She picked the wobbly chair, but it hasn’t wobbled once. How masterful she is, to be able to wrangle even a broken chair into submission.
“So you’re telling me your boy toy’s sister is the one responsible for turning the tides?” Anya’s so much rougher around the edges in person. Even her voice. And especially when she’s on the hunt for someone else’s blood. “Can you trust the Hopewells? You’ve known them for a week.”
“Almost two weeks, actually,” I correct her, then smile dreamily. “Finn and I, we ran around the isle together last week.” I’m reminiscing like it’s already a tender memory. “It wasso much fun. Felt like we were on the run from the paparazzi. Or a dangerous criminal. He was like my brave guardian, that Finn. He’s a short guy … but the protective way he handled me, you’d think he was amountain—”
“Are you hearing yourself?” she cuts me off. “Riv, you need to take this seriously. This isn’t a love story. This is your life, and it’s ending one article at a—Oh.” She pokes at her tablet. “She’s really good, your boy toy’s sister.”
“Yes, she is. AndFinnis his name …”
“This is actually … kind of brilliant. She’s not painting you as a victim. She’s painting you as a human.”
“And he’s not my ‘boy toy’ …”
“It doesn’t even seem like it’s coming from the same person. Maybe it’s not. Her posts are really infectious … I bet they’re inspiring others to make their own posts. Have their own opinions. Reject the narrative that was shoved down their throats. Making them believe some vague secret truth that isn’t even fully there or confirmed. Simple doubt in the viral video was enough. She’s used people’s natural skepticism as her kindling to start a … a seriously helpful fire here. And boy, has ittaken.”
“I said his name’s Finn.”
She takes a breath, then slowly sets down her tablet. “If you want me to help you, you’ve got to make a choice.”
“A choice?” I frown. “What do you mean ‘a choice’?”
