Page 54 of Hound Dog
It wasn’t checked off yet.
I gulped, my mouth going suddenly dry, and I shifted my attention elsewhere. Literally anywhere else on the page.
Hike Mount Washington.
I smiled. “You stole one from my mom.”
He leaned over to see the line I was pointing at. “Yeah. I stole a few of them. She had a good list.”
After a pause, he asked, “Is Mount Washington checked off of your list yet?”
I shook my head no, but something told me Finn already knew the answer to his own question. I hadn’t come back to this area in six years. So, when would I have found the time to climb Mount Washington?
“We should go,” he said. “This weekend. We can both check off an item.”
My throat was now dry and tight as I looked up at him.
It sounded innocent enough. A hike.
A hike with Finn.
So then why were my palms sweating?
“We could invite Enzo, too,” I said.
His face twisted. “You could try. But she hates hiking. She’s much more of a ‘see nature through virtual reality’ kind of gal.”
“So, it would just be us, then?”
His brows rose. “Is that a problem?”
“Not for me,” I answered quickly.
“Unless you had plans to do the hike with Ben?”
It was a loaded question. A prying question.
“Much like Enzo, Ben isn’t exactly into the great outdoors. He’s never even been camping.”
Surprisingly, Finn’s face stayed neutral. Any other guy who was clearly hitting on me would likely use that fact to belittle Ben’s manhood. Like somehow being able to sleep in a tent for a night meant he had more testosterone.
I was shocked that Finn didn’t play that game. He merely shrugged and then said, “So what do you say? You shouldn’t climb Mount Washington alone. It’s a really challenging hike.”
“Yeah,” I finally said. “That’d be nice. I haven’t checked something off mom’s list in a while.”
Months. It’d been months. Guilt edged its way through my gut, like it always did when I thought about mom’s list and my wish upon that star years ago.
“Why is that?” He poured his guacamole into a large Tupperware container he’d brought with him from home that was labeledFinn.
I fought a smile. He labeled his Tupperware?
That was annoyingly adorable.
“I’ve been super busy these last few years, getting my voice lesson business up and running.”
I conveniently left out the fact that most evenings that Ben wasn’t working, I was on his arm at various dinners and parties where he was attempting to schmooze his way to the top. I had no idea how much ass kissing being a lawyer—and a lawyer’s partner—actually entailed.
Again, Finn shrugged nonjudgmentally. “That makes sense. As long as it doesn’t become the norm. That’s how people fall into that pattern… and then the list just sits there.”
