Page 11 of Making Home with You
I shrug my shoulders and without haste, make my way to my car.
By the time I finally make it back to Erin and Ryan’s it’s been at least an hour and a half and I begin to wonder if Ryan has called the police and reported me missing.Thank fuck Erin is there, because I’m hoping she’s talked him down from the level of crazy I know he can get to.
I pull into the driveway, my headlights shining into the front window of the house and the front door swings open.
“Where the hell have you been?”Ryan yells from the porch and I can’t help the eye roll or the look on my face that saysleave me the fuck alone.
“Back off, Ryan,” I demand, pushing past him to find Erin sitting on the couch shaking her head.“I live with Mom and Dad, and I’m never fucking alone.Maybe I just wanted a minute to myself.Ever think of that?”
I walk into the kitchen and turn the oven on.Without waiting for the oven to pre-heat, I toss in the pizza and storm off into the bedroom.
As I close the door behind me, I hear Erin’s hushed voice chastising Ryan for bothering me.He tries to argue with her, but she shuts him up fast and the conversation ends almost immediately.
A few seconds later there’s a knock on the door and Ryan opens it cautiously.
“Can I come in?”he asks, poking his head in and looking sheepish, and for a second I feel guilty for yelling at him.I know his old job has made him paranoid, and I also know it’s not just his job that has made him this way.He filled me in on what happened with Erin and her family, and their mob connections shortly after it all went down.He has reasons to worry and I know that.He’s seen a lot.
“Yeah,” I respond, nodding my head too.
“Sorry, Sarah,” Ryan starts and I shake my head as if to tell him it’s okay, but he keeps talking.“I worry, but I know shouldn’t, and I guess I didn’t really think about the fact that you still live with Mom and Dad and have no privacy.”
“It totally sucks, but that’s on me and I shouldn’t take it out on you.”I let out a long sigh, and add, “But I sent out tons of resumes over the last week so maybe something will come up.”I force out a fake smile, knowing my words are hopeless.
“Yeah, maybe,” Ryan says with a shrug of his shoulders.“I gotta run to the market to pick up some ice cream for Erin.She wants ice cream.”He rolls his eyes and I laugh knowing this won’t be his last pregnancy-craving run.“You want anything?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
I hear the front door close and I emerge from the bedroom to find Erin checking on the pizza in the kitchen.
“I’m fucking terrible when it comes to pizza,” she says, opening the oven again.“I burn the fuckers every time.”
“It’s pizza.It’s good no matter what.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”she asks seemingly out of nowhere, her eyebrows raised as she leans back against the counter and for the first time I can tell she’s pregnant.Her normally flat stomach rounder and fuller, but it looks good on her.
When I don’t say anything she adds, “So you want me to guess?”She pauses, but again I’m silent.“Okay then.You’re hooking up with someone, but I now know it’s not Chris that hired bodyguard thug.This time, I’d put my money on Finn, and I’d also say it isn’t the first time you hooked up with him.”
I scrub my hand over my face, swallowing hard as I try to push the lump down that has formed in my throat.And after a few more seconds of silence I unload everything on her.
I leave nothing out; telling her about the random bathroom hook up and then him cornering me in the hallway on New Year’s Eve, and how I just spent the last hour in his bed.But more than all that, I tell her how he wants to see me again.
“I swear I had no idea who he was when I did it with him in the bathroom and then he walked up to our table on New Year’s and fuck my life…”
With a satisfied smile on her face, she pats my cheek and says, “Well, fuck me.I think you just landed the hottest bachelor in Rockport.Watch your back, darling.There are going to be some pissed off women in this town.”
I stare at her with a stupefied look on my face, and she proceeds to fill me in on how no woman has ever been good enough for Finn.Too busy working and too many straight-laced women throwing themselves at him, he chose to remain alone.But not without the occasional fuck from a tourist he knew he’d never have to see again.
“Don’t tell Ryan,” I beg, and Erin laughs.I can feel the panic rising up in my throat at just thought of him finding out.My heart is racing and my palms are growing sweaty as I picture Ryan going ballistic on Finn; I’m not sure who would win and I don’t ever want to find out.
“Of course not,” she says, smiling at me reassuringly.“He and Ryan have this on-going pissing contest since the shit went down with my dad and everything, but honestly Ryan would kill Finn just over the age difference alone.”
Age difference?What the fuck?
“How old is Finn?”I ask, my tone full of apprehension.
“Thirty-four,” Erin says, smirking naughtily.
“Fuck,” I breathe out.
