Page 55 of Finn Rhodes Forever

“And here?” Her gaze stayed on her fingers.

I swallowed. “Sometimes I’m in my element here, too. Like when we go hiking.”

She glanced up and gave me a smile. My chest squeezed, warm and tight. I’d be replaying this moment for the next few days.

I knew she felt it too.

She nodded. “You’re good at it. I feel safe hiking with you.”

“Yeah?” My brows lifted and my mouth curled into a smug smile. “You feel safe with me?”

She rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. “You know what I mean. You talk enough to scare the bears away.”

Her cheeks flushed pink. So fucking adorable.

“Mhm.” I gave her another grin. Her ankle was inches from my thumb so I drew a line over it. Her breath caught. “You feel safe with me.”

“Whatever,” she muttered, grinning at the thread on the blanket, pulling her ankle away.

She wore a playful smile on her lips and something tugged under my heart, but her smile faded.

“You’re going to get bored in this town,” she whispered, and my gut tensed. We were as close to Liv finally telling me the truth as we’d ever been, and I felt like I was walking around fucking landmines. “You’re going to miss the chaos.”

I shook my head. “I won’t. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t miss about it, Liv. Living in camps, falling into bed exhausted every night, missing my friends and family. This is my home.” Our gazes held, and something big and bright pulsed between us. “You’re here.”

Her eyebrows pulled together in worry. “You can’t stay somewhere for one person.”

“I can, and if you got a job in Victoria, I’d happily move there for you.”

“What about your family?”

“We’d visit.”

She glanced over at where they were setting up the screen, worry clouding her gaze. “You can’t last more than seven or eight months in one town.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

I rubbed my jaw, frowning down at the blanket. The time to tell her was now. “Before I ran into your dad. Your biological dad.”

Her gaze whipped to mine. “Cole?”

I nodded. “In Whistler. He lives there now. Runs a handyman business.”

She chewed her bottom lip, listening and watching with a wary expression. “I looked him up a few years ago.”

“You didn’t reach out?”

She shook her head.

“He has your eyes.”

She nodded, playing with a loose thread on the blanket. “I know. I remember.”

“Your laugh, too. Kind of quiet and sarcastic.”

Pain flashed across her expression and I had the urge to haul her into my chest. “Why are you telling me this?”

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