Finn didn’t have money. She didn’t have stability. She had a criminal record and debts, and her head sometimes threw the most amazing tantrums for no reason. She had love, though, and the ability to work her ass off. Maybe it could be enough.
“Whatever call you make,” Finn said, “I’ve got your back. If that means pitching in with baby care, fine. If you’re not ready to raise a kid yet, make the appointment and anybody who gives you flak about it can come talk to me. If you even want to tell anybody. Or if you do want to raise a kid, and you and I are together…”
Vivi made an I’m listening noise.
This was the kind of thinking about the future Finn would probably have preferred to keep inside, given her housing predicament, but it had nagged at her a bit last night in the dark. “I’d be interested in the situation with the other biological parent. I mean, I’m assuming it’s not somebody who would object to… two moms? If it works out.” Technically Finn thought she’d be a better dad type than a mom, but if she needed to gear up for bigotry, she’d better start now.
“He wouldn’t have a problem with it. I met him at this queer party Will took me to.”
Huh. Interesting. At lesbian parties she’d been to in her old life, Finn had been able to assume all the gals there were gal-inclined. Vivi would have gone to a queer party knowing at least some of the guys might be bi or pan, but not which ones. “How did you know he was…” She didn’t quite know how to phrase it. Orientationally compatible?
“He wore a Bi Pride flag as a dress.”
Fair enough. “What’s his name?”
“Vicente.”
A snicker got out. “Sorry, sorry, but Vivienne and Vicente is pretty adorable. Mexico’s pretty great, are you sure you don’t want to move there and see if y’all have something?”
“I like it here. And hey, shouldn’t you be at least a bit jealous talking about him?”
Finn winked. “I’ve never been much for jealousy. Anyway, you were in my bed last night, not his.”
Vivi grinned back, sly and satisfied. “More accurately, you were in mine.”
Also fair enough. Finn conceded the point with a satisfied nod and went back to her oatmeal.
Chapter Eleven
Finn frowned suspiciously at the iron. She’d set it for cotton. Her dress shirt was cotton. The shirt was still wrinkled.
“What’s wrong?” Hollis asked from where he sat on the couch with his e-reader.
“Nothing!” She would not be defeated by this hunk of metal and plastic.
Hollis scoffed and got up. He was moving better this morning. “Did you get the green spray bottle?”
“No, I used the sprayer built into the iron like normal people do.”
“Austin water is hard. The iron clogs up and not enough comes out. Go get it.”
Finn went back to the laundry room. The kids had all decamped to the park with their mom, each wearing several layers, which had required a twenty-five minute process of applying and sometimes reapplying said layers until all three children were fully dressed at the same time.
Finn was grateful for their absence. She hadn’t been excited by the prospect of answering seventeen thousand questions, not while she got ready. She didn’t know why (a) the sky was blue or (b) spiders didn’t grow to the size of people and eat everyone and start living in their houses, and she refused to research that second one right now.
By the time she got back, Hollis had the shirt draped differently, the corner of the ironing board poking into the top of the sleeve and other parts of the shirt folded all weird. Show-off.
“Let me do it,” she protested, but he waved her off. He wet the shirt with broad, precise strokes and brought the iron down again. It hissed, and Finn hoped Hollis knew what he was doing. It did seem unlikely he’d buy her a shirt and then scorch it. Although she did put his favorite set of D&D dice in the blender with half a cup of orange juice when she was eight years old and he was twelve. He could conceivably be playing a long game.
“You were out again last night,” he observed. “Everything okay?”
Finn felt slightly useless watching him work. “I texted you.” For reasons which she was trying not to think about so she didn’t blush. Blushing was the opposite of cool, composed, and mentally rehearsing answers to the twenty most commonly asked questions in interviews.
Hollis’s mouth quirked up. “You didn’t say from where.”
Back to this again? Honestly, Finn could tell him at this point, but it felt kind of nice to have something private for once. “Things are looking favorable in that department,” she allowed.
Hollis repositioned the shirt. It was considerably less wrinkled already and Finn didn’t see any burn marks. “You want Great-Aunt Geraldine’s ring? It’s just sitting around in my dresser.”
If he wasn’t recently injured and also holding a hot piece of metal, Finn would have shoved him. “Enough, boyo. I may be a lesbian but I do know how to date someone without—”
Hollis cut her off with a peal of laughter at getting her good. He shook so hard with it he had to put the iron down. Finn stood there and listened, her heart melting or blooming or possibly visibly glowing in her chest. She hadn’t heard him laugh since his accident. Not this laugh, not any other all-out laugh. She’d missed it so damn much.
When Hollis had entertained himself sufficiently with his own wit, he picked up the iron again and went to work on the shirt’s back. “I’d never heard you sound the way you did in those letters. The ring’s there if you need it, however; not like I’ll be using it anytime this decade. And don’t worry about me and Ilsa if you want to move on, we’ll manage.”
Finn wasn’t entirely sure that was true. The number of kid-generated messes per square foot here was formidable, and Hollis wasn’t back to driving. Yet Ilsa might want privacy and to find a new normal more than she wanted the housekeeping.
“I won’t overstay my welcome,” Finn promised.
Hollis picked up the iron and eyed her suspiciously. “Did Ilsa say something?”
“No,” Finn replied honestly.
“Mom?”
Finn’s lying face didn’t work.
“Dammit,” Hollis hissed, going back to the ironing, a little more forcefully now. “I told her not to mention it. We were just brainstorming.”
Finn’s breath caught. It was true. “When does Ilsa want me out by? I’ll make it happen.” Waco to Austin and back wasn’t usually so bad on the highway unless there was construction. There was probably a bus. She could keep interviewing in town.
“Ilsa hasn’t been the only adult in her own house since I got out of the rehabilitation place,” Hollis said with a sigh. “She’s terrified about keeping up with everything once she’s alone, but also desperate for privacy to start dealing with her new reality. Honestly I think she’d pick you over me since you’re completely self-sufficient and can do more chores. I have friends I could stay with here in town, though, who won’t try to drive the devil out of me.”
Finn had nowhere else. Her circle of friends in Fort Worth had been falling apart before she got arrested anyway, with people moving away and breaking up and whatnot. Then she’d been gone for years. Ilsa must know, and she felt trapped into letting Finn stay.