“Promise me you’ll meet them soon?” Vivi asked. “Allie and Matt, and my stepmom? She’s going to love you, I promise. She loves people with a sense of humor. I don’t know what to do about my dad. You have your mom, so you get it, right?”
“I’ll meet whoever you want me to meet. Looking forward to it.”
Vivi tried to say something else, but lost it in a yawn.
Finn squeezed her hand. “Go take a nap, sweetheart.”
“You’ll be here when I wake up?”
“Of course.” Where else would she rather be?
Vivi got to her feet, but stopped, her eyes going wide. “Oh wow. It’s New Year’s Eve. Are we doing anything? Do you usually do anything, do you have any traditions? I mean, did you before?”
Before being locked up. Before getting herself stuck in a miserable, scary place, where she had met Vivi. Would Finn go back and do crime and incarceration over again to make that happen? It depended on how time travel worked. If her rerouted self would never know what she missed, maybe. If she’d wake up every morning thinking she could have had Vivi, no way.
“I’ve never been in the habit of going out on New Year’s Eve,” Finn confessed. “Too many drunk drivers and whatever. We could do something here.” An idea struck her. “Hey, did you ever watch The Legend of Korra after Avatar? I’ve heard positive things about it.”
Vivi covered her mouth with both hands.
Oh no. “What? Is it bad?”
Vivi dropped her hands enough to speak. “I never finished Avatar.”
That was insupportable. “Vivienne Curiel, I love you but I am appalled by your behavior.”
“I’m sorry!” Vivi waved her hands helplessly. “It made me too sad to watch it when I couldn’t talk to you about it!”
Was this how Vivi would get out of trouble in the future? Be all cute and tug on Finn’s heartstrings?
Finn could easily live with it.
“Go sleep,” she said. “When you get up, we’ll have dinner and an Avatar marathon.”
Vivi beamed. “If I fall asleep before midnight, you’ll wake me up, right? Promise? I want to do the kiss when the clock strikes thing.”
Finn could live with that too.
Chapter Fourteen
“Vee? Wake up, honey.” Finn hated to rouse her. Vivi had only made it through three episodes after dinner before she’d dozed off again, tucked into Finn’s side, her body growing heavier and heavier as she relaxed and drifted into sleep.
Now she stirred on Finn’s shoulder and made a tiny, adorable noise of protest.
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Finn whispered, “and it’s two minutes to midnight.”
Vivi jumped and shook herself a little. “What? That’s not— I need to brush my teeth!” She scrambled up and out from under the blanket Finn had draped across her and dashed for the bathroom.
Finn simply took a sip of water. They’d eaten plain pasta and a side of chickpeas for dinner, after all, and she hadn’t been the one asleep.
When Vivi raced back out to the couch and sat down, Finn smelled her raspberry icing lip balm again. She held up Vivi’s phone. “Ten,” she said, reading from the countdown clock Vivi had installed during dinner.
“Nine,” Vivi said. “Eight. Seven.”
“Six.” Finn imagined kissing her. “Five. Four. Three.”
“Two.” Vivi leaned closer. “One.”
As the countdown app played the first few notes of Auld Lang Syne and Finn heard someone setting off firecrackers outside, she and Vivi kissed. It was soft and cute, and Vivi giggled against Finn’s mouth. Finn found she quite liked the sensation.
“I love you,” Vivi whispered as she pulled back. Finn chased her for one more kiss, and another, and Vivi laughed again and gave them to her, until it was pretty clear they’d end up somewhere other than on the couch. Or not. Either way.
Vivi’s phone rang.
They both startled and looked to where Finn had laid it on the coffee table. Then Finn turned back to Vivi, confused. Who the heck would call after midnight on New Year’s Eve? Unless it was an emergency.
Vivi reached for the phone, but Finn was quicker in handing it to her. As it rang the second time, Vivi said, “It’s Alicia,” before answering. “Allie, are you okay?”
The voice on the other end was loud enough for Finn to hear the words. “Happy New Yeaaaaarrrr! You are such a good sister. Matt! She is such a good sister, tell her!”
The male voice was more indistinct at first, but definitely laughter. It got more clear, as if maybe Matt had grabbed the phone. “Sorry Vivi! She’s completely trashed, it’s hilarious.”
Vivi stared at Finn while she pulled the phone further from her ear, her eyes wide with either shock or horror. Finn did her best to keep a straight face. She had agreed to meet Alicia and Matt. She simply hadn’t anticipated it would happen so soon and under such circumstances. If there was a more opposite experience from meeting Nora than this, Finn couldn’t imagine it.
Alicia was lodging some kind of objection in the background, and suddenly there was a noise and Matt yelled. Then there was a scuffling sound as if the phone had been dropped.
Vivi covered the speaker as peals of laughter from both her sister and her sister’s partner erupted from her phone. “I am so, so sorry. They are not normally like this. I mean, they go to parties and they drink, but wow.”
Finn covered her mouth to hide how much she was about to crack up.
“Sorry,” Matt said, somewhat breathless. “She knocked over a glass of ice water in my lap. No, Allie, let go, we’re going to hang up n—”
“Heyyyy!” Alicia objected. She’d gotten the phone back or at least gotten her mouth near it. She spoke in an exaggerated hush like she thought she was being sneaky. “Vivi, I met this hot woman earlier, and she and her special person do the open thing too, and I’m totally gonna do her next weekend. I’m gonna go over to her apartment and take all my clothes off and it’s gonna be awesome.”
Even if someone had offered to pay her enough to send Vivi’s baby to Harvard for four years, Finn could not have held back from busting out laughing. Vivi covered her face with her free hand.
“Who’s that?” Alicia yelled enthusiastically, and Vivi flinched away from the phone. “Your hot butch girlfriend? Finn? Hi Finn! Vivi got so drunk after she got fired and she couldn’t stop talking about you, did she tell you?”
Vivi dropped her hand, and Finn could tell horror was overcoming shock. “Matt?” Vivi called. “Where are you?”
“At a friend’s house,” Matt said reassuringly in the background. “It’s okay, she’s not taking her clothes off with anybody tonight. I’ve only had a couple of mimosas and they took everyone’s keys when we got here anyway. We’re staying over. Love you, talk to you tomorrow.”
“I love you too,” Alicia said more loudly, her words falling over each other now. “I love you so much Vivienne, and Finn the hot butch girlfriend I know I’m going to love you too, but not as much as my sisters because sisters are for life!”