"I knew your father," she agreed, nodding.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Finch said, tone guarded.
"Chris, how do you know Finch?"
"Oh, it was quite serendipitous," Finch piped up for me. "I happened to be renting the place next to Vance and Ferryn when I first moved into town."
"And you two have become..." my Mom trailed off, looking for the best word, knowing I was the sort to bristle to the wrong one on occasion.
"The best of friends," Finch declared, dropping an arm playfully around my shoulders.
Something amazing happened.
I didn't flinch.
I didn't yank immediately away.
If anything, I leaned into it.
It sounded impossible. If you had told me just two moments before, I would have said it couldn't happen.
But it could.
It did.
"I can see that," my mom said, eyes even more curious than before as they traveled along Finch's arm, taking in where it connected with my body.
"And what's with the face paint?" she asked, nodding to Finch's cuts and blood.
"Oh, just taking down a bully. Saving the day. Being a knight in shining armor and shit," he told her, losing some of his tension.
"Not a great training day, huh?" Mom asked, eyes knowing. I struggled with a lot of the men who she employed. But Jake most of all. Because he reminded me of someone. Because when I sparred with him, it sometimes got hard separating the past and the present. Because Jake didn't seem to care about being careful with me.
"It's not the worst one we've had," I admitted, shrugging.
To that, she nodded, letting it drop. "So where are you two kids heading?" she asked, and I was pretty sure she had been waiting years to be able to say such a mom thing to me.
"Well, we are supposed to be going to grab coffee and take a drive down by the ocean," Finch said. "But, apparently, this goddess here wants to play nursemaid first."
"That cut by your eye needs butterfly sutures at least," Mom informed him. "There are some in the locker room," she added, nodding her chin toward the back doorway. "Nice seeing you again, Finch. Make sure you keep those cuts clean," she told him, walking off into her office.
It wasn't over, of course.
She would bring this up to me as soon as possible.
For the first time ever, I was starting to regret not getting my own place outside of Hailstorm. I would never be able to avoid her there. And, clearly, I needed to avoid that conversation. At least until I could wrap my head around it. Maybe fall onto my therapist's couch about it.
"Come on," I urged him, ducking down to slip under his arm, making my way ahead of him, trying to ignore the way I missed the weight on my shoulders, and the a surge of disappointment coursing through my system. "Sit here," I demanded, slipping back behind my defenses as we made our way into the small first aid and locker room that that led off into two separate locker rooms for men and women.
There was an emergency kit in the first locker, one without a door.
I reached inside, grabbing everything I would need, then making my way back to Finch who had tossed out the lollipop stick, and was watching me as I moved around.
"I know, I know," he said as I soaked a cotton pad in alcohol. "This is going to sting."
But he hardly let out a hiss as I quickly mopped up the rapidly drying blood on his lip, then made my way up, doing the best I could with his eye seeing as it was still bleeding, very much needing the sutures my mother had mentioned.
"Alright. Those will hold. Let me just clean this up a little more," I told him after sticking them in place, feeling Finch's fingertips gently resting on my hip.
I didn't brush them away as I swiped the last traces of blood off his face.
"What? No kiss to make it better?" he teased, smile light and warm, eyes dancing.
He didn't say it to prompt me to do it. I felt I knew him well enough at this point to tell. And maybe that was precisely why I felt myself lean forward. Why I didn't give it a second thought as my lips pressed beside the suture by his eye.
His gaze was on mine, intense, as I pulled back slightly.
There was a tight feeling in my chest as the urge suddenly overtook me--foreign, a little scary, but undeniable.
My head shifted downward, eyelids fluttering closed as I pressed a kiss to the very outside of his lips near the split.
I couldn't have been prepared for the impact of it.
I mean, how could I?
The jumping pulse, the flip-flopping belly, the light, floating sensation in my chest, the intense aching between my thighs.
At that realization, I jerked away, stood back straight, gaze down on Finch. And his eyes were looking at me. Intense. Curious. Fiery.
"Well," he said, a bit awkwardly--if a man like him could ever be referred to as 'awkward'--and clearing his throat. "I feel all better now. We ready for coffee and intimidation?"
"I, ah, I need to change," I informed him, tripping over his foot in my rush to grab my bag out of my locker and get into the women's locker room where I went into a small changing room, pressing my back against the wall, sliding down until my knees pressed to my chest.
What the hell was that?
Even with distance, I could feel an almost oppressive weight on my lower belly, a longing sensation I had been one-hundred-percent certain I wasn't even remotely capable of.
Because there was no denying it, was there?
This was attraction.
This was wanting.
I wanted Finch.
It was hard for my brain even to wrap itself around the idea, let alone the reality.
See, the thing is--I had put in the work.
No one would ever say that I had just chosen to keep a stiff upper lip about it and move on, that I had buried all the trauma, that I had denied it.
I spent more hours than I cared to count those first few years on the couch of a trusted therapist. I'd done the journaling until I developed carpal tunnel. I'd done the talking until my throat hurt. I'd suffered through the anxiety of exposure therapy. I learned healthy coping mechanisms. I tried different medications.
I put in the goddamn work.
But nothing took away 'the flinch' as my therapist and I had started referring to it. Because that was how it started. A man would get too close, reach out and touch me, and I would flinch.
From there, it often spiraled. If the man couldn't take a hint, I would shut down, curl into myself much like I had done in that basement, in those rooms above it. If he did take a hint, the results weren't much better. I would berate myself for days for not getting better, for not being able to get past it. The anxiety would come. It would bring its buddy depression to the pity party. And then the nightmares would make sleep impossible, leaving me a walking zombie until we got control over it again.
The flinch was a part of my life. It was something that, while I would never be able to fully accept it, I could let myself move past it.
Until the next time.
Because I always, always flinched.
Except, now, when I didn't.
With Finch.
Uncertainty was a rope around my neck, tightening by the second as I sat there with my mind racing.
Finally, remembering myself, I took a few deep breaths, grabbed my phone, shot off a text to my therapist for an extra appointment this week.