And aim.
As the door opens, her dirty shoes come to view first, then her tight jeans hugging her body, settling low around her hips. The rain has plastered her shirt against her, emphasizing the curves of her small tits.
And then the smile on her face shows, nearly bowling me over with how beautiful she is. When she sees I’m aiming a gun at her, the smile fades away, and she holds up her hands. The rain is coming down, drenching her from head to toe, and I hate that I can’t stop looking at her. I should be thankful I never sent some of the photos I wanted to.
I would be in jail.
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask her and when she takes step forward, I cock the gun. “Don’t move. Was this a set up? Who are you, and why are you here?” What if Finley was never real? What if I was supposed to be set up by someone so I would get sent back to prison? I fucking knew that dating app was a bad move. I knew it because if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
“Please, we have a lot to talk about. Don’t shoot me. I can’t apologize enough for lying about my age. Can we talk? That’s all I’m asking for, Isaac.” The way she says my middle name, throwing my own lie back at me, almost has my finger pulling the trigger.
“Don’t even try to compare our lies. Isaac is my middle name, and Gray is part of my first. The only liar here is you.”
“Is that so? Officer Howard said you boys shave a sketchy past? Is that why you asked me about a set up? What did you do that was so bad?” She takes another step forward, but I take a step back into the house with Jaxon, who is sitting by the table, pretending to drink his coffee and read a magazine.
Finley wrings out her hair before she walks through the door. “Wow, you have a beautiful home.”
“Cut the shit,” I say, still pointing the gun at her. “Who the hell are you? How old are you?”
“I’m eighteen,” she says.
“Eighteen,” I repeat as if I don’t hear here. Jaxon chokes on his coffee and turns red in the face as he coughs.
“Went down the wrong way,”
“How long have you been eighteen?” Please say since a few weeks ago. Please.
“Um, today.”
Jaxon spews his coffee, and my arm falls to my side. “You were seventeen when we were talking? Seventeen? Are you fucking kidding me?” I slam the gun down on the table and point to her. “See her, Jaxon, that’s the girl I met on a dating site. I didn’t tell you about the dating site because this was the shit I was afraid of. God, Finley. How could you do that to me? Do you know how much you could have ruined me?”
“We didn’t say anything inappropriate.” She shuffles her weight on her feet, which has the light casting down on her face differently than before.
Bruises are scattered everywhere. Her arms, neck, all over her face, and who knows where else. “Who did that to you? What happened?”
“Do you really care?”
“I care about an innocent girl getting hurt when she shouldn’t have been. God, fuck! If the cops found this out, Jaxon, I’d be fucked. They would take Dillion away. You—” I point to her and make my tone sound as mean and hateful as I can. “You stay the fuck away from me. I can’t believe this. You said you were twenty-six. I should have known.”
“Grayson…” She reaches out for me, but I pull out of her grasp.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.” I run my hands over my face, lost, completely stunned, and wishing this was all a dream. When I will wake up, this nightmare will be over.
“We didn’t say anything that friends wouldn’t talk about, Grayson.”
“Friends? Jesus, you are young. It doesn’t fucking matter if we talked about rainbows and kittens. I’m thirty-two. You are seventeen—”
“I’m eighteen.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to not pick up the gun and put a bullet between her eyes. I hate people who lie to me. I hate people who lead me on. “I don’t give a fuck.” I must have been louder than I thought because Heaven comes hopping along from the hallway with Owen. The only person here not to witness my humiliation is Sebastian.
“What the hell is the ruckus about?” Heaven trips while dragging his leg, and Owen catches him before his face hits the edge of the counter.
“You need to come with hazard pay with how many times I’ve saved your ass,” Owen stretches, and his shoulder pops into place. His eyes roll back in pleasure. “Oh, fuck yes.”
“I’m the one who needs hazard pay. I’m the one who keeps falling.”
“You’re the one with a Cheeto in your cast?” Finley asks Heaven, grinning wide as if there isn’t a problem in the world.
I step in front of her so she can’t see Heaven and point toward the door. Her face is a black and bruised mess. Her bottom lip is busted, and there’s a handprint around her neck. Her arms have finger bruises all over them along with a few scratch marks. It looks like she fought for her life.
I can’t care about that. I can’t care about the reasons why she lied to me. It was wrong. I’m lucky I used my fucking head and only kept it casual when we were talking because I’d be screwed. “You need to leave now.” I twist the knob and open the door for her. “Go back to wherever the fuck you came from, even if it is Virginia, and never speak to me again; do you understand?”
“Woah, Grayson. Why are being like this?” Heaven asks. “Who is she?”
“I’m Finley!” she says all peppy like she had a boat load of sugar.
“Fin…” Heaven’s eyes round. “Oh, shit. Finley, Finley? That Finley, Grayson?”
Her eyes cut to me, and she has a satisfied expression on her face. “Were you talking about me?”
“Only because I got caught talking to you, and these assholes don’t know how to keep their noses out of other people’s business,” I sneer at them. “And I didn’t talk about you. I said we were just friends.”
“How old are you?” Heaven starts to catch on. “I thought you said she was twenty-six.”
“Yeah, she lied.”
Jaxon tosses the paper towels in the trash that he used to clean up the coffee he spewed all over the table. “They didn’t meet at the Lighthouse Grill. They met on a dating site. She lied about her age. She’s eighteen,” Jaxon tries to hide his amusement, but I’m not finding anything in his interaction funny.
“Okay?” Heaven drawls out the word as a question. “So what’s the problem? She’s legal. Should she have lied? No.”
“She’s eighteen today,” I say as slow and angrily as I can, so he knows just how fucking mad I am about it.
“Oh, shit,” Heaven says when the lightbulb finally goes off.
Yeah, everyone here knows how big of a deal that is for me. “Listen,” I keep the door open and place my hands on my hips. She looks hopeful. Her big green eyes are staring at me like I’ve hung the moon. There’s no doubt she’s gorgeous, and thinking that makes me feel dirty. She’s too young for me. “I don’t know how you found out where I live, and I’m sorry you stopped here to see me on your travels, but if I would have known all this before, I would have told you not to come. I’m sure you’re a sweet girl, but you don’t have a place here. Okay? I don’t like liars. I don’t like people who pretend to be something they aren’t. I don’t like being led on. Being deceived is something I can never forgive for. Please, Finley. Go.” I point to the door again, but she just stands there.