Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling #2)

6. Grey

Finley stiffens against me for a long moment. I’m sure she’s going to get up, ask me what the hell I’m doing, then kick me in the balls. A heavy exhale saws out of me when she relaxes, the stiffness in her shoulders melting into my chest. We fit together perfectly, just like we did that night in her bed. I equally love and hate how right this feels.

“What’s going on here?” Wren asks in a saccharine sweet voice, watching us with wide, excited eyes.

Finley chances a glance in Gus’s direction, and I know when I feel her tense against me for another second that he’s still there. “Gus and Eloise are here.”

Wren’s face softens into something like concern, and I wonder how much she knows about the breakup, about how Finley has been doing since. The two of them have gotten close since Wren and Holden started dating two years ago. And after the breakup and wedding, I know Wren and Finley spent even more time together. I’ve always wondered if Finley told Wren about that night, and I wonder how much of it she remembers. If it was as important to her as it was to me.

I shake myself out of the thoughts, loosening my grip on Finley when her hand lands on where mine is pressed to her stomach. I hadn’t realized I’d tensed up, that I’d unintentionally pulled her closer while I zoned out. But she doesn’t seem to be paying attention to it. She just placed her palm over the back of my hand while talking to Wren, keeping it there until the tension melted out of me.

When my shoulders relax against the back of the chair once more, she flashes me a look over her shoulder, eyebrow raised as if to question if I’m all right. It feels so real that it makes my throat burn. As much as we pick on and tease each other, there’s an understanding there, buried deep, that we will always have each other’s backs. Friends , I think, though the word tastes sour.

My chin dips in a nod, and she takes a sip of her drink, tongue darting out to catch the salt on the rim. I have to look away.

I scan Matty’s. The band is still playing on the stage in the corner, and there’s a group of people making the scant space in front of it into a dance floor, bumping into each other and moving on the single floor tile they each have to stand on. All the tables are taken, and I even see a few people sitting on top of them since there aren’t enough chairs. I hope Finley doesn’t take their idea. She feels good here—right.

I glance back up at her, and her whiskey-colored eyes are already focused on me, a divot between her eyebrows. There’s flaky salt on the corner of her lip, and before I can think better of it, I reach up, swiping it away with my thumb.

“Salt,” I say, and she opens her mouth to respond, but stops short when I lick it from the tip of my thumb.

Something in her eyes changes then, going hot and dark all at once. Whiskey in the fire, making it flare brighter.

“Oh my goodness!” someone yells directly into our ears. Our gazes snap apart, focusing on the woman standing close enough that I can count the freckles on her cheeks. She’s familiar, someone from Finley’s graduating class, but I can’t recall her name or anything about her.

“Sarah,” Finley says, a fake smile affixed to her face. “How good to see you.” To anyone else, this would sound sincere, but to me, this sounds more like I would rather be seeing anyone else right now .

“I cannot believe y’all are together!” Sarah fairly shouts again. I can already tell she’s one of those people who only speaks in exclamation points.

Finley’s smile wobbles at the edges, taking effort to stay in place.

Sarah looks between us, and at the incredulity in her expression, my hand flares wider, splaying out just shy of indecent over Finley’s stomach. “You always had such a crush on him in high school,” Sarah says, tracking the movement, and I go still.

“Yes, well, I’m proof that dreams do come true, I guess,” Finley says. “Speaking of, how’s your MLM going?”

Sarah’s face brightens, not sensing the jab. Finley is like that. She’s so kind, so bubbly and light, that even her insults come off like compliments. At least, to everyone but me. To me, she’s openly hostile, but I prefer it that way. It may drive me crazy that she always thinks the worst of me, but at least she’s open about it. At least she feels comfortable enough to call me out on my bullshit.

“It’s great,” Sarah says. Her voice is high-pitched, grating. “I’m so close to leveling up. Only three more levels before I qualify for the Milwaukee trip.”

“Milwaukee?” Finley asks with a tilt of her head. It sends her bob of blonde hair into my face, a wave of her floral perfume with it.

Sarah’s smile stretches farther. “It’s where the headquarters are. I’ll get to see the fit tea being made.”

“Fascinating,” I say, and I feel Finley jerk against me. When I glance in her direction, her smile has rolled inward, holding back a laugh.

“It really is,” Sarah says, nodding, thrilled to have finally found a captive audience somewhere other than her stay-at-home moms group. She looks from me to Finley. “Still not interested in joining? It’s really great for weight loss.”

She says this so pointedly that I watch the smile fall from Finley’s lips. It makes everything inside me pull taut, and anger courses through my veins.

Without thinking too much, I trail my nose along the slope of her neck, so close I barely have to move, just a tilt of my head. I speak directly into her skin, loud enough for Sarah to hear and Finley to feel. “I think Fin’s perfect just the way she is.”

I linger at the juncture of Finley’s neck and shoulder for just a moment, reveling in the way goose bumps break out over her skin. When I finally look back up at Sarah, her face is flushed.

“Of course.” She says this in the way of someone desperate to backtrack. “But guys never understand that no matter how thin a woman looks, she always wants to lose a little more.” She looks at Finley for confirmation. “Right, Finley?”

“Sarah.” Wren interrupts the conversation. “How is Bayleigh?”

“Bayleigh?” I ask Finley when Sarah turns her attention to Wren. Holden is staring off into space, clearly trying to avoid conversation with Sarah. He’s probably trying to calculate how long he has to stay here before he can whisk Wren back home. I give him another twenty minutes, tops.

Finley shifts in my lap, turning her body to face me more. “Her daughter. She’s in June’s class.”

“Ah,” I say, searching her expression. She doesn’t look hurt by what Sarah says, and it relaxes something inside me. I nod in Sarah’s direction. She’s still deep in conversation with Wren about dance classes. “Great girl.”

A smile twitches at the corners of Finley’s mouth. “Oh, the best. Did you know I could join her company for just the cost of a cup of coffee a day?”

“What a steal,” I respond brightly.

“The products cost the same amount as my rent, but it seems worth it to have a slightly smaller ass, don’t you think?”

“I like your ass,” I say before I can think better of it.

Thankfully, a laugh rockets out of her. “You like everyone’s ass.”

“Holden’s especially.”

Holden turns at the sound of his name, but it’s too loud in here for him to hear our conversation, so he returns to staring at a point on the wall.

“I’m surprised she believed the rumors,” she says.

“She probably wouldn’t have, but you are sitting on my lap.”

She waves me off. “I do this with all my friends.”

I lean into her space a little, desperate to know the answer to something Sarah said. “Plus, you apparently had the biggest crush on me in high school.”

She stares at me for a long moment, and I see pink forming on her cheeks, twin cherries I want to taste. “Yes, well, I did until you called me annoying.”

I roll my eyes. “So you would have been madly in love with me until this day if that hadn’t happened?”

It’s her turn for her to roll her eyes. “Gosh, no. That’s when you started your serial dating. I could never be with a player.”

It’s true—Holden had caught me staring at Finley one too many times that summer and had asked if I liked his sister. I lied to his face and said no, that she was like an annoying little sister to me. Finley had overheard, and she still gave me shit about it to this day. I’d spent the next fifteen years trying to get her out of my head. At first, I was dating to date, working to think of someone other than my best friend’s little sister. But then, as I got older, it changed. She was still there in the back of my mind, and I wanted—needed—to find someone to kick her out. I needed to find my person, the one I’d be with for the rest of my life, my partner. I needed to find someone who wasn’t her .

And because of that, Finley would never feel anything for me. I’d put my shovel to the ground at nineteen and spent the better part of a decade and a half digging my own grave. It’s why I need to leave town, to get away from her and whatever spell she’s cast on me. I won’t ever move past her when she’s there at the end of my dates, at family dinner, at my best friend’s house, or on the street.

I can’t keep doing this to myself.

“I’m thinking about moving to Maine,” I pant on Monday morning.

Holden stops on the street next to me, his arms hanging by his sides, brow scrunched in question. I prop my hands on my hips, breathing hard. We’re on mile three of our five-mile run, and I’m not sure what prompted me to spit this out right now, but the weight that was building in my chest seems to ease now that I’ve said it.

“You’re what?” Holden asks.

I let out a shaky breath, hoping he takes it as overexertion and not nervousness. “Charlie called me last week. He said there’s going to be a job opening at his station in a few months. He wants me to come out on Labor Day weekend and see the town, meet the guys at the station. See if it’s a place I’d like living.”

Holden watches me for a long moment. His eyes, so much like Finley’s and Jodi’s, are unreadable. “And you’re considering it.”

“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “I think so.”

“You’d just leave everyone here?”

His words are a stab to my sternum, because the truth of the matter is that I wouldn’t be leaving much behind. Sure, there’s him and his family, my aunt, and even my parents. But I don’t have what he has. I don’t have a wife and kids. I have a home, but it’s empty. I’ve hardly even decorated it, because I want to find someone to do it with me.

“It hasn’t been any easy decision,” I respond. It feels like a lie, because as soon as Charlie mentioned it, it was like a lifeline, something that seemed as easy as breathing to latch on to. “I haven’t even made a decision. But I’m considering it.”

Holden holds my gaze for a long moment, searching, and finally nods. I don’t know if he found what he was looking for, but he doesn’t say anything else, just picks up his pace, and I follow, trying to catch up to him.

“Where in Maine?” he asks eventually, running slow enough to keep up conversation.

“Little beach town outside of Portland.”

He glances in my direction out of the corner of his eye. “You told anyone else yet?”

I shake my head, staring ahead. I don’t know who to tell, really. My parents would be upset about losing their buffer, to have to be alone with each other. Aunt Missy would probably cry, but she’d tell me to go if it’s what I want, so I don’t think I’ll bring it up to her until I’ve made a decision. Jodi can’t keep a secret to save her life. And then there’s Finley. I wonder how she would feel to know I could be leaving.

“Thanks for telling me,” Holden finally says. I chance a glance in his direction. He’s looking forward again, but there’s something in his expression that looks like sadness.

I would be sad to leave Holden, my best friend. He’s probably the only person other than my aunt and Charlie who knows most of my family dynamics, who knows that despite my reputation, I’m really just looking for someone to share my life with. That I’ve gone so long without finding it that I’m starting to lose hope.

I know that I won’t find another friend like him.

“You’re having another kid,” I say, changing the subject, and just like I hoped, it makes a tiny smile tug at the corner of his mouth. On Holden, that’s basically a glowing billboard proclaiming his happiness.

“Yeah, I am.”

“How did that happen?”

He slants a look in my direction. “Well, Grey, I thought you knew how this worked, but when a man and a woman really love each other—”

“I mean,” I cut him off, my breath sawing out of me from exertion. “Were you trying, or was it a surprise?”

Another twitch of his lips. “Surprise. The best kind.”

I don’t have to ask if he’s happy about it; it’s written all over his face. Two years ago, I would have sworn my best friend would never marry again. His ex had done a number on him, and he’d sunk all his time and energy into single parenting, leaving no room for anything else. But Wren had been good for him, and although their relationship isn’t effortless, they seem to fit in a way that feels easy.

I want that.

We’re quiet until we stop in front of Holden’s house. Wren used to live in the one next door, but she finally sold it before the wedding, and the two of them are living in Holden’s house until the cabin they’re building in the woods is finished. They’ve been working on it for close to a year. It’s slow moving, but they don’t seem to mind.

“Want to come inside?” Holden asks, nodding in the direction of his house. I can see Wren and June through the windows, making breakfast.

I shake my head, using my forearm to wipe at the sweat beading on my brow. “I have to work today.”

“Ah,” he responds, nodding. “So no run tomorrow?”

Since my shifts are twenty-four hours, we never run the mornings after I get off work. I’m usually able to sleep on shift, but it’s always fitful, and there are always things to be done at the station, so I’m never as rested as a night spent in my bed at home.

“Wednesday,” I tell him.

His chin dips in acknowledgment, and I think he’s going to head inside, but at the last second, he turns back to face me. “You know I love having you here, but if you want to go to Maine, I’ll be happy for you.”

“Thanks, Holden,” I say, and he heads into the house, to his family.

Maybe mine is in Maine.