Her molars locked. “You make me sound like a heifer.”
He made a sound in his throat and drew back. “No. You picture yourself that way. All I was trying to do was get you to go grab a burger with me. You totally mistook my meaning.”
She stilled. “You were going to ask me out to eat?”
“Yeah, but I’m not down with rabbit food, so only if I could convince you to have some red meat.”
She sucked in a slow breath and mentally called herself a million names. Not one of them nice. “Sorry. I thought…”
“I know what you thought. Look, I like you. I’d like to be friends. Try not to be so defensive. I’m not a mean guy.”
No, he wasn’t. Friends. That’s how he saw her. Sure, she could spend days looking at him. He was gorgeous. But he only saw her as a friend, like one of the guys. It wasn’t like she could afford to be picky. At the moment she had no friends. Finnegan was it. “Sorry,” she repeated.
“Stop apologizing. Here, I’ll help you fold.”
He lifted the laundry out of the dryer next to the one she’d just loaded and she abandoned the wet clothes she was handling. Her hand snatched back the stuff he’d grabbed. “No!”
“Why?”
“My…private things are in there.”
“Ah, some of those sexy granny panty unmentionables you told me about?”
“I should have never told you that stuff.”
He laughed and checked her with his hip. “Nah, I’m glad you did. You weren’t lying about the magic spot.”
Ugh, images of Finnegan necking with Erin bombarded her mind. “Ew.”
He chuckled.
They stayed at the Laundromat for another hour waiting for her things to dry. When everything was folded, he helped her carry her clothes home. Mallory slowly forced herself to stop seeing Finnegan as anything more than a friend.
He was fun and made her laugh and she enjoyed his company. He also had a girlfriend and that made him off-limits. There was also the fact that she wasn’t his type, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Once inside her apartment she awkwardly tucked her laundry in the bedroom and shut the door.
“You’re place is nice.”
“Thanks. It’s small, but I like it.”
He went to the fridge and started rummaging around. “Can I eat this yogurt?”
“Um, sure…” He sure made himself at home.
The air from the window unit pumped into the living room and cooled her skin. Her hair was flat because she didn’t dry it. Her instinct was to pretty herself up in any guy’s presence, but if they were just friends, why bother? It was sort of refreshing to not have to give a shit.
“When are you going to O’Malley’s?”
“When are we going, you mean? I don’t know. Not until later. Wanna watch a movie?”
“Sure.”
He plopped down on her couch, his long legs stretching out. He was so damn tall. “You can go on Netflix and pick something. The remotes in the drawer.”
He shifted around and grabbed the remote. “Do you like scary movies?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, Philly, where’s your adventurous side?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Pussy.”
She stilled and slowly pivoted to face him. “Did you just call me a pussy?”
His broad shoulder lifted. “Watch something scary and prove me wrong.”
“Don’t be a tit. I’m not going to be bullied into something I don’t want to do.”
He laughed. “A tit? A tit? That’s a new one. Come on, watch a scary movie with me.”
She grabbed a yogurt and a spoon. “Jesus, you’re needy. Fine. But when I have nightmares I’m calling your ass at one in the morning.”
He grinned and scooted over. After he selected a film, he settled in and peeled back the lid to his yogurt. The credits opened and already she was nervous. There was a doll with no eyes sitting on a windowsill while a little girl swung on a swing and sang—her voice just the right amount of eerie and empty. The movie abruptly stopped.
“Okay, what the fuck am I eating, because it’s not yogurt?”
She frowned and swallowed the spoonful in her mouth. “Yes it is.”
“No it’s not. I like yogurt. This disgusting sludge I definitely do not like.”
“It’s probiotic.”
“Probi-what?”
“Biotic. It has microorganisms—”
“Okay, we’re ordering pizza.” He stood and dug out his phone. He was dialing before she could get out another word. He ordered a large plain and demanded her address then hung up and snatched her yogurt out of her hands.
“Hey, I was eating that.”
“Not anymore.” He faced her. “Philly, do you know what a microorganism is?”
“Yes. They fight bacteria—”
“They’re bugs. Little microscopic bug-like things that belong on a slide in a lab, not in your stomach.”
“It’s good for you.”
“So is pizza.”
“No it’s not.”
“Sure it is. There’s tomatoes, dairy, grains…it’s got three of your basic food groups.”
“I can’t eat pizza. I’m on a—”
He held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. You can and will eat pizza because we’re watching a movie and going drinking later and you can’t go drinking on an empty stomach. So suck it up. I’m not making you eat the whole pie. Just have a slice or two, but I need real food, not bug-gurt.”
Pizza did sound delicious. She hadn’t had any in months. Maybe just a slice. That was it. She’d have one slice and that would be her dinner.
Argument over, Finnegan picked up the remote, and started the movie. Mallory settled into the corner of the couch and, while the movie drew her attention, the fact that there was a six-foot man in her home distracted her more.
She’d grown up with guy friends. It wasn’t a novel experience being around men. But there was something inherently different about being there with Finnegan, on her couch, in her home, as the sun slowly faded into golden shadows filtered through the curtains, playing over his tanned skin and yummy, supermodel stubble. She should turn on a lamp.
While her head remained turned to the screen where a mother screamed and a father stalked a house with a gun, her gaze kept drifting to the right. Her mind was very conscious of her stiff posture. Knowing they were just friends was not enough to let her fully exhale and slouch. Years of habitually sucking in around anything with a penis weren’t going to be rewritten simply because one guy declared a platonic truce.
When someone banged on the door she jumped. Finnegan paused the movie on a startling frame of a little girl going through some sort of exorcism and stood to get the pizza. He had the delivery guy tipped and on his way before she could even get her purse.
“Plates?”
Mallory handed him two plates and a stack of napkins. He carried the steaming box to the coffee table and flipped back the lid. Sweet mother of cheese!
“Stop eye-fucking the pie and grab a plate,” he said, tearing off a stringy triangle.
She sat down and mumbled, “I wasn’t eye-fucking…”
He laughed and dropped a greasy slice onto her plate. She eyed the slice, knowing just one bite could be her downfall. Finnegan inhaled his first piece and tore off a second.
“You gonna eat, Philly?”
Hesitantly, she lifted the floppy slice, heavy with hot grease and cheese, and bit the tip. She moaned almost sexually as the warm tomato sauce and firm crust melted in her mouth and he laughed.
She didn’t just eat that pizza, she savored it, eyes closed, senses devouring everything down to the warm flavor on her tongue and the weight of the crust in her hand. It quite possibly could have been a sexual experience, handled with such reverent tenderness and hedonistic gratitude.
Her eyes flew open when her plate grew heavy. Finnegan tossed another slice on her plate and ripped off his thi
rd. Only a quarter of the pie remained in the box.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He shoveled a good four inches of folded pie in his mouth and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” he asked over a mouthful.
She placed her plate on the wax paper in the box and closed the lid. “I can’t have anymore.”
His brow lowered as he slowly chewed and studied her for a long moment. Once he swallowed, his Adam’s apple making a slow bob, he put his plate on the table and turned to face her with his arm resting carelessly over the back of the couch, his knee brushing her leg.
“What?” she asked, jerking her gaze to the floor.
“Why do girls diet?”
“Because being healthy is important.”
His lips pressed tight. “Yeah, but you are healthy. You run every day, your fridge is filled with rabbit food and bug-gurt, when’s enough, enough?”
It’ll never be enough. “I need to lose thirty pounds.” At least.
“Who says?”
“My doctor.”
“Why though? You’re not fat.”
She winced at his blunt use of the F-word. “Finnegan, there is an extreme difference between me and other girls. Don’t act like you don’t see it.”
When his focused gaze ran over her body, pausing at every bulge and curve, she’d wished she could retract the accusation. “But you don’t look bad.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled, her ears heating under his scrutiny.
“What happens when you lose thirty pounds? Do you eat like a normal person and stop running?” His tone was baiting.
“No. It’s a lifestyle choice, not a diet.”
He was quiet for a long moment and she fidgeted under his inspection. When he spoke his voice was gentle, as though she were something fragile that could break. “Who was mean to you, Philly?”
Her head snapped up. “What? No one.” Liar.
He eyed her skeptically. Faces from her past flitted through her mind. Taunting whispers of skinny cliques sniggering behind her back but within earshot. The dress rehearsal during high school when her costume barely covered her butt and she pretended to have Mono the entire week of the play so she didn’t have to wear it. The uncountable guys in college who were offended she’d even think she had a right to bat her eyes in their direction. The way her aunts made comments about how she had such a great personality in comparison to her sister’s beauty. The night she was lectured for ordering beer at a take out pub because the bartender assumed she was a pregnant. So many terrible memories, each one a sharp blade slicing through her pride, made it impossible to answer.
“How much have you lost so far?” he asked. She blinked, considering his question.
Why was he so curious? She had no tears on the subject of her weight. Tears didn’t count for calories shed so why bother? “Fourteen.”
“So you have sixteen to go?”
“No, I have thirty to go.”
His brow lifted nearly to the soft hair at his temple. “That’s a lot of weight to lose. Why is that your magic number?”
She leveled him with a stare and sighed. “Fine. Here goes. I haven’t been small since I was twelve and even then I thought I was fat. My hips were always a bit wider than my friends and my legs a little thicker and my boobs a little bigger. Every year I gained ten pounds like clockwork until I started fanatically counting everything I put in my mouth. I’m overweight, but I’m an expert dieter. When I crossed two hundred pounds I panicked. I didn’t always utilize the healthiest solutions. I’ve done pills, shakes, starvation, cleanses, nothing but produce, and things too dangerous and shameful to mention. Nothing worked.”
“All that quick fix infomercial crap is bullshit. That’s why.”
She stared at the carpet, her fingers wringing on her lap. “I hate what I see when I look in the mirror.” Her voice cracked. “It hurts sometimes, physically hurts, when you see yourself and despise it so much.”
The warm weight of his palm pressed into her knee. She couldn’t look at him. She was too afraid she’d find pity in those sharp, blue eyes. Her voice was a low whisper as she went on. “When I saw my doctor last spring, he scared me. My family doesn’t have a great medical history and he basically assured me that if I didn’t do something I was going to die.”
He scoffed. “That’s a little dramatic. You know the difference between God and doctors, Philly?”
“What?”
“God doesn’t think He’s a doctor.”
She laughed, but barely. “He’s right, though. I’m not healthy. I’d love to be skinny, but I don’t think that’s realistic. But there’s a part of me that felt like such a fat failure walking out of that office I just wanted to prove that doctor wrong when I went back for my next check-up. I saw the arrogant way he looked at me. He thinks I’ll fail and I don’t even have the track record of willpower to claim he’s wrong.”
“You’re way too hard on yourself.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” she snapped, turning her glare on him. “Look at me, Finnegan. I don’t look like a healthy person. I saw your girlfriend and all those other girls at the pub the other week. You have no idea what it feels like to always be the biggest person in a room.”
“Mallory, you were not the biggest person in the room.” His voice was sharp and anger swirled in the depths of his denim blue stare.
“You don’t understand. Look at you! How could you understand?”
“You think I don’t have insecurities?” He demanded. “You think I don’t look at myself and see things I hate? You’re crazy if you do. Everyone hates some part of himself or herself. Jesus, I can’t even have a functional relationship.”
She scoffed. “At least you have a relationship.”
“Half the time I think Erin despises me. She breaks up with me almost every month. She never compliments me, but has plenty to say about how I come up short.”
Then why are you with her? She didn’t understand why people settled for less than what they deserved. So many times she blamed her unyielding standards for her sentence of singledom. It made no sense that a man like Finnegan McCullough should suffer a dysfunctional love life.
“Sometimes I think I’d be happier without a girlfriend,” he quietly admitted.
“Then why don’t you break up with her?”
He shrugged, his gaze focused on the ground. “I’m afraid to be alone. My whole family’s nuts. Being around them is like being stuck in a biblical outbreak of locusts. They’re everywhere. It’s overwhelming, but they all seem to know their ranks. Colin’s the good boy. Kelly’s the rake. Sheilagh’s the wild child. Kate’s the maternal one. Braydon’s the student. And Luke’s the…” He shook his head. “Who am I? All I’ve ever done is log the land under my dad’s shadow. That’s all I’ll ever be. And men like that, they marry and have a league of children so someone can carry on their legacy when they’re too old to do it anymore.”
She frowned. “You’re twenty-eight. It isn’t like you have to lock your life in by thirty. If you don’t like what you’re doing, do something else.”
“But they depend on me. My dad’s getting older and so are my uncles. I don’t hate being a logger. It’s good money and eventually the company will be mostly mine on paper. I just begrudge never really being given a choice. It’s like my life was chosen the same day they chose my name.”
“Is your twin, Luke, a logger too?”
His mouth opened and he hesitated. “Yeah, but Luke’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll come to a point where he can either pretend to be someone he’s not or leave Center County.”
“I don’t understand.”
His lips pursed. “Luke’s a private guy and Center County isn’t the most accepting community. I just…know there will come a time when he decides to leave and I can’t blame him.”
His cryptic words weren’t making much sense, but she didn’t want to press him to reveal more than he was comfortabl
e with. “If you didn’t work with your family, what would you do?”
His broad shoulder lifted and dropped. “Don’t know. Never really had the option, so I never really gave it much thought. I like my job, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that my life isn’t a bowl of peaches. Most days I’m bored out of my mind and want to just take off and never look back.”
“So why don’t you?”
“Because my mom would lose it and my dad needs me. I’m just not that guy. I’m Finn McCullough, always there to haul the load no one else wants to carry.”
She smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with being dependable.”
“No. There’s not. It just gets old sometimes.” He sighed and stretched.
The default screen appeared on the television, sending the movie into sleep mode. She watched the logo bounce slowly from corner to corner as Finnegan rested his head on the back of her couch. Perhaps their heart-to-heart was over.
“When are you going to run once you start work?”
Her lips pursed. She’d been wondering the same thing. “I guess at night.”
“What about when it starts getting dark earlier?”
“There will always be an excuse at the ready. I’m trying not to use them.”
“We have a field on our property. It’s a flat track and no one goes there unless there’s a scheduled game. If you wanted to, you could run there. There are lights.”
She blinked at him. “Why are you offering?”
“Because I know it’s important to you and I know once daylight savings starts it’s going to be hard for you to keep up with it. Night’s a whole different thing here than what it looks like in the city. You can’t see past your nose on some nights. And there are animals you need to watch out for.”
Warmth spread in her chest. It was precisely that moment that she realized Finnegan McCullough was, in fact, her friend. “Thank you.”
Chapter Four
Mallory frowned over the black dress pants and blouse on her bed. Her wardrobe needed to be toned down for nights around town. She had no middle clothes. In her closet hung an assortment of outfits perfect for work and her drawers were packed with loungewear. There was no in-between.
Skin (McCullough Mountain 2) Page 4