by K. Ryan
“Yep,” I shrugged. “Noah grabbed all the sports stuff. I took the books and the records.”
He nodded, his fingers still nimbly flipping through the records. “Sounds like a fair trade.”
Oliver chose that moment to brush up against Finn’s legs, rubbing his head into his jeans, and finally staring up at him with a long maaahwr.
“Oh hey, contraband,” Finn murmured down to my cat and I watched, my heart fluttering and skipping and tugging in every direction, as Finn bent down to lift Oliver’s front paws up to the front of the crate. “What do you think of all this?”
Oliver leaned forward on both white paws, sticking his head right into the crate, and sniffed the musty records with mild curiosity. He sneezed once and then turned to Finn, his mouth curling up into an affronted snarl as if to say, What the hell is this? I don’t like it.
“Alright, alright,” Finn laughed and lifted Oliver’s front paws down so he could scamper off before turning his attention back to the contents of the crate. “Wow, this has gotta be every single album Rush has ever made, huh?”
I laughed, inching closer and closer to him until our shoulders brushed. “My dad was a Neil Peart fanatic. Best drummer in the world. Greatest poet who ever lived. The whole thing.”
“I can see that.”
“Actually…” I nudged my head towards the hallway and waved Finn along with me. “I gotta show you something.”
He followed my lead, trailing after me through the short distance from the living room to my hallway where the framed calendar page sat until we stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the wall.
I pointed to the far corner of the page and turned to Finn with a wide grin, “That’s my dad.”
Finn squinted to get a better look, leaning closer with his hands on his hips, and then his head tilted towards me, his light eyes shimmering and pulling me in.
“My dad would always buy a Rush calendar every year,” I explained softly. “So after he died, I started buying one every year instead. One year, I’m flipping through the pages and there he is...right in the corner, mullet and everything, having the time of his life.”
Finn’s hand ghosted around my waist to tuck me into his shoulder, his eyes silently asking for permission to keep touching me. He must’ve seen my soft smile as the confirmation he needed and his fingers squeezed my hip in response.
With his free hand, he pointed his index finger at the frame. “This is really cool, Em. What are the odds, you know?”
I smiled sadly, my eyes pulled right to the corner of the frame, taking in the image I’d seen millions of times: my dad with both fists raised high in the hair, in his prime and screaming at the top of his lungs. Finn had a point—what were the odds that this picture would end up in a calendar? One that I, out of obligation to tradition, would end up buying? It really was pretty crazy. Maybe fanciful, intangible things like fate really did exist.
“Do you have any newer records or is everything all from your dad’s collection?”
My face brightened, grateful for the change of pace, and I shot him a playfully exasperated look. “I do, actually.”
To be fair, I only owned two records that I’d actually purchased myself, but I did, in fact, have records that were made after 2000. Once we hovered in front of the plastic crate again, I plucked them from the back, holding them up proudly for Finn to see.
Finn’s eyes widened, zeroing in on the record in my left hand, and grimaced like he was about to be physically ill. “Taylor Swift? Oh, Emma. No. Just...no.”
“What?” I glanced at the Red album in my hand and shrugged. “I love her. She speaks to me.”
He scrubbed a hand melodramatically over his eyes and gestured to the other record in my hand. “Amy Winehouse is fine. I bet that album sounds great on vinyl, too. But Taylor Swift I cannot abide by. I just can’t do it.”
“Why? She writes songs that might as well have come out of my diary, if I kept one. She’s the best.”
His eyes might as well have popped out of their sockets. “The best? And here I thought you were perfect...”
I had to bite down hard on my bottom lip to keep from reacting too much because Finn was already grinning back at me sheepishly and shoving both hands deep into his pockets like he just didn’t know what to do with his hands. At this point, it would probably be okay if he put those hands on me, but that would be getting a little ahead of myself.
He probably wouldn’t be saying that if he Googled you.
No. I didn’t want to do that. Not today. Not when I was actually enjoying life for once. Not when I just wanted to spend more time with him.
“I don’t think you’re being very fair,” I announced diplomatically and held the Red album right in front of his face just to be a brat.
“Please,” he swatted down the square album. “All she does is write the same thing over and over again. Same song, different breakup.”
My eyes lifted to the ceiling and I shook my head exasperatedly at him as I slid the vinyl from its sleeve so I could set it up on my turntable. “Yeah, you would think that, but I will have you know that she is an excellent storyteller, which is the best kind of music in my humble opinion.”
Finn’s upper lips curled up comically. “You’re going to play me a song, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
“Suck it up, my friend. You don’t have to be a baby about it. This is just Taylor Swift we’re talking about here, not a torture chamber,” I chided, lifting the needle to place it against the vinyl and let the strains of “Everything Has Changed” hum from my speakers.
I turned, only to find Finn sprawled out on the carpet behind me with his hands folded across his chest.
“Are you sleeping or listening?”
He sighed dejectedly. “I’m listening.”
My legs folded down underneath me in silence, suddenly feeling exposed and laid bare next to Finn. I really wasn’t kidding before about these songs being like my diary and I wondered if, underneath the sweet acoustic strumming and Taylor’s earnest singing, Finn was able to read in between the lines. I’d just set the needle right to this song thoughtlessly, not realizing that I’d accidentally chosen the one song that described the way I felt almost perfectly. Lyrics about holding doors, walls standing tall painted blue, wanting to know him better, and eyes that looked like coming home floated around us in the stillness.
The sublime lyrics had me squirming a little and the weight of their meaning seemed to pin me right into the carpet.
“You know,” Finn murmured as he cocked one eye open to glance up at me. “It’s not terrible. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m glad you gave her a chance,” I laughed.
“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m ready to drink the Taylor Kool Aid,” he cast me a sideways glance before rolling onto his side to face me and propped his head up with an arm. “That was Ed Sheeran she was singing with, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“You got anymore of his stuff?”
“Other than ‘Thinking Out Loud’, nope.”
“Well,” he drawled, flipping around to his stomach and rested his chin on his folded hands. “Let’s get that computer going and fix that, huh?”
I sighed dramatically, reaching around him to slide my computer out from its hiding place underneath my coffee table and promptly booted it up. Once iTunes was up and running, I relinquished my computer to Finn, pushing it towards him with an eye roll.
He propped himself up on his elbows and rubbed his hands together like a little kid. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
Less than a minute later, Ed Sheeran’s acoustic stylings sang out from my computer. I recognized the song as “Give Me Love” and the longer it played and the longer I listened to the lyrics, the more I wondered if maybe this was Finn’s answer to the song I’d just played for him as Ed Sheeran crooned about wanting her to give a little time to him and how all he wanted was the taste that her lips allo
wed. Whether it was intentional or otherwise...I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know. All I knew was that music seemed to be communicating all the things we weren’t sure we could say and all the things we maybe weren’t ready to say.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. My emotions were too scattered to be able to pin a solid one down.
Finn abruptly paused the song and clicked over to my library, scrolling through it to take in my selections. “You definitely need to broaden your music horizons, you know?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, Emma, there is more to the world of music than classic rock, Amy Winehouse, and goddamn Taylor Swift.”
“Wow,” I laughed. “Cut out my heart, why don’t you.”
Oliver skimmed past us, walking in between us and stepping right on my computer, taking his sweet time as he ducked underneath the coffee table to disappear around my couch.
Finn cocked an eyebrow at me. “I hope you know that cat already owns you.”
“He had me wrapped around his tiny white paw the second he showed up on my patio,” I sighed. “You’re preaching to the choir.”
He just laughed and shifted the computer closer to him so he could type in another search. “How about more Kings of Leon? If I had to listen to Taylor-boring-Swift, you can tolerate a little of my music, don’t you think?”
“Shut up,” I swatted him playfully on the shoulder. “Stop knocking Taylor. She’s my girl. Like I said, she speaks to me. And I don’t recall ever saying I didn’t like Kings of Leon. I just don’t really listen to them. There’s a difference, you know.”
He held both hands up playfully in defense, his eyes smiling. “Whoa. Relax there. Just let me play you one song and then we can move on, okay?”
“Fine.”
Strong percussions drummed through my computer’s speakers before rolling guitar chords kicked in and I listened, bobbing my head to the beat until the lead singer sang a line that had my eyes widening in horror. Finn, on the other hand, had his head buried in his hands, his shoulders trembling with barely-concealed laughter.
“Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”
Finn’s lips curled up in evil glee. “Oh yeah. He’s saying ‘cu—” my hand flew out to muffle the word and he promptly batted it down, “‘—nts watch their bodies’.”
“That’s terrible. I don’t even know what that means, but it’s terrible.”
“I don’t know what it means either, but I like it.”
“Turn it off.”
“Oookay,” his fingers lifted up in the air. “No more ‘Taper Jean Girl’. How about some Alabama Shakes then? I think you might like ‘Always Alright’.”
The next song that played from my speakers had a similar new-school-yet-retro feel to it as the Kings of Leon song that I liked. This one was a little funkier though and sounded like something that people would’ve been making out to, among other things, at a club in the 70s. I figured that was probably why he’d played this for me...already figuring out my tastes.
“I like it,” I nodded to him with approval.
“Really?” he squinted at me. “You won’t listen to a song with the c-word in it, but you’re fine with the f-word?”
I waved a hand at him. “Not the same. The c-word is just ugly. Pure, unadulterated ugliness and it should only be said when someone—not necessarily a woman—is being a complete, no-holds-barred, insensitive, and all-around asshole douchebag.”
“Alright,” he laughed. “Whatever you say. I can’t argue, I guess, considering you’re down with Alabama Shakes now. You’ve got pretty good taste in music, not including the Taylor Swift debacle of course. You know, my ex-wife wasn’t into…”
He trailed off and stared blankly at my computer screen, his eyes wide and disbelieving. I couldn’t help the way my head snapped to turn towards him—how else was I supposed to react? At least I wasn’t the only one compulsively sharing without realizing it. So, I waited. He had to have known he needed to explain now—not that it mattered. Not that it would change anything, especially since I couldn’t imagine anything that could possibly trump the dead horse I dragged around everywhere.
“Sorry,” he muttered before rolling onto his back and scrubbing both hands over his eyes. “It’s not like I wasn’t gonna tell you. I just...I didn’t plan on doing it today. Especially not like that.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I understand.”
I slid my legs down to mimic his posture and propped my head up on an elbow so I could give him my full attention.
He blew out a deep breath, readying himself to tell me whatever it was he had to say. “We were together for almost ten years, married for five...started dating when we were 17 and I don’t know why we stayed together as long as we did, maybe it was just because neither one of us knew any better or didn’t know anything different. I just kinda thought that’s what you did when you were with someone so long, you know? You got married. So we did.”
Finn rubbed his eyes and shook his head, as if he was trying to shake off the memories. “And somewhere along the way, we grew up and grew apart, the way most people do. She thought I worked at the brewhouse too much, which was and is still true, and I thought she spent too much money on shit we didn’t need. She wanted to go out and do things, see things, go places...I guess I was so tired from work all the time that I never wanted to do any of that. I was perfectly fine just being at home or going to the tap room if she wanted a night out. I guess it’s safe to say we didn’t really see eye to eye on a lot of things. One night, I came home early from work—I’d wanted to surprise her, take her out to dinner or something to show her I was gonna try to be home more, and she was screwing one of the guys she worked with in our bed.”
My breath came out in one long whoosh. “I’m sorry.”
Finn just lifted a shoulder from his spot on the floor. “It’s okay. It wasn’t the drawn-out drama like you see in the movies. It was pretty quiet, actually. I just turned around, went to my dad’s, drank a whole bottle of Cuervo, and passed out on the kitchen floor. The next day I called a lawyer. That was pretty much it.”
I needed a few moments to absorb everything. What kind of idiot was this woman? Who in their right mind would throw away a relationship—a marriage—with someone like Finn?
“Did she…?” I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words out loud.
“Yeah,” Finn exhaled. “She gave me all the lines: it was a mistake, it just happened that one time and would never happen again, we could go to couple’s counseling. She tried everything.”
“And you didn’t—”
“No,” Finn cut in tightly. “I didn’t. It’s kinda hard to forget seeing your wife getting railed by another dude in your bed, you know? You can’t really come back from that.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
“Looking back on it, we never should’ve gotten married,” Finn shook his head. “We both knew it, too. We were both just too stubborn to admit it. Everything looked good on paper, like you said before, but the reality just...wasn’t.”
His eyes squeezed shut and he rubbed his eyes again, almost as if he was reliving the memory and I had a sudden urge to do something to make that harshness, that anxiety disappear from his beautiful face. So, once again, I found myself compulsively telling him more about myself than I’d told anyone the entire time I’d lived in the city.
“I almost got married last year,” I told him quietly and his eyes snapped open at the revelation. Because I had a sudden need to be closer to him, I lowered down to his level, lying close enough to be within reach, but still leaving both of us enough room to breathe.
“I met him my sophomore year in college. We were together, what, six years? Yeah...six years,” I shook my head, whispering, “Wow. I wasted so much time on him.”
“What happened?” Finn’s soft voice called out to me.
I pressed a weak smile on my face. “I had a pregnancy scare last year. I just co
mpletely freaked out about it and pretty much lost my mind thinking about how my life would’ve been over, how I didn’t want a baby, wasn’t ready to be a mom and all the responsibility that came with it and then I realized that while all those things were true, it all boiled down to the fact that I just didn’t want his baby, if that makes any sense. I didn’t want to be tied to him that way and that’s why I’d freaked out so much.”
I paused long enough to see his head dip down in a tight nod, his eyes fixed on me intently.
“How was I supposed to marry someone I didn’t want to have kids with?” I pressed on. “I just couldn’t imagine marrying him after that, so I called it off a couple days later.”
You know how everyone thinks The Little Mermaid ends all happy with Ariel finally landing her prince and keeping her human legs just because Disney says so when, in the original story, the prince marries someone else and the mermaid kills herself and turns into sea foam?
I’d given Finn the Disney version. The real story, grounded in actual facts instead of fantasy, was much darker and uglier. It wasn’t necessarily a lie; I’d just let him believe the story ended with me calling off my engagement.
Finn’s hand grazed my shoulder and trailed lightly down my forearm. “So is that why you moved here? Why you’re not teaching anymore?”
I looked down at the carpet and chewed anxiously on my bottom lip. He was giving me an opportunity to tell him the whole story, the unedited version of the story, but I just couldn’t do it.
“That’s part of it,” I modified.
When he opened his mouth to respond, I had to scramble.
“I’m not ready to talk about the rest of it yet, okay?”
That was the best I could give him. The most I could give him. I just hoped it was enough for now.
He nodded and the light touch on my arm drifted up to my cheek. Then he shifted closer, sliding across the carpet to close the short distance between us, and kissed me. His lips were gentle and careful like he didn’t want to scare me away, but needed this intimacy at the same time.