Crave You (Crave #1)

by Ryan Parker

  I’d been dreading that question all the way to work. I couldn’t downplay whatever it was I ended up saying. That would make it sound like something boring was better than hanging out with her. She already knew about Finn, but I wasn’t going to share all the details, of course.

  “I saw that guy I was telling you about.” We were walking toward the building and I kept my eyes forward.

  “No way. Seriously? So did you finally…?”

  I shook my head, casting my eyes down at the pavement. “No, it was just a nice weekend.”

  “A weekend! You spent the whole weekend with him?”

  “Not exactly. We had dinner Friday, met for lunch on Saturday…” My voice trailed off after the lie. I didn’t want to reveal that he had spent Friday night at my place.

  We got to the security checkpoint at the door. I had my ID ready. Tara didn’t. She was always looking for it, and no matter how hard she tried to keep it handy, it was always at the bottom of her purse.

  When she finally made it through, we continued to our work area. We went into the room where we donned the protective gear that was required in the sorting area.

  As we dressed, she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask, but I hope he made up for bailing on you.”

  I waved a hand dismissively. “That’s all in the past. But…”

  “But what?”

  I let out a deep sigh as I placed some stuff in the locker. “What would you do if a guy wouldn’t show you his house?”

  “Like, wouldn’t let me inside or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean if he wouldn’t even tell you where he lived.”

  We walked out into the sorting area. I looked up at the big clock on the wall, wondering how slowly those hands were going to move all day with me anticipating Finn coming to my house that night.

  Tara said, “Hmm,” thinking about her answer as she placed the first bin next to the conveyer belt. “I guess I’d wonder what he was trying to hide. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t tell me, so it’s not a matter of if he’s hiding something, but what he’s hiding.”

  That much I already knew, but that wasn’t what I had asked her, so I tried again. “Yeah, but what would you do? Ask him why? Demand to see his place? What?”

  “You think he’s married?”

  The thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all. Chalk it up to naiveté, I guess. Guilty as charged. Finn had never given me a reason to think he was married. Then again, it would be a perfect explanation for his strict privacy code.

  But he’d broken that code with me. He had seen me more than once and had spent two nights sleeping in my bed. I hadn’t let on to Tara that any such thing had happened, but it was a crucial piece of information.

  “He can’t be married,” I said. “Look, I didn’t tell you this before, but he spent the night Friday and Saturday.”

  Her eyes grew large and she cocked her head to the side. “Well, well. Nice weekend, indeed. Good for you, girl.” She extended her hand across the conveyer belt, palm facing me. Apparently a high-five was in order, and I obliged her.

  “So if he’s married,” I said, “I don’t think he could have gotten away with spending two nights in a row with me, especially on a weekend.”

  Tara’s immediate response was like a splash of cold water in the face. “Maybe the wife and kids—if there are kids—went out of town or something. Visited the grandparents, maybe? That could be it.”

  “You’re really making me feel great. Thanks.”

  She laughed. “Aw, crap. I’m sorry. Sometimes stupid shit just flies right out of my mouth. You know that.”

  I fixed my eyes on the packages before me. “No, it wasn’t stupid. It actually makes perfect sense.”

  “When do you see him again?”

  “Tonight,” I said. “He’s coming over and bringing dinner.”

  She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Just confront him. I mean, first you weren’t going to meet. Then you did and then you thought you’d never see him again. Now you’ve spent two nights with him, so maybe he’ll open up to you. Slowly. Like a dying clam or something. I have to tell you, a guy this secretive is hiding something big. Sorry, but it’s true.”

  I didn’t say anything, knowing she was right, hoping like hell it was anything but the fact that he had a wife. And kids. My God.

  “One more thing,” Tara said. “Don’t bring up all of this until after you eat whatever it is he’s bringing over. Never pass up free food.”

  . . . . .

  Work was hectic as hell all morning. They kept bringing bin after bin into the sorting facility. Some kind of backlog at the post office. There was little time for talking, so it kept me free from that, but it also gave me time to get way too far into my own head.

  Finn…married?

  When it was time for our lunch break, we went to take off our protective gear. I was opening my locker when I heard Tara say, “Oh, hey Tony.”

  I looked around my locker door and saw Tony standing in the doorway.

  “Hey, Tara. Hi, Rachel.”

  I said hello back and returned to what I was doing.

  “Hey,” Tara said to him. “How was your weekend?”

  “It was good. I went up to Brooklyn for a few days. Saw some old buddies of mine.”

  “Sounds good,” Tara said. “I haven’t been to New York in years.”

  I was fumbling around with a few things in my locker, doing it only so that I could keep the door open and block my view of him.

  “How about you, Rachel?” Tony asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said into the locker, “how about me what?”

  “Have you ever been to New York?”

  “No.”

  “You should,” he said. “It’s the best place in the world. I’m going back in September if you ladies would like to ride with me.”

  God, the thought of that was just awful.

  “Maybe,” Tara answered him. “I’ll think about it.”

  I removed the hood of my plastic coveralls, then unzipped the front, lowering it over my shoulders. As I did this, I peeked around the locker door and saw Tony watching. No, staring.

  Yes, I had my regular clothes on under the coveralls, but this was as if he were watching me undress, his eyes scanning from my feet up my legs…

  The room was for both male and female employees, so it wasn’t as though Tony was somewhere he shouldn’t be, doing something he shouldn’t be doing. At least, according to policy he wasn’t.

  It wasn’t until I had completely removed the coveralls that he finally said, “Well, have a good lunch. I’m going to clock in.”

  Tara said goodbye to him. I mumbled something incoherent, just glad he was leaving.

  Creep.

  . . . . .

  Finn knocked on my door at 5:59 p.m.

  I opened it. “You weren’t kidding about sharp.”

  He held a paper grocery bag in one hand. The other was behind his back. His timing wasn’t the only thing that was sharp. He wore dark gray slacks, a white button-down shirt, shiny wingtip-style shoes. His face had some stubble on it, and his hair was, as always, that purposely-messy style.

  I wanted to strip him as soon as he crossed the threshold of my apartment.

  He stepped in, bent to kiss me, and said, “Dinner first, then we’re going to play a game.”

  It turned out he didn’t bring take-out from somewhere. Instead, he was cooking dinner for me in my kitchen. I sat on a stool on the other side of the counter, sipping some wine that he brought, while I watched him whip up our meal.

  “Some of this is already prepared,” he said. “I didn’t want it to take too long once I got here.”

  He was making spaghetti Bolognese, his favorite Italian dish.

  We talked while he cooked, some chitchat, but quite a bit about his culinary skills and his favorite dishes he liked to cook. He lamented the fact that he didn’t have more free time to dedicate to it.

  I was gettin
g hungrier with every passing minute as my apartment filled with the aroma of a home-cooked Italian meal—the ground beef with garlic, the pancetta, and the bread he had placed in the oven.

  All the while, I kept thinking about the possibility that he was married. Maybe even had kids. I hated how that thought made me feel. Not just because there was at least some evidence that it could be the case, but more so because I knew how I would feel if it were true. I would blame myself for letting my walls down. There would be all kinds of misplaced anger and disdain, but in the end I’d blame myself, and who knew how long it would take to work myself out of that emotional vortex?

  When the meal was ready, he said, “Let’s sit at your table.”

  “It’s not much of a dinner table,” I said, sliding off the stool and walking over to it.

  “It’s small, yes, but perfect for two,” he said, placing a dish in front of me. It had smelled wonderful while he was cooking, but even better now that I had some right in front of me.

  Finn brought his plate to the table, stepped into the kitchen, then returned to the table with silverware. It was such a minor thing to make note of, but I loved how he knew which drawer to look in and how he was making himself at home.

  “Here,” he said, reaching across the table.

  I must have given him a strange look.

  “You do eat spaghetti with a spoon, right?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Here, let me show you.” He demonstrated how to use the spoon to make the pasta conform tightly around the fork. I’d seen it a few times, but only in movies and on TV. I’d never personally witnessed anyone doing it.

  I’m not sure why this connection occurred, but it made me wonder about his upbringing. Did he come from a rich family? Did his mother and father teach him about proper etiquette, maybe because they hosted fancy dinner parties?

  Or maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe this was just how he was. In any case, the last thing I had any interest in talking about was our upbringing and our families.

  “Have you always lived in this area?” Finn asked, as if he had read my mind and was circling me like prey.

  “No.”

  “Where are you from?”

  I finished the mouthful of pasta. “All over.”

  “The world or just the U.S.?”

  “Just here in the U.S.,” I said, feeling a bit cornered. He was digging into my past, or trying to, anyway, in his own gentle way. Still, it made me a little uneasy, but not as much as I had been when other people had tried.

  “Ah, damn,” Finn said, getting up from his chair. “I forgot to set the timer.”

  He went into the kitchen, where I heard him mumble something. He came back with a tray.

  “Crostini.” He held the tray out for me. “They’re a little well-done, but probably still good.”

  I took a piece of the bread and put it on my plate. “Everything’s delicious. I’m sure this is great, too.”

  When he sat back down, I expected the questions to continue, but they didn’t. Instead, he told me about a rare book that he had sold last week. I was relieved he had moved on to something else.

  That is, until he asked me if I’d gone to college.

  “No,” I said, holding my wine glass in front of my lips. “You?” I figured I would turn it back on him.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Didn’t want to, or….?”

  “Or what?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just…anything, I guess.”

  “What about you? Why didn’t you go? You’re smart, well-read, ambitious—”

  My laugh stopped him from saying any more. “I don’t know about the ambitious part.”

  “You have a good job.” He reached for a piece of the crostini. “It’s not a well-known line of work. How did you get into it?”

  Digging again.

  “I didn’t want to work somewhere that might go out of business,” I said. “The economy was tanking and I searched for government jobs on the internet. This one sounded interesting.”

  “And then you found out that it wasn’t.”

  “Right.”

  There was a lot of tension in the air between us. I knew he was digging for information, and he knew I knew it. I could tell by his eyes.

  It was the oddest dinner I’d ever had. The food was great, and looking at Finn was great, but the conversation was more like that of a first date, where two people are feeling their way around each other, looking for something to cling to that will hold the conversation a little longer.

  Part of me was ready to fully open up to Finn, but an equal part of me knew he was holding something back. I could have gone first, telling him everything, spilling my past before him to judge. But I had a strong feeling that I shouldn’t, like I was tethered to my fortress of privacy and the demons were pulling me back from Finn, urging me back into seclusion.

  I fucking hated it.

  I tried to study his eyes—looking for any hints they held. I read nothing but tension in them.

  We finished our meal during a few moments of silence, which only made the situation more tense. I was waiting for him to spring the next intrusive question, and I knew he was waiting for the same from me.

  I wondered how long this delicate dance would go on. How long we would be able to respect each other’s boundaries of privacy.

  It struck me that I had the perfect way to break the anxiety.

  Finn took our plates into the kitchen. I told him just to put them in the sink, that I’d get to them tomorrow, because right now I had something else in mind.

  . . . . .

  Finn didn’t question where we were going when we left my apartment. It was as though he either implicitly trusted me, or he was so carefree that it didn’t matter to him. He drove, and I told him where to turn, until we got the parking lot and he pulled right up to the building.

  “Dog shelter?” he asked, looking up at the sign.

  “I want you to meet Winnie.”

  We got out of the car and he followed me inside. Meg was coming out of the back room, holding a small puppy.

  “New one?” I asked.

  Meg said, “Yeah. Dropped off this afternoon by a couple of cops. They found her wandering around near a bus stop. Almost walked out into traffic.”

  I reached to pet the puppy’s small, pitch black head. “Oh, no. Well, at least you’re safe now.”

  Meg looked over my shoulder.

  I said, “Oh, Meg this is my friend…Malcolm.” I hesitated about what to call him. Finn? Some people would find that a strange first name, so I quickly reasoned I’d just introduce him by his real first name.

  “Pleasure,” Finn said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Meg said. “Always nice to have more help around.” Meg looked at me. “But I suppose you’re here for your girl.”

  “Yep.”

  I took a step toward the door and Finn followed me. Meg walked outside with the puppy.

  That was another great thing about the shelter. The focus was all on the dogs. I had never once heard anything personal from or about anyone who worked or volunteered there.

  It’s the reason I was comfortable bringing Finn along. Nobody was going to ask him anything, and even when I came in alone the next time, there would be no follow-up questions, no prying.

  “Your girl?” he asked, following me down the hallway.

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I have a daughter, and she lives in a dog shelter.”

  “Smartass,” he said, tapping me on my butt. “I know who she was talking about, but is she yours? Have you decided to adopt her, after all?”

  I shook my head. “This,” I said, dramatically presenting her, “is Winnie.”

  I unlocked the door to her kennel and let her out. I knelt and she licked my face, then went immediately to Finn, where she buried her nose in his crotch.

  I lowered my head and covered my face with my hand, shaking my head.

  “Well,” Finn said,
“that’s not such a bad greeting.”

  I laughed.

  We took Winnie out to the dog park that was adjacent to the shelter. Nobody else was out there at this hour. The sky was in the latter stages of dusk and the air had cooled down a little. Winnie ran around, sniffing the ground, coming back to us when I clapped.

  I knelt. Finn remained standing.

  “You don’t like dogs?” I asked.

  “I do.”

  “Then get down here and give her a treat.”

  He squatted next to me and I handed him a treat. He held it out flat in his hand and Winnie grabbed the treat and devoured it in a matter of seconds.

  “Did you have dogs growing up?” he asked.

  “No.” I kept my eyes trained on Winnie. “You?”

  “Two.”

  I looked at him. “Yeah? What kind?”

  Finn nodded his head toward Winnie. “Just like her.”

  “Aw, really?”

  “They were two boys, though. I don’t think I ever had a girl pet.”

  I laughed.

  “What?” he asked, holding out his hand with another treat.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me. I have this thing about when someone obviously has something to say, but won’t.”

  I shook my head. “I just thought…it’s a dumb joke. When you said you never had a girl pet, I was going to say ‘Want one?’”

  Finn didn’t laugh, but he did crack a smile. “And you weren’t talking about Winnie here.”

  “What? Oh!” I feigned shock. “Of course I was. What did you think I meant? You and your dirty mind.”

  Finn laughed this time. “I’m glad you showed me this side of you.”

  “Me, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two (Finn)

  Rachel was tough, smart, not at all oblivious to my effort at getting her to tell me something from her past as we were eating dinner. She knew what I was doing—I could tell—so I pushed gently, but backed off when it was clear I wasn’t going to get anything.

  Trying again when we went to see the dog, I didn’t get anywhere, either. So I let it go.

  I didn’t see anger in her eyes. Nothing that told me she was upset with me for asking those questions. What I saw was agitation and fear.