by Anya Nowlan
“I can’t believe this. Foster?” he questioned, turning to his brother.
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable,” Foster replied.
“What? Not you, too…” Finn muttered, starting to pace around the kitchen.
Hanna quietly chimed in from the table, her cup of coffee still untouched in front of her.
“Maybe you need to take a moment to absorb this information,” she suggested.
Finn opened his mouth to argue, but looking around the room, he knew he was outnumbered. There was no point. The decision had been made and it didn’t look like anyone was about to take his side. Without saying anything, he turned around and stomped up the stairs to his room, feeling like an angsty teenager all over again.
The faded Nirvana posters still hanging on the walls didn’t really help much in that regard, either.
He knew trying to move on was the right thing to do, but dad’s announcement still caught him off guard. Foster and he hadn’t even told anyone except Hanna that their mother was dead, and here dad was already giving away her things. Something about that just didn’t sit right with Finn.
His mood had already been somewhat soured when he woke up and realized both Hanna and Foster were gone. Finn wasn’t usually the jealous type. He didn’t usually care enough about any of his conquests to be jealous. But Hanna was different. Even his bear felt protective of her, which was something to get accustomed to.
He knew that if he added everything up - his bear’s reaction to her, the immediate connection he felt to her, the overwhelming chemistry between them – he might come to a conclusion he wasn’t ready to face.
What the hell am I going to do about all of this?
It was already starting to get somewhat dark when Finn opened the door to his room, looking around to see if anyone was hanging around. Everyone had given him his space until now, which had been a good idea and one he was almost sure Hanna had suggested.
He had needed some time to think things over, but now he was getting somewhat claustrophobic in this house full of memories. He could hear the murmur of voices when he snuck down the steps, coming from dad’s bedroom downstairs. It sounded like he and Foster were discussing something, but Finn couldn’t make out more than a couple of words.
Keeping as quiet as he could, he walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinet he knew dad kept his booze in. There were a lot fewer bottles there than he remembered from the last time he’d been here and gotten into his stash, which made him frown to himself.
Grabbing a bottle of whiskey, he tucked it under his coat, before a creaking floorboard made him spin around. Hanna was standing in the doorway, quietly observing him.
“How did you even manage to creep up on my like that?” Finn whispered.
“I can be sneaky when I want to be,” she shrugged. “What are you doing?”
“Going out for a while.”
“And the bottle?”
“Is going to keep me company.”
“Finn,” Hanna sighed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to wallow right now. Go talk to your dad or Foster.”
“I don’t want to talk to them right now. I’ll see you later,” he replied, walking past her toward the front door.
He should have known Hanna wasn’t just going to leave it at that.
“Where will you even go?” she insisted, trailing after him. “You can’t drive, not if you’re planning to drink that,” she pointed to the lump under his jacket.
“There’s a place. Somewhere away from people. It’s not far, and I won’t be driving. You can stop worrying, now.”
“You can’t really tell a therapist not to worry and expect that to work,” she retorted, crossing her arms. “In my line of work, ‘don’t worry’ usually means ‘something’s wrong’.”
When Finn reached for the door handle, she placed a hand on his arm, stopping him in his tracks. There was real concern in her eyes when he looked at him, and for a second he contemplated staying, just to give her some peace of mind. But he couldn’t stay. The air around here felt suffocating. It was too much.
“Hanna, I’m sorry, but I need some air right now. I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”
“Damn right you won’t,” she said, reaching for the coat stand. “I’m going to make sure of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Hanna…” he began to argue.
In any other circumstance, being alone with her would be a dream come true. But right now, he was all but guaranteed to be miserable company. He didn’t want to drag her down with him.
But she didn’t look like she cared much for what he had to say. Her lips pressed into a line, she opened the door, one hand on her hip.
“I’m coming with you. Now lead the way.”
Twenty-Three
Hanna
Following Finn’s footsteps deeper into the forest, Hanna was beginning to doubt if insisting on going with him had been such a good idea. He seemed to know where he was going, but she had lost track of which way was back a long time ago.
With a blanket he had grabbed from the back of his dad’s truck swung over his shoulder, he glanced back at her, making sure she was keeping up alright.
“It’s not far now,” he said, even starting to smile a little.
“This place seems pretty off the beaten path. How did you and Foster even find it in the first place?”
“We didn’t find it. We built it,” he replied, pointing to a tall oak coming into view in the dusk.
With the orange glow of the sun painting the treetops golden, she could see it clearly. A small, rickety-looking treehouse on one of the branches of the oak, the wood old and worn.
“Now that’s gotta be some sort of safety hazard,” she muttered to herself.
Finn caught that, damn shifter hearing and all.
“It’s completely safe. We made it so the kids from the camp had a place to hang out. We wouldn’t put children’s lives at risk, after all,” he said.
“Yeah, but it looks like it’s seen better times.”
“Have a little faith,” Finn replied, coming to a stop at the foot of the tree.
There were some pieces of wood haphazardly nailed to the trunk of it, leading up to the treehouse itself.
“If I fall and break my neck, I’m coming back to haunt you,” she warned.
“Relax. I’ll go first and you can see it’s totally fine. I like you in your corporeal form too much to let anything happen to you,” he grinned, looking more like the Finn she was used to seeing.
“Reassuring,” she huffed, holding back a smile.
“Hey, you’re the one that wanted to come along,” he reminded her, grabbing on to the tree and using the makeshift ladder nailed to it to push himself upward.
Hanna watched him climb up with ease, feeling her stomach twist. This was not something she was used to doing, but she wasn’t about to back out now. Finn was obviously struggling with the way his father was moving on from his mother’s death, and she didn’t want him to be alone right now.
So when Finn waved at her from the shack, she took a deep breath and started climbing. The structure wasn’t even that high up in the tree, but her hands still trembled a little at first. Foster held out a hand for her when she got close to the platform, pulling her up with a smile.
“See? Not so bad,” he said.
He’d already spread out the blanket he had brought along, and the inside of the treehouse didn’t look as bad as the outside had. The roof was still intact, so it was relatively dry, with just some leaves scattered around.
“Yeah, get back to me when it’s time to get down from this thing,” she replied, sitting down.
Finn was already cracking open the bottle of whiskey he’d brought along as he sank down next to her. He took a big swig, before handing it over to her.
“I’m not much of a whiskey drinker,” she objected.
“You’re not going to make me drink
alone, are you?”
“Weren’t you going to do that anyway?” she countered.
“Fair enough,” Foster shrugged, tipping the bottle to his mouth again.
They sat in silence for a while, staring out the hole in the opposite wall that served as a window. The view was actually pretty amazing, and sitting there, side by side with Finn, only made it better.
There was something even romantic about the whole thing, which was probably not good, seeing as the kiss with Foster pretty much proved her self-restraint wasn’t what it used to be.
“When did you build this?” she asked.
“Right before our first season with the Savages,” Finn replied. “We got the kids to help. Mom thought that might not be a great idea, but dad thought it would be a good learning experience for the kids. Dad won out in the end,” he replied with a wistful smile.
“Are you still angry with your father?” she carefully prodded, leaning against him.
“I don’t know if I was ever really angry at him. It just felt like he was getting rid of her somehow. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, now that I’ve thought about it.”
“Grief doesn’t often make sense,” she replied. “But it’s important not to get stuck in the past. And your dad doesn’t need to be surrounded by your mother’s belongings to feel close to her or to remember her.”
“I know,” Finn sighed. “I think it was a reminder for me, about how I haven’t really dealt with it. I realize now, thinking back on those old albums we looked at, and being back in that house… Memories don’t have to be painful.
“I can appreciate them without feeling like I’m losing her all over again. I didn’t understand that, at first. That’s why I went along with keeping it all buried instead.”
“Now that’s some insightful stuff,” Hanna commented, earning a chuckle from Finn.
“I’m not aiming for your job, I promise.”
“Better not,” she laughed. “But seriously. I’m glad you got to that point, of being able to look back on the good things. It’s not an easy thing to achieve.”
“I had some help,” Finn grinned, bumping shoulders with her.
Knowing that she was actually able to be of some help to Finn was more than rewarding. She cared too much about him to see him struggle and let anger consume him. He was too good of a man for that. And more importantly, it wasn’t who he really was.
Finn had that carefree, come-what-may attitude to him, that spark that made his joy infectious and his jokes funny, even if the jokes weren’t that great on their own. There was so much life to him, she couldn’t have stomached to see that wasted on anger and self-hate.
The feeling that Finn might be on his way to being able to really, fully move on, to reclaim his life, almost made her tear up.
“Fuck it. Give me that,” she said, grabbing the bottle from Finn’s hand.
The liquid burned going down, and made her hands and feet feel warm for a second. Grimacing, she pulled the bottle away from her lips and handed it back.
“Aren’t you full of surprises,” Finn chuckled.
“Got to keep you on your toes somehow.”
Seemed she was surprising herself the most, today. She didn’t even object when Finn put an arm around her shoulder as they watched the sun set. The moment felt too nice to ruin it with talk of what was appropriate in a professional relationship and all that.
She’d already kissed Foster, so the moral high ground was a bit shaky under her feet, to say the least.
With the last streams of sunlight sliding down their faces, and Hanna tucked into Finn’s shoulder, she was sure this was a moment she wouldn’t soon forget. Pressed against him, his musky scent all around her, Hanna could feel the electricity sizzling between them crawl up her skin.
“I’m glad you insisted on coming with me,” Finn said.
Turning to angle herself toward his face, she looked up at him, their faces too close for her heart not to skip a beat.
“Me, too,” she smiled back.
Finn stared down at her, his gaze flicking between her eyes and lips, the intensity of emotion on his face catching her off guard. There was nothing either of them wanted to say, could have possibly said, that could make their feelings in that moment any more evident.
So when Finn slowly bent his head down and inched closer and closer to her face, she didn’t even try to pull back. It was just as it had been with Foster – everything about this felt inevitable, meant to happen sooner or later.
Hanna’s eyes fluttered shut as Finn gently pressed his mouth against hers, tender and soft, his arm still firmly around her shoulder.
I must be going insane, she briefly thought, before giving herself over to the kiss.
There would be time for regrets later.
Twenty-Four
Hanna
Hanna’s whole body was tingling when she and Finn finally pulled apart, his eyes glimmering in the fading light as he smiled at her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he said.
Not wanting to admit she could say the same, she rested her head on his shoulder.
“We should be getting back,” she sighed, not ready to talk about how complicated all of this was.
How is this my life? she wondered. Making out with two hot guys in one day, when I promised myself I’d be careful with dating after I finally got away from Vince.
What she was doing now was the exact opposite of careful. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it too much. Now that she’d already crossed that line in the sand, it felt like there was no going back anyway. Her relationship with the brothers had irrevocably changed, and it could never go back to what it was.
“I don’t know. I like it here just fine,” Finn replied, kissing the top of her head.
It wasn’t that Hanna wasn’t enjoying her time with Finn. But being there in the treehouse, with the sun disappearing over the horizon, was like a dream.
Moments like these didn’t happen outside of movies, and the fact she suddenly seemed to be in one was messing with her head a little bit. She was afraid if she didn’t get back to reality, she might get swept up in it all and do something she would really regret.
After all, she didn’t have just Finn’s feelings to consider, but Foster’s as well. The weight of that suddenly hit her. What if she was going to drive a wedge between the brothers?
They were so close, she couldn’t handle it if she turned out to be the reason their relationship suffered. Finn had already acted jealous when she got back from the ice rink this morning.
With that thought hammering in her head, she reluctantly moved away from Finn and pushed herself back on her feet.
“It’s getting dark. I don’t want to break my foot stumbling over rocks and tree roots,” she explained, trying not to let her nervousness show.
“Alright, whatever you want,” Finn answered, tucking the bottle back into his jacket.
Picking up the blanket, he started climbing down first, as sort of a safety net for Hanna. She followed, somewhat uneasy, reaching for the next piece of wood nailed to the trunk with her toes. The bark was rough against her skin as she flattened herself against the tree, as if being closer to it meant she was less likely to fall.
Sighing in relief when she was finally back on the ground, she let Finn lead the way back, having no idea herself which way they should even be going. But with him by her side, she had no doubts they’d get back safely.
“How are you liking Sioux Falls so far?” Finn asked, taking shorter strides than usual so she wouldn’t have to hurry to catch up. “Is it the new leaf you wanted it to be?”
With his long legs and ability to move around in the darkness effortlessly, he could have shaken her in a second if he’d wanted to. The air was getting chilly, and Finn stopped for a moment to wrap the blanket he’d brought along around her shoulders.
Obviously her story about leaving Florida in search of new challenges had piqued his interest, as was natura
l. And with all Finn had revealed to her, she felt he deserved at least some of the truth.
She didn’t have to regale him with all the gruesome details about Vince, but letting him know more about who she was outside of being his therapist seemed fair. And right.
She was the one encouraging both Finn and Foster to be more open with the people they care about. Maybe it was time to follow her own advice.
“I think it is. Of course it wasn’t easy, at first. But my job keeps me busy, and the people I work with are nice,” she replied.
“What made you pack up everything and move? There has to be more to that story,” Finn prodded as they moved in between the trees, shoulder to shoulder.
“There was a guy,” Hanna sighed.
A part of her was still hesitant to say more, but it seemed that once she started, the words poured out on their own. Finn listened closely, his expression neutral.
“I’ve always been kind of a straight arrow, if you can believe that,” she continued, earning a chuckle from Finn.
“What? No way,” he mocked.
“Shut up,” she laughed. “But yes, that’s who I am. Well, somewhere down the line I got bored of always playing it safe. So when I met this tatted-up bad boy at a bar one night… I thought, what the hell?
“He was different from any of the men I’d dated before. It was thrilling, at first. He was spontaneous, and didn’t care what people thought. That was all new and exciting for me. I got carried away in the rush of it all. It wasn’t until that initial adrenaline wore off that I realized I didn’t really know him at all.”
“You got swept away in a new romance. Happens to everyone, at one time or another,” Finn commented.
“That’s true,” Hanna nodded. “But when I got a glimpse of who he was and realized the things he was involved in…”
She had to suppress a shiver at all the memories flooding in. One of the most powerful ones was of her coming home one night to discover Vince had decided to have a party over at her apartment. She had foolishly given him a spare set of keys in case of an emergency, and he’d taken advantage.