I stop outside Finny’s door and hesitate for a minute.

“You should go,” Lark says from her own doorway.

She startles me and my breath quickens. I nod. “I know,” I say quietly.

“It’s better this way.”

I nod again. “It is.”

Lark’s door closes and I take a deep breath.

It’s time to go. I have to go get my wife and son.

Finny

I stand on the other side of the door and listen to him talk to Lark. I’m still naked and I can smell his sweat on my body.

I grab my robe and slide it on, the silk gliding against the skin he just gave goose bumps. I’ve been with a lot of men, but I’ve never had one take over my senses, not like he did. When he laid his head on my chest, I found myself reaching for him, needing to cuddle with him as much as he wanted to cuddle with me.

And that’s not normal.

I wanted to make him be just like all the others, but that didn’t happen. He was different, and I don’t like that he was.

“You should go,” I hear Lark say through the crack in the door. I reach for the handle, but can’t force myself to turn it.

“I know,” he says. His voice is rough and abraded, and I want to go to him and ask where he’s going.

“It’s better this way,” Lark says.

“It is,” he mutters.

I hear footsteps and the shuffle of luggage as the front door opens. I press my ear to my bedroom door until I hear the front door close. Then I open my door.

“Oh, Finny.” Lark sighs. “What did you do?”

I tug the robe closed around my naked body and step into the hallway. “Did he leave?” I whisper. I don’t want Wren to hear me.

“Yes.” Lark leans against the wall and tilts her head like she’s tired. “He’s gone.”

My heart trips a beat. “Okay.” I force out a nonchalant shrug I don’t feel.

“What did you do?”

I look down at the floor. “Nothing.” I jerk my eyes up to hers. “He’s, like, all the way gone?”

She nods. “Like, took his bags and left.”

“Oh.” My heart sinks and I don’t know why. “Okay.”

“You had sex with him?” She stares hard at me.

“Well, yeah…” I probably need to explain–

She rushes to chastise me. “He’s not just some random guy.”

No. He’s not. “I know.” I know it the hard way. “He’s really gone?” I look toward the front door like he’s going to walk back in.

She nods. “Yes. He took Wren’s bank book.”

“Oh, fuck.” I lay my fingertips over my mouth. “Does she know?”

Lark shakes her head. “Not yet.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Why him, Finny?”

“Just to see if I could, I think.” My voice is so quiet. “Something wasn’t right about him.”

“He’s their brother.”

“I know.” I lay a hand on my chest. “He’s not related to me, you know.”

She holds up a hand to thwart my objection. “I know that.”

“Are you going to tell them I fucked him?”

She heaves out a breath and shakes her head. “What good would that do anybody?”

It wouldn’t do anyone any good at all.

But I still can’t believe he just took off and left like that.

Tag

Two months later

I hold Julia’s hand with one of mine and wipe her brow with a cold wet washcloth. “I hate you!” she screams at me. She’s been doing this for about an hour, and I’m pretty used to it by now. “I’m glad I never have to see you again after today.”

The delivery nurse shoots me a glance. They know about our crazy situation. But I keep hoping that Julia is going to change her mind, that she’ll want to have something to do with our son after today. Our time together is over, but theirs doesn’t have to be.

Another contraction wracks her body, and she squeezes my hand so tightly that I wince and pry her fingers away.

“We don’t have long now,” the nurse says.

Julia relaxes into the bed when the contraction is over and blinks her green eyes at me.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “Just be sure they don’t lay him on me when he comes out, okay? I don’t want to see him.”

I brush her sweaty hair back from her face. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she says quietly. “It’ll be too hard.”

“We can still do this,” I say to her. “We can do it together.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not what I want, Tag. I want him to have the best of everything and I can’t give him that.”

Neither can I, I think. If not for my sister’s money, I wouldn’t be able to do anything for him at all.

Julia came to me when she found out she was pregnant. I was over-the-moon excited, but she wasn’t. Not at all.

“They can give him everything, Tag,” she’d said. “We can’t give him anything.”

“We can do this,” I’d told her. I put my hands together like I was praying. “Please. Just say you’ll try.”

“The adoptive family said they’d give me enough money to go to college,” she rushed to explain. “I can get out of here.”