“Don’t be rude,” Mary Alice chastised. “Chad saved your ass last night.”
“Didn’t know that was gonna turn into an opportunity for him to chase yours.”
“Finn!”
That was definitely his cue. Chad shoved back from the table. “I should probably go. Finn needs more rest and you’ve got work to do.”
The women engaged in some kind of silent communication before Mary Alice walked him to the door. “I’m really sorry about that. It’s not personal, she just…”
“Hates all men right now.” He smiled a little. “Got that last night. It’s fine. And she wasn’t entirely wrong. I did come to see you.”
Despite her obvious distress over Finn’s behavior, she worked up a smile. “Thanks for bringing back my scarf.”
“Thanks for forgetting it. I’ll see you Tuesday.” With one last, long look at that smile, Chad stepped into the rain.
It was a beautiful day.
As a rule, Mary Alice didn’t have a temper. It wasn’t how she was wired. A good thing, since she spent her days running herd on twenty-five eight-year-olds who could be more than a little trying, at times. But as soon as Chad was out the door, she whirled, marching back into the kitchen, hands fisted.
“That was totally uncalled for.”
Finn didn’t even look up from the fridge. At least she was voluntarily seeking out food this time. “Just
calling it like I see it. So glad you could turn my accident into a chance to scam on my doctor.”
“There was no scamming. What does that even mean? I forgot my scarf. He brought it back.”
“Convenient,” Finn pronounced, sinking down at the table with a slice of cold pizza. “You just happened to leave your scarf. He just happened to show up to bring it back.”
Mortification chased away the lingering sense of flattery and faint excitement she’d felt when she’d realized Chad had actually wanted to see her. Had he thought she did it on purpose?
“I realize you were completely hammered on Friday, and semi-impaired by a head injury, so maybe you’ve forgotten, but I was kind of consumed with taking care of you. The last thing I was thinking about was my stupid scarf.”
“Y’all were flirting.”
“We were talking. And anyway, just last night you were just accusing me of not moving on. Carrying on adult conversations with other men is part of that process. Now your nose is out of joint because you think I want to move on with Chad?”
Finn scowled and stared down at her pizza.
“Or maybe you don’t want me to move on. Is that it?” Mary Alice asked. “Misery loves company, so you’d rather I be in the same state you are?”
“You were never in this state.”
“Because I wasn’t visibly angry and bashing Judd and Autumn at every turn? Do you think that means I didn’t hurt?”
She threw down the pizza. “How would I know? You never talked about it. You just calmly announced you’d broken up with him, had a little cry, and that was that.”
Mary Alice stared at her in exasperation. “Is that really what you think it was like for me? Is that why you’re angry with me? Because you think it was easier for me to survive and move on, when you feel like you’ve been gutted?”
The flicker of shame that crossed Finn’s face was answer enough.
Mary Alice didn’t want to get into this, but she sat down at the table anyway. “I gave Judd everything for two years. My love, my unwavering support. I didn’t complain about the long hours he worked, and I believed him when he said he and Autumn were just friends. To a point, it was true. He never cheated on me. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt because that’s not the kind of man he is. But I was the only one who believed that. So many people warned me off him when we first started dating, and I didn’t listen. Because I loved him, and I believed he loved me, or why else would he be with me?”
She wrapped her hands around her empty mug, wishing it was still warm. “When he took me out to The Spring House that last night, he apologized for working so much and talked about making our relationship a priority. He was nervous, and I was so excited because I thought, ‘Finally.’ And then he pulled out that God-awful bracelet instead of the ring box I was expecting.” She could still feel that crushing disappointment. “That, on its own, was bad enough. But the look on his face, when he realized I’d been expecting him to propose made it oh so clear that the idea had never even crossed his mind. And, icing to the cake, he got that call from Autumn and actually left me there, at the restaurant, alone. Do you have any idea how humiliated I was?”
Finn had lost the belligerent set to her jaw. She just shook her head. “You never said—”
“No, I didn’t. Because it was absolutely mortifying. Nobody predicted that Seth would do what he did to you. Everybody predicted Judd would end up with Autumn. I was just too willfully blind to see it. So, no, I didn’t do The Three Furies, and I haven’t gone around shouting my pain to the skies because I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so’ from anybody. I feel foolish enough without that.”