Staring at this man in the galley now, I wondered if it had been his fears ruling him that night, too. I wondered if love, or lack thereof, wasn’t to blame.
Love never stood a chance against bad timing and two scared kids trying to figure out who they were.
Finn startled a bit when he realized I was back. “They good?”
I smiled. “They’re fine. Drunk and hungry, but fine.” I edged closer, placing my hands on the opposite side of the stainless-steel island where he worked. “I love that you still wear that.”
He followed my gaze to his ring, flexing his hand before he curled it into a fist.
“Never take it off.”
“Finn.” I waited until he looked at me again. “What happened to the restaurant?”
His hands stilled where he was working, his eyes searching mine for a long moment. “Put my trust in the wrong eejit, didn’t I?”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed, cracking his neck before he was back to work. He seemed to do everything with a little more gusto, frustration rolling off him in plumes. “It means I thought I had a proper partner. Turned out I’d hitched my wagon to a bloody crook.”
He poured the dipping sauce he’d been making for the grilled cheeses into a ramekin — some sort of maple glaze — then tossed the silver mixing bowl into the sink without care. The clang of it made me flinch.
Finn rested his hands on the edge of the sink for a moment, smoothing out his breaths. “Everything was perfect, Em,” hesaid softly, shaking his head. “It feels impossibly hard when you open a new restaurant. There are a thousand ways you could fail… a shit location where no one can find you, a menu that tries too hard to impress everyone and ends up impressing no one, staff that’s either incompetent or just couldn’t give a shite, margins so razor-thin you’re bleeding out before you even open the doors... but everything worked out for us.” He hummed a little laugh like he still couldn’t believe it. “The location was great, the community was welcoming, the reviews were glowing, the staff keen to make it a success. We struggled in the first couple of months, but before we knew it, every table was filled for dinner every single night of the week. We had a waitlist.” His nostrils flared. “It was too good to be true. I knew it, but I thought maybe…”
His voice faded, and he pushed away from the sink, getting back to work on finalizing all the dishes. It smelled amazing in the galley, all the cheese and garlic and onions and bacon. Even with pain etched into his face, he worked like it wasn’t work at all.
“So, this business partner…”
“Ronan,” Finn said, and his jaw tightened with the name. “He was a family friend, lad I knew since we were in nappies. He came into a big sum of money when his grandparents passed. We ran into each other at a bar a couple months before I left for that charter I met you on, and as we were catching up, I told him my plans for the restaurant.” Finn shook his head. “He knew what Granny meant to me, what this was all about. He told me he’d look into things and see if he could help.
“I couldn’t believe it. I mean, it was like a sign from the universe. Then, about a month before our season was up, he called and said he was ready to go into it with me as a partner — fifty-fifty. He said he believed in the restaurant. He mademebelieve in it.” His eyes found mine. “And then he bled us dry. Bythe time I clocked it, there wasn’t a prayer of saving the place. I tried, but it was hopeless. We went under so fast I didn’t have time to abandon ship even if I wanted to.”
“You never would have anyway.”
He swallowed.
“I’m so sorry, Finn.” My chest cracked with the words. I couldn’t imagine working so hard for something like that, for a dream so hard to accomplish, and then to have it all disappear in an instant…
“Thank you,” he whispered. “It just…Jaysus, Ember, it really fucked me up.” His voice broke a bit with that, and the vulnerability of it made my throat tighten. “I’ve never felt such shame in all my life.”
“There’s nothing for you to feel ashamed of,” I said with a frown. “You did everything you could. You would have made your grandmother so proud. You—”
“Should’ve seen the signs plain as day,” he finished for me, eyes hitting mine. “Now I don’t trust me own bleeding shadow, don’t trust me judgement at all anymore — on anything. On anyone.”
“Not even Gisella?”
Oh, God.
My eyes widened at the words I couldn’tbelieveI’d let slip out, but Finn didn’t seem fazed by them at all. He just finished plating the midnight snacks, one of his shoulders inching up a bit.
That was all the answer I got before it was time to take the food out to the guests. Finn helped me, both of us plastering on wide smiles and Finn even doing a little bow to the applause from the group when we delivered the trays. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar from him, considering the topic of conversation before.
The guests dove in, moaning their appreciation as I got them each situated with bottles of water before Finn and I retreated back to the galley.
The tension was still right where we’d left it.
Wordlessly, we both began cleaning up, Finn focusing on wiping all the surfaces down while I got started on the dishes. He eventually joined me, taking over drying after I washed and rinsed.
“How did things start with you two, anyway?” I asked. “You’ve been dating for a few months… but how did you meet?”