“Touché.” He laughs, closing the door behind me and circling around to the driver’s side. I watch him, déjà vu rushing through me like a wildfire, hot and insistent. I must have sat in the passenger seat of his car a hundred times or more, all those late nights we’d slip away to the creek or out past the shoreline drive. I would have said once that it was my favorite place in the world, sitting right there beside him with my feet up on the dashboard, humming along to whatever old country songs his beat-up AM radio could pull from the wire.
“Nice upgrade, huh?” Finn must be reading my mind as he settles behind the wheel. “That old thing took me as far as Georgia before the engine crapped out on me in the middle of highway seventy-five.”
Georgia. I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking if that’s where he went. Instead, I pull out the first listing. “It’s waterfront, new build. Just take the beach road out past the harbor.”
“Yes ma’am.” Finn doesn’t seem shaken by my cool tone. He cruises through the center of town, one hand on the wheel, the other resting out of the open window. “So, you’re a realtor now? Somehow I didn’t picture you behind a desk selling condos.”
I shrug. “It’s a job. I work the office, mainly. Admin, phones. I was lucky Delilah got me the gig. She’s the real mastermind there.”
“Now that, I can picture. How’s the acting?” he asks, looking over. “I always wondered if I’d see your name up in lights on Broadway one of these days.”
I feel a pang, remembering my life in New York City after high-school – the one he knows nothing about. “I’m not doing it anymore. It was just a hobby,” I answer briskly. “So what are you looking for in a house?” I change the subject. “A dock? Outside space? Room for big parties?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
Great.
We keep driving. Oak Harbor is a small coastal community near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, with a bustling waterfront, cute clapboard houses, and a few stores and restaurants leading back from the rocky shoreline. It used to be an old fishing town, but these days, tourism is the main draw. People come from all over to fish off the boardwalk, take the ferry out to see the old lighthouse, and visit the wide Atlantic beaches just across the sound.
“This place hasn’t changed at all,” Finn remarks, looking outside as we cruise slowly along the sleepy main street.
“Small town life,” I shrug. “We got a new pizza place that stays open past ten on the weekends.”
“Living life on the edge.” Finn laughs. Our eyes catch. Electricity crackles, straight from his clear blue eyes down the back of my spine, and I feel the rush everywhere: hot and sweet, pulling low between my thighs.
I look away.
“How are your folks?” he asks, gripping the steering wheel with both hands now.
“Good.” I take a breath, calming myself. “My dad got a promotion to the head office in Savannah, so they’ve moved out there for six months, to see how they like the place.”
“And Lottie? She’s, what, nineteen now? She must be off at college.”
“No,” I answer quietly. “She’s here in town too.” I quickly change the subject away from my little sister. “It’s this turning, just up ahead.”
Finn follows my directions up to the first property: a boxy chrome and glass condo set on the waterfront, with a balcony looking straight out across the bay. He peers up at it over the steering wheel and shakes his head. “Not for me.”
“But you haven’t even seen inside,” I protest. “The view’s amazing.”
“I told you, I’ll know it when I see it.”
Finn looks at me again, and the intensity in his gaze is enough to make me wonder, why he’s back here of all places? He could be off relaxing in the Caribbean, or sunning himself on a private yacht. Why did he come to our little mom and pop shop instead of one of the big, flashy realtors up the coast? Why, even after everything he did, does my heart race, and my blood pump faster? Just one look from him could make all my heartbreak melt away.
He clears his throat, and starts the engine again. “Where to next?”
We visit another five houses, but Finn doesn’t even make it inside to look at half of them.
“Fame’s changed you.” I’m only half-kidding as we drive away from a great beach-front mansion I would kill to live in. “I guess you’re jaded by all the fancy hotels and private jets.”
“Sounds like someone’s been reading the tabloids.” Finn grins.
I flush. “I’ve seen a couple of things around. You know, in passing,” I add carefully. “That stuff’s not true is it?”
He gives me a wink. “Every word, sweetheart.”
I know he’s only teasing, but I still can’t help thinking of all the things I’ve read over the years, stories of Finn dating Hollywood actresses and frolicking backstage with sexy models. I block those images and sneak a look at him instead, that familiar profile and easy posture. His free hand taps out a rhythm on the window frame. He always did have restless hands; he used to say it’s why he first picked up a guitar. He would play for me, just idly strumming as we killed time on those hot, late nights, sprawled out in the grass miles outside of town, watching fireflies spiral in the midnight sky.