Page 45 of Wild About You
Finn lets his chin drop, shoulders trembling with laughter as he shakes his head again. When he looks back up, he groans softly.
“See?” He nods toward me. “So much trouble.”
“Yeah, right back at you, mister.”
He sits back and climbs to his feet, brushing his hands against his pants as if they’ve collected any actual grass from their spot on the green. I pout like a petulant child, still flat on my back down here, trying not to be too dazzled by the way he’s now positioned so the lights—from the hotel, the stars, and the moon—form a perfectly angelic glow around his perfectly gorgeous head. So much trouble.
“So yeah, this has been fun and all,” he teases, trying hard to look sincere, but even he can’t completely hide his smile tonight. “But I kind of have a mini golf game to win.”
I make a huffy, offended sound and would like to keep throwing a fit down here until he shuts me up with his lips. But I know it’s probably ill-advised to continue this where we are, so I take the hand he offers and allow him to help me up. When I’m standing, he crouches again, deftly knocking my ball out of the tunnel using his own and allowing the game to resume.
With some modifications. The winner of each hole now gets a kiss from the loser—which really means we both stay winning. When Finn loses the first couple times, he tries to keep me in check, giving brief, relatively chaste pecks.
So obviously, I start throwing the game. I take one wild swing after another, dragging it out to six to eight shots before getting the ball in at every hole. Finn knows exactly what I’m up to, but doesn’t change up his play to match my absurdity. Nor does he stop me from giving him his winner’s spoils however I please—pushing him up against the sparkly, fairy-tale-esque cottage to kiss him slow and deep after hole twelve, making him sit on a bench shaped like a giant butterfly so I can straddle his lap for our kiss after hole fourteen.
No, he takes everything I throw at him, even as it’s plain to see his composure fraying by the minute. When we’ve finally finished hole eighteen, I’m barely able to brush my lips to his before he’s pulling me toward the entrance, stopping only to drop our clubs and balls in their home before we’re back at the fence and he’s boosting me up with his hands on my hips.
As I’m about to cross over the top, giving Finn the closest close-up of my backside yet, I hear him say on a happy sigh, “God, I love mini golf.”
Chapter Seventeen
Life is just a little too good when I wake the next morning, wrapped up in Finn like we’re a couple of curly fries fused together by the deep fryer. The night stayed giddy and breathless and oh so romantic as we laughed and speed-walked our way back to our suite and spent the rest of our waking and sleeping hours together. We kissed and cuddled for hours in my big hotel bed, both in our pajamas, all my makeup washed off. We’d brushed our teeth side by side, and for the first time in my life, I felt the temptation to kiss someone with a mouth full of toothpaste foam. I disgust myself. And when eventually the passionate makeouts turned to soft pecks, tender touches, and long, sleepy eye contact, we curled into one another and drifted off.
It’s felt like we’re in a suspended reality, here at this resort I could never afford, only a short drive away from the trail we’ve been on but mentally in a different world. Of course, I can’t completely shut off the voice in my head wondering if this is going to backfire, if Finn will wake up this morning regretting it, if he’s only into me because I’m the only option around, if taking our relationship to this new level will distract us from the competition, and a million other things. But I try to tell her to pipe down for now—to not bother me while I’m on my vacation, and I’ll get back to her in a matter of hours when we return to the AT.
All I’ve wanted to focus on is how incredible it feels to lose myself in Finn’s arms, to experience this kind of closeness and intimacy with another person. And as glorious and intoxicating as it was to explore each other and feel his hands and lips roam all over and let my own do the same to him, it was somehow just as wonderful when we slowed down. Every bit as dreamy lying next to him, sharing a pillow even though there are five more in the bed going unused.
So it’s only restoring some balance to the world when I drag myself out of bed and stumble to the bathroom, and before I can even wipe the tired, goofy smile off my face, I realize that I’ve started my period.
Mother Nature, you petty bitch.
She doesn’t really visit me monthly—hasn’t done so consistently since I was sixteen and started birth control. More often, it’s every two or three months, and by my calculations, I figured I was safe enough to not pack tampons for Wild Adventures. Of course that was a mistake.
“Uuuuugghhh,” I groan, forgetting there’s another human not far from the other side of the bathroom door. A human I only recently started kissing.
“Everything okay in there?” comes Finn’s scratchy morning voice, sounding like he isn’t out of bed yet. And now might stay there forever, afraid of whatever Situation I’m having on the toilet. Wonderful! Could I be any more alluring?
“Fine! I’m fine. Stay where you are.” Okay, now it definitely sounds like something horrifying’s going down in here. There are times it would behoove me to be less dramatic.
I craft the makeshift toilet paper pad all period-havers learned in middle school before heading out to wash my hands in the sink—and face the hot guy who is probably no longer interested in me, now knowing I have bodily functions.
“Everything is actually fine,” I reiterate as I towel my hands dry and turn to face Finn, who sits up in the bed looking sleep-rumpled and absolutely gorgeous, if a little concerned for my bowels. I put my hands on my hips, a power pose for the news I’m about to deliver. “I started my period.”
Finn’s face clears with relief for a moment, then takes on a look that’s more sympathetic than anything. “Oh. Well, that sucks. Can I get you anything?”
My shoulders, which I didn’t even realize were tensed, relax and my hands fall to my sides. Of course he passed the test he didn’t know he was taking, and didn’t get weird upon mention of the p-word. Of course I shouldn’t expect any guy to, given that it’s not the 1950s and we don’t have to hide our “monthly visitor” like a scandalous secret anymore (even if some politicians live in denial of such truths).
“It’s fine.” I shake my head and cross my arms over my stomach.
“So you said.” Finn’s mouth ticks up in one corner as he continues to watch me.
I roll my eyes and force myself to move toward my backpack in the corner, to look like I have a purpose other than standing in the middle of the room feeling awkward. Why do I feel so awkward? “Because it is! I’ll just see if we can, like, stop by a drugstore on the way back to filming. I didn’t come prepared for this. But I’m gonna shower now and get ready to go and it’ll be—”
“Fine?” There’s humor in his voice, and I consider throwing a hiking boot at him.
“Exactly,” I say instead, then gather my change of clothes in my arms and stomp off to lock myself in the bathroom.
As I bask once again in the utter bliss that is a hot shower, I try to examine my weird feelings. Has getting my period just thrown everything out of whack? Is this the hormones talking? Or am I having regrets about kissing Finn? With how happy I felt waking up with him, I can’t even lie to myself about wishing it hadn’t all happened. But should I have taken it slower, not pounced on him the way I did? Is he having regrets? Is this going to make everything weird for the rest of the competition? Either with tension because we like each other, or tension because we actually don’t and just had a moment of weak impulsivity?