Finn O’Brien blushing was an uncommon treat, and Molly savored his darkening cheeks. “I got it, Will.” He swept the potato salad and the pasta salad bowls up and carried them to the table.
“What about the watermelon salad?” Molly pointed an accusing finger at the bowl still in front of where Finn stood.
“But you know it’s my favorite, MoMo.”
She wanted to bite that pouty bottom lip until he cried uncle. Sparks ignited low in her belly. “Don’t call me that.” She loved when he called her that.
“Okay, Mini Mo. But I’m still not sharing my salad.”
“Finnegan.” She gritted the word out between clenched teeth, flames kissing her cheeks.
He popped a piece of feta in his mouth and chewed. “Yes, Molly?”
The oven dinged. Mom stepped back from the sink and wiped her hands on her apron. “Can you grab the cornbread and mac and cheese from the oven, Molster? I’m going outside to bring the ribs in from the grill.”
“Saved by the oven cornbread bell.” While Finn smirked and took a sip of his beer, his shoulders were rigid and his eyes dull.
“You’re lucky I don’t have any pucks on hand right now.”
Finn rubbed his face as though recalling the memory. “That was a lucky shot.”
Will snorted. “Children, children. Less chit chatting, more food bringing.” He rubbed his stomach. “I have been waiting all week for this.”
“Great game last weekend.” Dad already had a rack of ribs on his plate and was tearing into a cornbread muffin.
Will had too much food in his mouth to answer. Finn squeezed past Molly and took his seat at the table. “Yes, sir. Not to jinx it or anything, but we’re a game away from… well, y’know.”
Dad nodded, waving a rib between Finn and Will. “It’s your year. I can feel it.” He felt it every year.
“Molly?” Mom’s quiet voice still made her jump enough to almost drop the bowl she was cradling. “You okay?”
“What? Of course. I just spaced out for a minute.” She hadn’t spaced out. She’d been too busy wrestling the concern welling in her chest. Finn’s eyes stayed pinned to his plate, his fun banter and broad smile nowhere to be seen.
Finn hadn’t been in her life when Liam was alive. It was partly why his parents moved to the Morrison’s neighborhood a few years after he’d died – to get away from the memories. But Molly had been present for the aftermath.
If he was going to pretend he was fine at the table, she’d let him, and she’d pretend she was fine, too. She took her seat and tore a rib off the rack on her plate. Sinking her teeth into the juicy meat, she hummed in appreciation. “So good, Mom.”
A comfortable silence descended over the table as everyone tucked into their meal. Molly searched Finn’s face, looking for something, anything to suggest she was overreacting, that he was fine.
As though he felt her eyes on him, his gaze flicked from his plate to meet hers. The raw pain in their depths hit her like a slapshot to the chest.
It had been almost five years since Finn had turned up in their backyard in the middle of the night, distressed and trembling.
Finn had thrown tiny pebbles at her window until she’d woken up and hurried downstairs. She’d met him at the back door, his tears mixing with rainwater as they coursed down his cheeks. Split lip, bloodied nose, and marks darkening his beautiful face under red-rimmed eyes.
It was the first time she’d wanted to reach into another human being’s chest and cradle their heart to stop it hurting.
The cornbread in her mouth turned to dust at the recollection. Without a word spoken between them, she had ushered him inside out of the rain, grabbed a towel and some of Will’s clean clothes from the laundry room, and sat quietly while he got changed.
The bruises on his back had been so dark she’d seen them with only the dim moonlight filtering through the living room windows as he’d peeled off his shirt. She’d stifled her gasp, but stood and reached out to touch him, unable to resist. In the darkness, her fingers glided along his still-damp skin, rising and falling over angry, raw welts that made him hiss. She’d whispered his name with more emotion than she’d known was possible, and he’d answered with only one word: don’t.
Even now, the sound of his voice in the moment chilled the blood in her veins. Under the shirt pulled tightly across his body lay scars. He’d gotten a tattoo of a phoenix on his back during his second year of college. When people asked about it, he told them it was a rad bird and he liked the picture, but Molly knew better.
The symbolism of the phoenix rising from the ashes like Finn rising from the ashes of his broken family was part of it, but the other… he was desperate to cover the scars left from years of abuse at the hands of his father.
The first night he’d shown up, Molly had grabbed the med kit from under the bathroom sink, applied antibiotic ointment to the cuts on his back, and put a thin-cut BandAid over the still-bleeding wound just above his lip. She’d sat with him on the couch in silence for over an hour, holding his hand and watching the muscles twitch in his jaw, tears coursing down his face.
She’d ached to take his pain away, to hurt the monster that dared mark the boy who held her heart. “Does he do this a lot?” She’d asked the darkness.
