Page 8 of By All Accounts
“You have a type,” he mused.
“Do I?”
“Dark and broody, I’d say.” He tapped Pelt against the side of his hand, and I found myself unsure if he was talking about the paint or not. Daniel wasn’t dark or broody, and I felt a correction was necessary.
“Layered and thoughtful.”
“I’ve never heard paint described that way.”
“I’m an interior designer,” I said. “It’s sort of my job to talk about paint that way.”
Finn groaned, dropping his head back and staring up at the ceiling. “Unbelievable.”
“What do you have against interior designers?”
“Not a thing,” he said, angling his head toward the paint counter. We both moved that way and he ordered two gallons of Pelt which went onto the mixer next. I pulled my paint closer to me, fingers slipping around the metal handle. “Just two of my brothers are architects so the wholedramatic buildings are dramaticthing gets old sometimes.”
I laughed at the way he changed the inflection of his voice when he talked about his brothers’ work. “I take it you didn’t follow in those footsteps then?”
Finn placed his hand over his heart. “I’m a numbers man, through and through.”
“Not an artistic bone in your body?”
He huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes. “Not a single one. Our father didn’t feel it necessary to share that skillset with me.”
“Maybe it’s from your mother, you don’t know.”
“We have different mothers,” he said simply. “So unless Dad was out working his way through an architecture convention, seems unlikely.”
I bit back an uncomfortable sound, not sure what to say and certainly not sure how to address the flippant way this absolute stranger talked about his parentage.
“Just ignore me,” he said, waving himself off. “I’m not my best self today.”
“We don’t always have to be.”
Finn looked at me again, like really looked at me in a way that most soon-to-be-married women should not enjoy being looked at. But I wasn’t most soon-to-be-married women, was I?
“Can I get your phone number?” I asked, wishing I had come from anywhere besides home, that I’d been wearing anything besides home renovation clothes. My brown hair had looked presentable for work, but I’d twisted it into a bun with a pencil before running out the door. A few strands had come loose and fallen into my face, and I blew a breath out and up, trying to settle them back into place.
Finn’s dark eyes scanned my face, swirling as my hair fluttered and settled. He clenched his jaw and opened his mouth, letting it hang a moment before any sound came out.
“I’m not…” he started to say and stopped himself, stare shifting toward something over my shoulder. “I might not answer if you call.”
“I can text.”
“I might leave you on read.”
I bit the corner of my lip, worrying it before saying back to him. “I can be persistent, if I need to be.”
Finn’s chin trembled, not like he was about to cry but more like there was an unsustainable tension in his jaw that threatened to break him. Another feeling I knew better than I would have liked.
“You might,” he said softly.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
CHAPTER 4
