Counterfeit Love

What the hell was that?

Even with distance, I could feel an almost oppressive weight on my lower belly, a longing sensation I had been one-hundred-percent certain I wasn't even remotely capable of.

Because there was no denying it, was there?

This was attraction.

This was wanting.

I wanted Finch.

It was hard for my brain even to wrap itself around the idea, let alone the reality.

See, the thing is--I had put in the work.

No one would ever say that I had just chosen to keep a stiff upper lip about it and move on, that I had buried all the trauma, that I had denied it.

I spent more hours than I cared to count those first few years on the couch of a trusted therapist. I'd done the journaling until I developed carpal tunnel. I'd done the talking until my throat hurt. I'd suffered through the anxiety of exposure therapy. I learned healthy coping mechanisms. I tried different medications.

I put in the goddamn work.

But nothing took away 'the flinch' as my therapist and I had started referring to it. Because that was how it started. A man would get too close, reach out and touch me, and I would flinch.

From there, it often spiraled. If the man couldn't take a hint, I would shut down, curl into myself much like I had done in that basement, in those rooms above it. If he did take a hint, the results weren't much better. I would berate myself for days for not getting better, for not being able to get past it. The anxiety would come. It would bring its buddy depression to the pity party. And then the nightmares would make sleep impossible, leaving me a walking zombie until we got control over it again.

The flinch was a part of my life. It was something that, while I would never be able to fully accept it, I could let myself move past it.

Until the next time.

Because I always, always flinched.

Except, now, when I didn't.

With Finch.

Uncertainty was a rope around my neck, tightening by the second as I sat there with my mind racing.

Finally, remembering myself, I took a few deep breaths, grabbed my phone, shot off a text to my therapist for an extra appointment this week.

It was useless to focus on it too much until I had someone to talk to.

Decision made, guards firmly back in place, I got up, got dressed, took a couple slow, deep breaths, and made my way back out into the front of the gym where Finch was leaning back against the wall, trying to get one of his Nicotine patches out of the wrapper.

I took it from his hand, tore it open, and looked up to find him rolling up his sleeve, holding it up for me to stick the patch on.

There was maybe even a challenge in his eyes.

And since any soft touches that involved Finch resulted in unexpected and unsettling sensations, I went ahead and slapped that sucker onto his tattooed arm.

"Let's go. I have a busy day," I reminded him, so he didn't get any grand ideas of getting me alone in a restaurant or back at his place.

That was over.

I needed space.

Until I got my head together again.

Until then, I needed to stay as far away from Finch as possible.

Of course, Finch had other plans.Chapter SixFinchShe was back to business in the car on the way to the difficult seller.

So back to business, in fact, that she insisted we take separate cars, despite my fake, but impassioned argument about the environment.

She went ahead and tossed out that anyone who was worried about the environment wouldn't be driving a bike like mine, before hopping into her car and taking off.

I'd never met a woman who fought so hard to deny her feelings. Especially if she was single and I was single and there were no real work complications or friendship complications.

It just didn't make sense.

We were both adults.

There was attraction.

It made sense to act on it.

Then again, there was something strange there.

Even with the way she kissed my eye, the side of my lips. There was an unexpected, I don't know, innocence.

It made no sense.

I didn't even entertain the idea that she was a virgin. You simply didn't find a hell of a lot of mid-twenties virgins these days.

But if not that, I had no idea what to think of the way every touch, every moment of connection seemed to confuse her, throw her world off its axis.

I came to no conclusions on the long drive past the beach, through to the quaint shore town right out of a vacation brochure, and finally into a shady part of town that made me regret my decision to leave my gun at home.

"Wait," I demanded, grabbing my backpack off the bike, rushing to catch up with her determined gait. "You can't just rush in there."