“Finn, this is amazing.”
“Happy one-month anniversary…ish.”
“Ish?”
“I honestly can’t remember what day we went to the museum on our first date,” I admitted as I poured us each a glass of wine.
Giggling, she replied, “Neither can I!”
We lifted our glasses. “To one month.”
She winked, “To one month-ish.”
Chapter 23
Finn
The Sox, Irish pubs, and my parents
I stood at the mirror and took a good look at myself. “Looking damn good, Ward,” I mumbled. Flash sat next to me and let out a bark. Glancing down, I asked, “Do you disagree?”
He barked again. I looked back into the mirror. “What? I bathed, put cologne on, shaved yesterday so I’d have a bit of stubble today. The girls like that look.”
The damn dog barked again, this time jumping up on me. “Get the hell off me, you damn mutt. I already took your ass for a four-mile run. You should be knocked out, sleeping on the sofa.”
Jumping and twisting in circles, he barked, then ran out of the room and down the hall. He barked from the kitchen, then ran back to me. I was stunned my neighbors hadn’t complained about him yet. Of course, it probably helped I’d slept with the Regina who lived to the right of me, as well as Casey on the other side. Both of them currently had boyfriends, but I must have made some kind of impression for them to ignore the constant barking of this mutt.
Flash jumped and barked again. “Yeah. Yeah. I hear you, Flash.” This dog lived for two things: eating and making my life as difficult as possible.
The second I headed into the kitchen, he made a beeline to his dish. In a bad attempt to hide my smile, I shook my head and decided to treat Flash to some canned food tonight.
My doorbell rang as I spooned the last of the food out and tossed the can in the trash. Jogging to the door, I opened it, and nearly had my knees buckle.
“Dear God. It’s an angel from up above.”
Rory rolled her eyes and pushed past me. “Don’t tease me. I take my Sox very seriously. This is their last home game of the regular season—precautions had to be made.”
My chest swelled with a feeling I wasn’t familiar with.
“Marry me right now. Because any woman who loves the Sox as much as you do is going to make an incredible wife and baby maker.”
She lifted a brow. “Baby maker? Seriously, Finn? How is it you can take me on one of the most romantic dates of my life, a wonderful canoe ride with wine and cheese, then turn around the next day and call me a ‘baby maker’?”
Flashing her the smile I’d quickly learned she liked, I answered, “It’s a gift I’ve been blessed with.”
“I swear, if you weren’t the holder of the tickets, I would have just turned and walked out of here.”
Placing my hand over my heart, I pretended
to gasp. “Why, Rory Adams, are you using me for my extra Red Sox ticket?”
She didn’t even flinch. “Yes. And dinner. You also promised me dinner.”
I slowly walked up to her and placed my hands on the sides of her face. “And a kiss.”
“Ah, yes. How in the world could I forget the kiss?”
Lightly brushing my lips across hers, I ran my tongue along her bottom lip. A small moan slipped from her mouth while my gaze searched her face. Then she closed her eyes and waited patiently for me to deliver that kiss. This woman was like crack. There wasn’t a second that didn’t go by where I wasn’t thinking of her in some way. She was also the only woman I’d gone out with in a very long time, and the first woman I hadn’t slept with after the second date.