Totally His Page 20

And that did nothing for the urge to pick her up, carry her into the shower, and explore every inch he hadn’t yet had the pleasure of getting acquainted with.

  “Let me take you out.” And he realized he was a lot nobler than he’d ever given himself credit for. Or stupider.

  She took a deep breath. “Are we calling it a date?”

  “Do you want to call it a date?” It didn’t really matter what they called it, of course. Except that it kind of did. Calling it a date meant something bigger for them.

  “I don’t know,” she said after studying his face for a moment. “Part of me does.”

  He nodded. “Me too.”

  “So maybe we’ll just…not call it anything,” she decided. “We’ll just let it be whatever it is.”

  He lifted a hand and dragged his thumb across her lip. “I like whatever it is, whatever we call it.”

  She nodded, watching him in that way she had that made him feel as if she was vulnerable and yet wanted to eat him up at the same time.

  Finally she asked, “Is this a really bad idea?”

  “The pub tonight with my family?” Because standing here staring at each other, wanting each other, liking each other, was definitely not a bad idea.

  “Yeah.”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not. Go get cleaned up.”

  She gave him a little nod. “Okay. I trust you.”

  He watched her go and realized he’d just lied to her. It was a bad idea. For his heart. Just spending time with her one-on-one was making it hard not to fall for her completely. Having her meet his family was going to do him in. Not because they would love her—which they would—but because she needed this. And this was something he could definitely give her—family, acceptance, laughter, love. But he wouldn’t want to ever stop giving it to her. It would feed something in him that had been clawing at him from almost the first moment he’d met her, to be able to give her all the things she’d been missing and wanting.

  But he wasn’t sure how Sophie was going to respond to him falling in love with her.

  * * *

  “Sophie!”

  “Hey, sweetie!”

  “You brought Sophie!”

  That last was the only greeting directed at Finn. He smiled and watched his family literally pull Sophie into its midst. He had three aunts, five uncles, and at least eight cousins here tonight besides Jamie. Colin and Tripp were also there and lifted their hands in greeting from across the bar. With knowing smiles.

  Finn shrugged it off. The minute he’d decided to bring Sophie down here tonight, he’d accepted the fact that the only way this could end well would be for him to marry her. So he’d either be nursing a broken heart in a few months…or buying a diamond.

  At this point, he was okay with seeing which way it went.

  He let the Kellys and a few Sullivans and a couple of Derbys overwhelm Sophie for a few minutes before making his way through the crowd and resting a hand on her lower back. “Okay, I need to get this girl fed,” he told them, ushering her toward a table along the wall. Not that it kept people from moving with them and continuing to talk. But he finally got her settled and ordered from Zoe.

  “The Kelly burger?” Sophie asked as Zoe headed for the kitchen.

  “It’s flavored with Irish whiskey,” he told her with a wink. “And,” he added with a sigh, looking around the bar filled with bodies and noise, “it has a lot going on.”

  “Like what?”

  She was clearly amused when he looked at her again. “Cheese, bacon, crispy onions, barbecue sauce, spicy mustard, sweet pickles, and jalapenos.”

  She laughed. “That is a lot.”

  He nodded. “Like the Kellys.”

  She looked around too. “There are a lot of them, but it’s so easy to be around them. And they don’t seem mad at me. Do you think they know about the fight I had with your mom?”

  Finn felt his heart thunk against his ribs. He reached for her hand for some reason. He wasn’t really a hand holder but…he realized that he was. His mom had pointed out how his dad had always acted. That he had been physically demonstrative. But Finn was too. Just in a quieter way. He’d never really noticed it or thought about it with the other girls he’d dated. Maybe because they took it in stride. But Sophie always seemed surprised when he touched her. Not startled or shy, but pleasantly surprised. And she always leaned into the contact or met it with a distinctive reaction. Like now, when she put her other hand over the back of his and squeezed. With a huge smile.

  “I’m sure some of them have heard. You can’t hiccup in my family without everyone knowing about it.”

  Sophie instantly looked sad. “I hate the idea that your mom is upset. I hate the idea that any of them might know that I upset her. I hate the idea that it will be awkward the next time I see her.”

  Finn squeezed her hand. “She loves you, Sophie. One argument doesn’t change that. And if there’s something this family knows about, it’s how to get mad and get over it. Hell, you think we get along famously all the time?”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I know that makes sense,” she said. “But my experience with arguing was always that it was the beginning of the end.”

  “Your dad and your stepmoms never argued until they were ending the whole thing?” He couldn’t imagine that. If every single person in his family didn’t have at least one argument a day, something was wrong.

  She nodded. “My dad’s entire job, his mission, was to keep my stepmoms happy so they’d let us stay. If he was ever upset about something, he didn’t show it. And if they were upset, he just apologized. Until the end. It was like once he got tired or fed up…or they did…then it all went to hell really fast.”

  “Damn, babe, I’m sorry. I can’t even wrap my head around that.”

  She shrugged. “I know it’s weird now, but I didn’t then.”

  “So what about your friends? You’ve never disagreed with Kiera or Maya?”

  She smiled. “Here and there, but nothing big. But yeah, they’ve showed me a lot about how to have normal relationships.”

  He almost didn’t say the words that rushed to his mouth, but looking into her big blue eyes, he couldn’t hold them back. “Well, stick around. The Kellys love and fight and yell and laugh loudly and a lot. You’ll get used to it.”

  She gave him a smile that he wanted to see regularly. Daily. Always.

  “You still feeling dizzy and wobbly?” he asked. She seemed to be sobering up, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing and he should ply her with coffee or if he should order a round of shots. He wanted to keep her open to being here and letting his family close. But he also wanted her to remember it tomorrow.

  She nodded. “A little. But in a good way. Kind of a warm and fuzzy feeling.”

  Finn decided that for now, anyway, that was okay.

  “Tell me about the bar,” she said, eyeing the stuff hanging on the wall over their booth.

  The decor was a mishmash of Irish knickknacks—everything from old pub signs to cheesy leprechauns—and family photos and heirlooms, including the gaudy hippo figurines Finn’s grandmother had collected, a few old baseball trophies that his uncles had won as kids, and even the mailbox from the first house their great-grandparents had lived in.

  “My great-grandfather and two of his brothers started it,” Finn said. “It’s been handed down through the generations. Someone always steps up to be the name on the line on the contracts, but we grow up knowing that this place is all of ours, and we all help out when and how we can.”

  “Who is this?” she asked of the people in the black-and-white photo hanging above the napkin dispenser.

  “My grandmother’s sister and her husband,” he said.

  Sophie smiled as she gazed at the picture. “Do you know the story behind everything in here?”

  He nodded. “We all do. This is the hub of everything.”

  Sophie looked back at him. “That’s…kind of amazing.”

  “Is it?”
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  “You don’t think so?”

  “I just…grew up here,” he said with a shrug. “This is the place where the family has had Sunday dinners once a month forever. My great-grandparents started the tradition because, even back then, no one had a house big enough for everyone at once.”

  Sophie was biting her bottom lip, studying his face.

  “What?” he finally asked.

  “You take it for granted,” she finally said.

  He knew he did. He nodded. “Yeah, I know. I should work on that.”

  She shook her head quickly. “No. I think that it’s…nice. I mean, it’s nice to have people and traditions and history and hand-me-downs that you can take for granted. That’s how it should be.”

  He thought about that. “You think so?”

  “Definitely. I mean…it’s a sign that it’s all really secure, don’t you think?”

  He looked around the bar, taking it in from Sophie’s perspective. Secure. That was a really good word for how he felt here. He focused on her again. “You feel the tradition and roots at the theater, right? With your grandma?”

  Sophie nodded. “The only roots I have.”

  Finn was grateful the table was between them, because he wanted to yank her into his arms and.…just hold her. Did he want to run his tongue all over every inch of her creamy skin? Hell yeah, he did. Twenty-three hours out of every day since he’d met her. But right now, he wanted to hold her and he really wanted to tell her that it was all going to be okay and that she could put roots down with him, that they could start their branch of this gigantic old tree right now, tonight.

  He cleared his throat. “Let me tell you more about the Kelly clan,” he said, sliding out of the booth and tugging her to her feet.

  It was hard to talk over the noise in the bar, so he found that he had to get close to her ear—and fight the urge to bury his nose in her sweet-smelling hair—repeatedly during the guided tour around the bar. Finn kept her close, tucked against his side, and the feel of her arm around his waist and her smiles and laughter as he told her Kelly family stories made him want her more than even when he’d had her pressed up against the wall of the theater.

  Well, almost as much.

  “A broken plate and teacup?” she asked, turning away from the ceramic pieces that had been glued to the wall.

  He nodded. “My grandmother. She broke those throwing them at my grandpa. She glued them up here to remind him of that argument.”

  “What was the argument about?” she asked, looking up with a twinkle in her eye.

  An actual twinkle. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen one before in real life. He grinned. “They fought because he was spending too much time here at the bar. She put those up to remind him that the things that nourished him were at home and that, no matter how mad she got, they’d always be able to put things back together.”

  Sophie looked at the broken dishes again. “And now they’re here to remind you all of the same thing.”

  “Yep. That the things that really keep us going are at home and that there’s always a way to put things back together after they break.”

  Sophie shook her head and said nothing for a moment.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I just…didn’t believe that families like yours really existed.”

  He tightened his arm around her. It wasn’t the full two-arm squeeze he wanted to enfold her in—and not let her go from—but it was enough to be touching her right now. “Well, we’re real.”

  She took a deep breath. “Very.”

  They were headed back to the booth when Finn noticed Zoe was bringing their food. As they slid into the booth, Sophie gave a little laugh.

  “What’s funny?” he asked, reaching for the ketchup.

  She gave him a smile that made him want to kiss her. Even more than he’d wanted to before.

  “It’s just a little weird that I’m even crazier about you because your family bar has a stuffed teddy bear glued to the wall.”

  Finn laughed and looked over at the bear. “My uncle Nick won that for my aunt Nancy at a fair on their first date.”

  Sophie gave a little sigh. “God, I love this place.”

  Finn’s chest tightened, but he pointed at her burger. “And you haven’t even tasted the food yet.”

  They ate, and Finn turned the conversation to Sophie’s memories and history at the theater. It wasn’t quite as long or involved as his at the bar. The theater had belonged to her grandmother for thirty-eight years. But seeing the softness when she talked about all of it made him want to make her look like that all the time. Whatever it took.

  He mentally pulled back on those reins quickly. This was what he did. He took people in—his whole family did. He and Sophie both needed to be careful here that they didn’t mistake wanting each other for something else—his need to make things better and her need for family. Still, he found himself thinking about ways to prolong the night and reasons to bring her back.

  The Kellys left them alone during their meal, but the moment her last fry was gone, Chloe and Hannah, two of his cousins, pulled Sophie up to the bar and had her trying a couple of the specialty shots. Finn kept his eye on her but loved seeing her with the girls. And didn’t mind the idea of her being a little tipsy again. It meant he wouldn’t be staying over after he took her home, but he loved the way it helped her let down her guard. Eventually she would see that she could relax around them even without the liquor. But for now, a little Irish cream wouldn’t hurt anything.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  You told Mom you wouldn’t do this,” Colin said as he slid into the booth across from Finn.

  Finn rolled his eyes as Tripp joined them too. Colin handed him a beer and Finn realized that they had also stayed away while he and Sophie had been talking. He’d managed to be alone with her even in the midst of all of this. That was…something.

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’re not bringing the first woman since Sarah around to meet the family?” Colin asked.

  Fuck. That was what he was doing alright. “I brought Lauren around,” Finn reminded him. Though why he was encouraging this conversation, he wasn’t sure.

  “You brought Lauren around, realized the family was going to bring her into the fold and love her and make it horrible to break up with her, just like it had been with Sarah, and that was the last time.”

  Finn took a drink of his beer and looked over at Sophie. Yeah, Lauren had been the last time. Because he hadn’t found another girl since who was worth the risk of hurting everyone. Until now.

  So yeah, it meant something big that he’d brought Sophie here, and yeah, his mom was going to be concerned about it. But he didn’t regret it. “Sophie was having a hard night. She needed to get out and have some fun.”

  “And, after all, this is the only place in Boston that’s open on Thursday nights,” Tripp said.

  Finn took a drink of his beer. Tripp had a point. He could have taken Sophie a million other places. But she had needed more than to just get out. She’d needed the Kellys. And she hadn’t even been given the full dose. “I can’t drink for free anywhere else,” Finn said.

  Colin chuckled, and Tripp said, “Right. I knew there was a good reason you brought her here.”

  “Of course.”

  “And Mom will totally understand that,” Colin said. “I mean, it’s just a burger and a beer, right?”

  “Yep.” It was definitely not just a burger and a beer.

  “And some harmless shots, right?” Colin asked.

  “Yep.” Definitely not harmless. Those shots made her less guarded, and that was probably the last thing he needed her to be.

  As if to prove his point, Sophie chose that moment to glance around, spot him, and give him a big, bright, ridiculously happy smile.

  “And some innocent, friendly, oh-Finn-you’re-the-best stuff, right?” Colin asked drily.

  Finn glared at his brother. “What?”

  “You love h
ero worship.”

  “And he gets more than his share,” Tripp muttered.

  “That’s not what this is,” Finn said in a tone that should have shut them up quick.

  But this was Colin and Tripp.

  “Then what is it? Tell me that it’s not because she’s a sweet, beautiful girl that hasn’t had enough love in her life and looks at you like that.” Colin pointed over his shoulder without looking. Directly at Sophie.

  Finn wasn’t sure what to do here. Sophie was all of those things, and he did really like it when she looked at him like that. But this was not that. Okay, this was not just that. It was more. But he wasn’t sure he should admit that out loud. Or even to himself.

  “Sophie doesn’t think I’m a hero,” he said. And then he sat up a little straighter because he realized that was true. She respected him and what he did for a living, but she didn’t like him because of his uniform. And he was okay with that. “I’m not really a hero anyway.”

  “You’re a cop,” Colin said. “That’s not heroic?”

  “It’s my job, and I’m great at it,” Finn said. “But I don’t know how heroic it is.”

  “Making the city safer and the world better?” Tripp asked him.

  Finn shook his head. “Come on. I don’t have any major challenges. I’ve got a huge support system and a ton of people who believe in me and I’m following in my father’s footsteps because I like to help people, but guys like us should be doing that shit, because we’ve got it good and had it pretty damned easy and it’s the least we can do to give back.”

  Tripp set his beer down and stared. Colin frowned as if concerned. But neither of them said anything. Which was a freaking miracle. Because they never shut up when it came to Finn making an ass of himself.

  So maybe he hadn’t done that just now.

  “And if anyone is a hero, it’s that girl over there,” he said, pointing over Colin’s shoulder, also without looking but directly at Sophie. “She hasn’t had support or people doing anything but using her, and she still runs a theater where she can even make you jerks look brilliant and she freaking loves it. She’s also been an amazing friend to our mother, and if Mom doesn’t get that Sophie deserves to be down here having fun and being loved, then Mom is just going to have to deal with it.”