Page 69 of Hate Wrecked

I wantedto crawl out of my skin. Riley Williams didn’t belong there, in my space, with my small things and life on pause. But fuck, I wanted her there.Just come home to me.

Riley let go of me, ending the hug, leaving me with more questions at her words and not enough gall to ask as she walked around my little living room.

I had a lamp in the corner because the bulb in the ceiling fan was out, and I just didn’t have time or need to get a new one.

When I read my paper on the couch—like the old man she said I was—I did it as the sun shined in the morning.

My small, humble apartment was a place I never expected her to see. When she asked to see my bedroom, I tried not to tell her we were crossing a boundary we never should have, even though it was one I had fantasized about.

We had been skating a line for too long, testing boundaries with the way we touched each other and with all we shared.

I walked down the hall, pointing to my room. The single window let in the streetlight outside, which illuminated my mattress on the floor. My closet was open, and my nightstand—a stack of trunks—held a stack of books. When I talked about my book on the nightstands, I neglected to admit that there wasn’t an actual nightstand.

I flew to LA with a backpack full of belongings. I wear a uniform every day, and everything I own is from a thrift store second-hand. But my bed was made, and the clothes I washed folded neatly in the corner.

Riley walked to my bed, falling down onto it, knees first. She turned to her side, and her eyes fell to the notebook on the bedspread. That was my cue.

I walked over quickly and climbed to the bed, grabbing it before she could.

“What’s that?” Riley asked, knowing.

“Notes.”

“About the island?”

“Yeah.”

“You know no one gets shipwrecked anymore, right? It’s the 90s. This isn’t the 1800s or anything.”

I shoved the notebook between my mattress and box spring, then rolled back onto the bed. “If you read an ad in the paper that said a man was looking for a woman to live with him on an island for a year, would you do it?”

Riley fell down onto the mattress fully, close to me. “That would be weird.”

“It really happened. Two people did that. And they got close to dying.”’

“Wow,” she breathed, turning to stare at my profile. “You really do love morbid things, Mr. Finn.”

I glared at her. “Funny.”

I was glad we were back to joking about the island and my dreams, and the tension over her offering her family wealth to take me on a trip to the island had been forgotten. I didn’t mean to be prideful, but it was something I needed to do on my own. I didn’t know how to make her understand that when it had never been her reality.

“My dream,” I started, fearful, “one day, is to take a year off. Go somewhere. Travel. And write down everything I see. They say to write what you know, and I want to know more than I do. It’s why I came here.”

“You lived in New York City, and now you live in LA. I’m sure there is plenty to write about between the two.”

“Yeah. I will. I am.” I shrugged.

“Can I read what you have in that notebook?” she asked, pretending to reach over me, knowing I would stop her.

I grabbed her arm, and she fell onto me, her arm over my chest, her mouth close to mine. “Riley, we’re not going to keep doing this,” I whispered, my eye on her mouth. “I know this is why you wanted to come here.”

“You wanted me to come here too,” she whispered, running her hand up my neck.

I wanted to pull away, but everything about her drew me in. It made me want to tempt fate and tempt my circumstances.

“Your mother would be very upset if she knew how close we are,” I argued, my gaze returning to her green eyes. “I know she sees us talk. I know she is aware that there is a friendship of sorts. I keep waiting for her to confront me about it. I can’t keep worrying.”

“I don’t care about her,” Riley declared. “She knows I’m with you now. You can’t keep worrying while taking the risks anyway.”

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