Page 29 of Persuaded

Everything with Josh had felt so heightened, so raw and new. He’d not felt anything like it before or since, for anyone. Shame, then, that Josh had turned out to be such a douche, ready to throw everything over for the sake of family pride. A real fucking shame.

“Hey,” Sean said from up ahead. “Who’s that?”

He and Tejana slowed and squinted down through the fall sunshine toward the beach. Finn looked too, stopping when he caught them up.

Someone was down there, walking along the foreshore on his own. The waves, high and capped with white after the storm, crashed down hard onto the pebbles and sand.

“Dude’s gonna get wet,” Sean laughed as a high surge of water sent the guy running backward up the beach and out of the way. It didn’t seem to bother him, though, as he stooped to pick up a handful of stones and prepared to skim them over the waves.

Finn snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that, pal.” And then, “Sonofabitch!” as one of the pebbles bounced off the crest of a wave and into the ocean.

The figure punched the air and Finn laughed out loud.

“You know,” Tejana said, “I think that’s Joshua Newton.”

Finn swallowed his laugh, almost choked on it, because, yes, of course it was fucking Josh. But this wasn’t the quiet, closed-in Josh he’d seen in New Milton. This was more like the guy he remembered, full of energy and life.

With a sinking sensation it occurred to him that Josh might only act so reserved around him. That, when he wasn’t there, Josh might still be the funny, mercurial guy he’d once known.

Once loved.

“I thought you said he was going to New York?” Tejana asked Sean, pushing a strand of dark hair out of her face as the wind caught it.

“He was,” Sean said. “Maybe there’s been a problem? We should go down, see if there’s anything we can do. His car looked like it was—”

“Wait,” Finn said, before Sean could charge down. “He wasn’t going to New York.”

Sean turned, head tilted in curiosity. “He wasn’t?”

“Nah, he hates his family.”

“How do you know?”

“I—” How might he know? “I gave him a ride home last night—he was babysitting for Liz. His car broke down so I said he could borrow yours if he was driving today, but he wasn’t.”

Sean let a beat fall. “So he’s, what? Going to Dee’s or Liz’s?”

“I dunno.” Finn let his eyes drift back to Josh, who was still trying to skim pebbles off six-foot waves. “Maybe.”

“Didn’t you ask?” Tejana said in that tone she adopted when Finn had done something really not fucking okay.

He scratched behind his ear. “He, uh, said it wasn’t any of my business.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like Joshua,” Sean said. “What did you say to him? Were you rude?”

“No!” He shoved his hands into his pockets against the freezing wind, colder now they weren’t walking. “I guess he just wants to be on his own. He, uh...” He cleared his throat. “Liz says he’s kind of a solitary guy, I guess.”

Sean sighed. “Man, I wish I’d known. I’d have invited him over.”

“It’s not too late,” Tejana said. “It’s not like we don’t have enough food.”

“Yes!” Sean turned to Finn, as if he was somehow the arbiter. “We could go down and—”

“No.” Fuck—as if that wouldn’t be the most awkward Thanksgiving dinner since the Pilgrims stole all the turkeys. “Seriously, no. Leave the guy alone.”

“But—”

“He won’t want our pity, Sean.”

---