Sweet Little Lies

Chapter One Hundred

Finn walked into the coffee shop, looking around for the first time in months. It had been a while since he had been there. Since he ended things with Allison.

This was where they had met. The little coffee shop next to the university campus. It was a little ways away from where Finn worked at Malone Whiskey and where he was operating most of his business. It meant a little peace away from everything. Here he was able to just sit down and drink an espresso or cappuccino and open up a book. No one bothered him. Most of the customers were stressed out uni kids who refused to look up from their laptops or textbooks to even realize he was there.

Finn wasn't even sure how well known he was to this crowd. About half the students enrolled were Queenstown natives, the other half implants from there cities and countries. Queenstown University had built itself up to be one of the most prestigious universities in the world. So many of its students didn't actually give a fuck who he was.

That was part of the appeal to coming here. While he liked his status in the city, it was nice to be no one every once in a while.

Allison had reached out to him like promised, wanting to speak. He agreed, knowing where this was going. Their time had come to an end, and Finn had no desire to start it back up. Not when he had finally found what he had been looking for all these years.

He needed to speak with Abigail. And soon, because her avoidance of him was really pissing him off. Somehow he had been oblivious to just how much time he spent around the woman. Now that he didn't have that, he was particularly needy of that attention he got from her.

He checked his phone, looking for her name in his texts but saw nothing new. She was ignoring his last text. Part of him felt annoyed, the other oddly turned on.

"Finn."

He looked up, seeing Allison sitting down at a small table in the corner. With a polite smile, he put his phone back in his pocket and walked towards her. She stood up and he could see the hope in her eyes.

Fuck, he thought, this was going to be a drag.

"Hey, Allison." She went in for a hug, so he leaned down to complete it but with only one arm.

"I've got your drink for you." She stepped back, holding her hands in front of her in that nervous twitch she did. "A dry cappuccino, right?"

He nodded, "You remembered?"

Allison looked down bashfully, "Is that okay?"

"Sure." Finn sat down, fixing up his suit jacket.

It was the middle of the day, both of them taking their lunch. He did wonder at first why she chose a place so far away from her work, but this was where they met and where they had a lot of their "dates".

"So," Finn brought the cup to his mouth and took a sip, "what did you want to talk about?" He wasn't going to waste any time with small talk.

Nerves flashed across her face and she tucked a strand of sandy blonde hair behind her ear only for it to immediately fall back out of place. "Well, I know we kind of ended things abruptly..."

For her it must have. He admitted to himself that they were still having fun together when he decided to end things. In all honesty, he hadn't planned to stop seeing her until things with his family got bad. The threat his father threw at him regarding his "fling" was enough for him to stop their relationship. There was no chance in hell he was going to put some innocent woman in trouble.

"And I totally respect that, but," she swallowed down the rest of her nerves and finally met his eyes again, "I kind of feel like we had something good going. I know you're super busy these days with running your family company, but if you... you know-"