Home Ice.

Chapter Ten.

Finn

I hate that we're going to this wake. I fucking hate it.

Call me cold, but her family doesn't deserve shit from her. Her dad doesn't deserve her attendance and her mom doesn't deserve to look at her. The only people that I'll entertain a conversation with are her cousins, and that's because she told me that they got her out of there when they heard what her mom said.

The nerve of that woman. To tell my favorite person in the world that she regrets having her? That she was a mistake? Fuck that. Fuck her.

I don't care if that's not what she meant. That's what she said, and that's enough for me to never let her talk to Avery again. I don't even care how controlling that is. She's only ever hurting her these days and I'm fucking sick of it.

I wasn't lying when I said that I'm not letting her talk to her. Her mom already hates me for some fucking reason, so it's not like I have much to lose.

The fact that she even thought that I could ever hurt Avery makes me even angrier. She's the one hurting her. She's the issue here.

Half me thinks she just said it to instigate. I can't imagine anyone close to us actually thinking for a second that I would hurt Avery. That's just fucking ridiculous. Obviously domestic violence is a huge issue in a lot of relationships, but not ours. I will never, ever use my strength against her. I will never lay a hand on her like that.

And no, this isn't foreshadowing. This is me being as clear as fucking day that I'm not a scumbag who abuses their partner.

We're currently on the train to Queens right now and thankfully it's not all that packed since it's a Sunday. Our fingers are laced together and in my lap as my little bookworm reads to distract herself and I look out the window and watch New York pass us by.

Though - I'm stuck in my own thoughts and I half think that if I don't stop myself, I'm going to end up making us leave and that won't end well. I sigh and sink into my seat as I turn to face her. She looks over at me with a little amused smile at my huffing and puffing, "What?"

"Bored," I tell her simply. I love how she's looking at me. I want her to look at me like that every day for the rest of our lives. "What's your book about?"

Her face scrunches like it does every time I ask her the question, "It's a romance again."

"Well, lay it on me. Maybe I'll learn something," I shrug. She shakes her head and looks down at the book with reddened cheeks, "I don't think there's much for you to learn."

I squeeze her hand as a way to tell her to tell me anyway, so she shrugs and talks softly so that the conversation stays between us and not everyone in the train car, "I haven't gotten far yet, I started it before we left."

She closes the book a little bit and I catch the name of it, One Day in December. The cover definitely screams romance novel.

"You sure you want it spoiled?" she teases, as if I'd ever read this myself. I give her a bored and pointed look, so she giggles softly to herself and looks back down at it.

"Basically the main girl was sitting on a bus one day and made eye contact with a guy who was at the stop," she starts to explain and even though she said she only started it a half hour ago, she's on page 84. "She was sure it was the love of her life and he could feel it too, but by the time they both snapped out of their trance and she was trying to get off the bus and he was rushing to get on - the bus left. She said that she just watched him stand there as the bus drove away, knowing that was her person."