Chapter Seventeen

Chessly

" Y ou're really going out with Finn this weekend, huh?" Piper asked as we met for our Wednesday afternoon coffee date in the Union. "I thought with all the attention he pays to jersey chasers that you'd written him off." The concern on her face forced a confession.

"He's different than I thought."

My friend raised a skeptical brow.

"He's sweet, a funny combination of cocky and awkward." I sipped my café au lait. "And he likes my brain. We actually talk about science when we study together. When you saw us here the other day, he'd invited me to coffee so I could help him with some physics problems."

She sipped thoughtfully from her cup. "Huh. A pair of science nerds together. It does kind of make sense."

I wrinkled my nose at my friend. "Ha, ha. You're hilarious."

"I have to admit, you two are pretty cute together." Her eyes danced. "When we returned to school last fall, you, Jamaica, and I would have laughed our asses off if someone had told us we'd be dating Wildcats players right now."

"It's one date, Piper. We're a long way from you and Bax. Even longer from Callahan and Jamaica."

"With everything you put me through after my one-night stand with Wyatt, you think I'm going to let go of this thing growing between you and Finn?" She shook her head. "Nuh-uh-uh. It's your turn now." Her expression turned positively wicked. "Next week, I'm inviting Saylor and Jamaica to coffee with us so you can give up all the deets about your date."

I rolled my eyes so hard I almost pulled a muscle. "You'll get as much as you gave us about you and Bax."

A tiny secret grin spread over her lips. "We'll see."

Though I looked for him in Hillman a few times, I didn't see Finn at all during the week. Finally on Friday afternoon, I gave in and texted him. It felt weird, like I was being pushy or something, but I didn't want to greet him in jeans and a hoodie if he was taking me somewhere special like Copper with its cocktail dress and suit requirements.

Me: What is the dress code for this epic date?

It took him about half an hour to respond—time in which I wondered if maybe after all the hype, he'd panicked and decided to call off the date. I hated how disappointed the thought left me. After all, it was only one date.

Except I couldn't stop thinking about that night on his couch and the way his kisses had lit me up, how his big body pushing me into the cushions had heated my core, how conflicted I still was about those jersey chasers' interruption. What would have happened if they hadn't showed up when they did?

Finn: Casual. Probably a sweater would be good. And shoes you can play in.

Me: Shoes I can play in?

Finn: No heels. Tennies or something.

Thinking about Jamaica and Piper's descriptions of their Valentine's Day fun on the sledding hill, I asked: Do I need snow pants too?

Finn: We'll be inside.

Three little dots followed, so I waited.

Finn: Now stop fishing. I'll pick you up tomorrow at six.

He followed that with a heart-eyes emoji, which dragged a smile from me.

In high school, my friends and I mostly went on group dates, doing activities like skating parties and dances. The few guys I'd dated so far in college had taken me on standard dates to dinner or to the movies or to parties. Knowing Finn grew up in a small farming town in the middle of Montana, I couldn't imagine what he considered an epic date, but my excitement to find out had rocketed to the stratosphere. Anything short of fireworks was going to be anticlimactic.

A thought struck me, and I laughed. If he took me out for pizza and beer at Stromboli's, I honestly wouldn't be surprised. And it would be the funniest joke ever—ratchet up my expectations and then take me out to a bar. After the thought struck me, I kind of warmed to it. Then he texted me.

Finn: Do you have any food allergies?

Huh . Guess we weren't going to Stromboli's.

Me: None. But I'm not a fan of fish.

Finn: Cool. Me neither.

The three dots appeared, disappeared, and then: Six o'clock tomorrow. Epic . Followed by a winky-face emoji. I could absolutely see Finn giving me one of his cheesy winks, which twitched another laugh out of me.

What was it with these guys and their winking? I'd seen Bax wink at Piper from the football field—it was the reason Saylor and I had given her such a hard time about him. I'd also caught Callahan winking at Jamaica—only, the way he did it was panty-meltingly sexy and also a little overwhelming to my taste. Finn's winks were always silly, like he was trying out a move he knew he could never pull off.

So, of course, they worked.

At least on me.

Crap .

Too much of my headspace these days contained Finn McCabe.

I tossed my phone aside on my desk and pulled out a journal article on orchestrated objective reduction theory. The idea of our brains organically connecting to the universe, that we could experience quantum consciousness, allowing us to be in all places at the same time, fascinated me. I wondered if Finn had been thinking as hard about our date as I'd been thinking about it and if that was what had prompted me to step out of character and text him about it.

Determined to put a certain sexy football player and his epicness out of my head, I cued up my Mozart playlist—the one I'd made to improve my math scores—and started reading. Ironically, Orch OR theory took my mind off Finn and our date for the rest of the night.

By the time six o'clock rolled around the next day though, I was a ball of nerves. Every sweater I owned lay in disarray on my bed. I finally settled on a turquoise boyfriend cardigan over a white T-shirt I tucked into my skinny jeans. Since snow was still blanketing the ground, I opted for my hikers rather than my tennis shoes and hoped I was appropriately dressed for an epic date.

At six on the dot, the front desk messaged me via the dorm intercom system to tell me I had a visitor in the lobby. In the mirror above the sink in my room, I gave my hair one last fluff, slicked a lick of lip gloss over my mouth, grabbed my jacket and wallet, and headed downstairs to meet my date.

With his massive shoulders and six-foot-six height, Finn stood out wherever he went. But in the lobby of an all-women's dorm, even seated on one of the couches in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, he seemed to take up all the available space. The fact of how handsome he was with his cinnamon-brown hair flirting with the collar of his jacket, his sculpted cheeks, his square jaw, and those laughing whiskey-colored eyes, he couldn't help but grab people's attention. I noticed more than one girl checking him out as she walked through the lobby.

"Hey," I said.

His face lit up as he stood and walked to me. "Hey, Chess." He leaned down and brushed a kiss over my cheek. "Ready for our rocking date?" Leaning in close again, he inhaled and said, "Mmm. You smell nice. Like, really nice."

I blinked at the suave guy greeting me and grinned when he morphed back into Finn.

"Thank you." Smiling, I said, "I gotta admit, my curiosity about what you have planned is dialed to twenty on a scale of ten."

"Then we'd better take care of that."

Gesturing to the front doors, he silently asked me to precede him. Though I'd never admit it aloud, I liked how his dinner-plate-size hand rested on the small of my back as he ushered me to his waiting truck. Inside the cab was toasty-warm, and I slid a sideways glance his way. He'd dressed as he usually did: Wildcats hoodie, jeans, and hiking boots. No jacket even though a cold snap had accompanied the late February snow over the past week. I had a pretty good idea he was sacrificing his own comfort to heat up the cab for me.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I buckled myself in.

"How many times do I have to say it, woman? Quit fishing." The long-suffering look he gifted me cracked me up.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I directed my gaze forward and said, "Fine. I'll quietly await my big surprise." But I couldn't quite suppress a grin.

He didn't bother muffling his laughter. "This is already fun, and the night hasn't even started."

Only a few minutes later, he pulled his old pickup into the parking lot outside the football team's indoor practice facility. Without a word he killed the engine and hopped out, running around to the passenger side to open my door for me.

With a grand sweep of his hand, he said, "Milady."

Consternation knitted my brows. "Why—?"

Waggling his brows, he said, "Trust me."

Putting my hand in his, I stepped out of his ride, and hand in hand, we walked to the side door of the facility. Once inside, we passed several closed doors, which I assumed to be offices as we traversed a long hall. At the end of it, he opened a door to a locker room that smelled like the team might have finished working out for the day only half an hour before we arrived. I wrinkled my nose at the comingled scents of sweaty clothes, menthol, feet, and something nasty I couldn't quite place. The benches were devoid of anyone's gear, so the stench must be coming through the vents in the lockers lining two sides of the room and from the overflowing basket of wet towels outside the showers.

When he caught my expression, Finn said, "Damn. I should have brought you through the long way. Sorry."

We hurried to a door opposite the one we'd entered through and stepped out into a vast space covered in lined AstroTurf. Most of the field was shrouded in darkness except for a small circle of light directly across from us. Once again, Finn's hand rested on the small of my back as he guided me toward the circle of light. As we neared it, I saw a cooler resting beside a red-and-white gingham blanket. A raised pallet covered with a matching picnic cloth and flanked with two large cushions took up the middle of the blanket. The "table" was set for two, with china plates and actual silverware rather than paper and plastic.

"Have a seat," he said as he settled himself beside the cooler.

I sat on the cushion he indicated and watched in fascination as he opened the cooler and started pulling containers from it. Dinner began with appetizers: a veggie tray with hummus. While I helped myself to an appetizer, Finn pulled out two bottles of chocolate stout and two frosted glasses and poured each of us a beer.

"What do you think so far?" he asked.

Though his smile said "of course you love this," his eyes said "I hope I haven't fucked up."

"So far it's a novelty." I crunched on a carrot slathered with yummy hummus. "I've never eaten a picnic indoors in the winter. And I've always wondered what the inner sanctum of the Wildcats looked like." Catching the panic in his eyes, I added, "This beats any picnic I've ever experienced. No wind to cover dinner with dust. No bugs trying to steal bites of food or of me." I settled myself more comfortably on my cushion and smiled. "Real dishes and silverware. Cushions. And no clichés with dainty champagne flutes filled with bubbly—which, by the way, gives me a headache." I clinked my glass of beer to his and sipped. "I had no idea what to expect, but nothing in my wildest guesses included this."

Then, because he deserved it, I got real. "I can't believe how much thought and effort you put into this. You promised a rocking date, and so far you're delivering."

"Whew." A sigh gusted from him before he turned back to the cooler and started pulling out more food. "I didn't know what you liked, so I ordered a little of several things." In a few minutes, a feast covered the "table" between us. Vegetarian New Orleans sandwiches made with garlic roasted peppers and olive relish, succulent meatball skewers, asparagus and peas salad with feta and mint, homemade crackers with a smoky cheese spread, and some sort of tangy pasta salad made with penne, tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella balls. It all had my mouth watering.

"You didn't cook all this yourself," I teased.

"Can you keep a secret from my roommates?" he asked.

With a shrug I said, "Probably."

His narrowed eyes said he was considering withholding his secret.

With an exasperated tilt of my head, I said, "Of course I can keep a secret."

"I could have made all this." He waved his hand over the meal. "It's all food I like. But even though my mom insisted I learn to cook—and I'm good at it—I hate doing it." He spread cheese on a cracker and popped the whole thing into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. "At the house I pretend not to know how, and on my nights to make dinner, I usually pay for takeout." He smirked. "I manage to skip a turn each week 'cause my roomies prefer homemade food."

I laughed. "You're incorrigible!"

He waggled his brows. "You mean smart."

Picking up a meatball skewer from the platter of them, he bit down on the bamboo and pulled the skewer from his lips. My eyes strayed to his mouth, and I grew uncomfortably warm thinking about what it would feel like to have his perfect straight teeth gently bite down on my shoulder—or the inside of my thigh.

Averting my eyes to my own meal, I spooned salad and veggies onto my plate and added a sandwich. "How did you manage to set this up? Or can any player use this space after-hours?"

"Early on I learned to make friends with the equipment and facilities managers. They can make a player's life all kinds of easier." He downed two sandwiches to my one, and I understood the need for such a huge outlay for only two people. "I, uh, started planning this after you turned me down for sledding on Valentine's Day. When I ran my idea by the facilities manager, she loved it as long as I didn't advertise." At my look of confusion, he clarified. "She doesn't want the whole team setting up dates in here every weekend."

"Of course she doesn't. Wouldn't want the Wildcats to get a reputation for being sweethearts." I smirked.

"Exactly."

Finding out he'd put so much advance planning into this evening gave me a pang. For so long I'd thought Finn to be a stereotypically shallow, egotistical football player. Instead, I was discovering he was a man of many layers, and to my shock, I wanted to peel back each one of them.

Turning sideways, I stretched my legs in front of me and sighed. "That was so good. I'm so full I don't think I could eat another bite."

"That's a bummer." He polished off one last meatball skewer and wiped his hands on the cloth napkin beside his plate.

"Why?"

"Because there's dessert." The happiness in his tone reminded me of a six-year-old at a birthday party anticipating cake.

Tilting my head, I blinked at him. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah." Those two syllables mimicked an orgasmic sigh.

"When you put it like that"—I shifted on my cushion and shot him a flirty grin—"I'll make room."

"Atta girl." Reaching back into his magic picnic cooler, he carefully pulled out two parfait glasses with special plastic covers on them and handed one to me. Next he passed me a long spoon and said, "Dig in."

I held the glass up to inspect its contents and felt my eyebrows climbing up my forehead. "Is this what I think it is?"

He poked his spoon into his dessert and tasted it, licking the spoon afterward. Watching his tongue curl over his spoon momentarily distracted me, my thighs clamping together at the sudden picture of that tongue curling over certain parts of me.

What's wrong with me? We're only sharing a picnic. On a practice field no less.

Yet the wicked gleam in those whiskey eyes said he knew exactly what thoughts that little move had put into my head.

"If you think it's delicious, you'd be correct."

Was it me, or had his voice dropped?

I dipped my spoon into my dessert and closed my eyes in delight as flavors of fluffy chocolate mousse and sweet-tart raspberry ganache filled my mouth. "Oh my God, how did you know this is my all-time favorite dessert?" My eyes popped open to catch him staring at my mouth.

Shifting on his cushion, his words came out on a rasp. "I took a chance that you might like my favorite dessert."

"It's so good." I spooned another bite and moaned over the textures and flavors filling my mouth.

Finn cleared his throat. "Chessly Clarke, I didn't take you for such a wicked woman."

Only then did I notice his dessert had remained untouched.

"I thought you said chocolate-and-raspberry mousse was your favorite." I pointed at his half-finished dessert. "If you don't want to finish yours, I bet I can make room for it," I teased.

"Wicked, wicked woman," he muttered, throwing me a dark look.

I laughed.

So I wasn't the only one thinking naughty thoughts while we ate our meal. I didn't know what else he had planned for the evening, but I had a good idea I was going to enjoy it.