CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Evening.
Finn showed up after dark with ears hurting from the cold, some paper-wrapped sausage, and a bottle of hard cider.
“Artisanal,” he said, handing the bottle to Emily. “Made right across the river in Brooklyn.”
Emily looked at it, faintly puzzled. “Cider?”
“I thought we could heat it up.” Ever since arriving in the city, he seemed unable to adapt to the cold. New Mexico might have ruined him for winter. “Sausage. Also from Brooklyn.”
“You want that warmed up, too?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
She’d apparently only just returned to the apartment herself. Finn could see a grocery bag half unpacked on the counter, eggs and milk sitting out.
“Kielbasa and potatoes,” she said. “Where’s the artisanal sauerkraut?”
“Missed that.” He stepped fully inside. “I used to think I was an artisan.”
He hadn’t seen her since the park. After the revelation that Wes had been gaming him, Finn started off angry, a deep and abiding fury. Slowly, it had transformed into determination. The planning adapted. Wes was jerking them around? Fuck him. They were going to take their money anyway.
When Emily called to check in, he surprised them both by suggesting meeting at her apartment—and she surprised him by saying yes. Takeout and a strategy update. It wasn’t quite a date.
But now that he was here, it felt like more than a business meeting.
“Have a seat.” Emily pulled out plates, put something in the microwave. Finn removed his coat and sat on the futon couch. There was a heavy wool blanket folded over the back, and after a minute, he pulled it over himself.
He was weary, and it had been a cold day.
“How’s Wes doing?” he asked.
“Holding it together.” Emily came in and sat next to him, placing a tray on the coffee table. She curled her legs beneath her. “Barely. Manic most of the time, phone calls, yelling at us, banging on his computer.”
“Still solvent, though.”
“For another few weeks.” She tore a piece of bread from a baguette—artisanal, Finn figured—and chewed slowly.
“That should be enough.”
They ate, drinking cider in mugs from the microwave. The apartment felt peaceful.
“What did you do today?” Emily asked.
“Well.” He hesitated, but only a moment. “I followed Asher around, actually.”
“Followed him?”
“Like some cheap private detective. Yeah. It’s harder than you might think.”
“Why?”
“In Manhattan traffic? Cabbies cutting you off everywhere, every light timed wrong?”
“No.” She smiled around a chunk of sausage. “Not what I meant.”
“I know.”
He couldn’t let go of New Mexico. Emily had dug further in the archives, even asking the auditors if they’d kept any copies from that year, but she’d come up empty. So what Wes did or didn’t do, possibly to profit off the botched robbery, remained unknown.
“Even if Wes had wanted to set us up, he couldn’t have,” Finn said. “I made damn sure never to tell him the details. I doubt he even knew which railroad we were targeting.”
“So you think … Asher?”
“Or Jake, or Corman.” He shook his head, frustrated. “But none of them makes sense.”
“And did Asher lead you anywhere suspicious?”
“McDonald’s and a Newark strip club.”
“Uh-huh?”
He looked up, cheese in his hand. “I didn’t go in.”
They finished the dinner, such as it was, and the bottle, more slowly. Finn hadn’t really gotten used to alcohol again, either. Seven years effectively without—occasional pruno didn’t count—and his tolerance had gone back to nil. A mild buzz settled over him.
Emily had scrunched into herself, curled up at her end of the futon couch. Finn realized he’d wrapped himself in the blanket, leaving nothing for her.
“Hey, are you cold?” He lifted one corner of the blanket. “Here.”
Emily studied him for a moment. Belatedly, he realized his invitation might have meant more than that.
She scooted over and eased under the blanket.
It was the most natural thing in the world to settle his arm around her. To shift position slightly, fitting themselves together more neatly. To turn his head, starting to speak, and then to catch her gaze, so close.
The first kiss wasn’t even tentative, but long and slow and exploratory. Finn shifted his weight again, and Emily turned toward him, both arms all the way around now. He ran his hand along her side, under her shoulder blade, down between her back and the futon.
“Oh my,” Emily said, eyes opening.
He eased both hands around her, lifted her head gently toward him again. Her own hands slipped under the blanket, then under his shirt, pulling it from his waist. How had she kept them so warm? So soft? His own felt calloused and rough on her skin.
There was moaning.
Matters sped up. Emily found buttons to unbutton, a zipper to yank. Finn located a clasp. Muscle memory took over, opening it one-handed, no fumbling at all. Skin on skin, the blanket tangling around them, clothes half off and askew.
“Finn.”
He had one palm on an erect nipple, marveling at its tactile beauty, even as his mouth searched her face, her neck, her shoulder. He pressed her closer.
“Finn!” More insistently. With muddled reluctance, he pulled back, just enough to see her face.
“What?”
“I just …” She fell silent for a moment, and Finn kept roving, now loosening her belt, sliding one hand under the waistline, glorying in the smooth muscle of her butt. “Stop that for a second,” she said.
“You really want me to?”
“No.” But she stayed tense. “Is this smart?”
“Um.”
“No, it’s not smart.” Answering her own question.
“No, I mean—” Finn gave up. “I don’t care.”
A long moment, and then Emily laughed.
“All right, then,” she said and disengaged herself just enough to pull Finn up off the couch. “Me neither. But not here, for God’s sake.”
It was better than he could possibly have imagined—and he’d had seven long, long years of imagining.
In the fifteen feet across the floor and through her bedroom doorway, they managed to shed the rest of their clothing. Emily yanked up the duvet and slid under. Finn dove in after her. The sheets were cold to start but warmed up almost as fast as they did.
Oh my God, Finn thought, and that was the last rational flicker for a while.
They lay spent, breathing elevated, waiting for the world to return. Finn, still inside, encompassed her with both arms, face buried in her neck.
“Wow,” Emily said finally.
“Uh.” Finn worked on recovering his powers of speech.
“Seven years?”
He nodded, chin rubbing her shoulder. “Plus,” he said, “or minus.”
Not much later, again.
In the quiet stillness of the small hours, they dozed, holding each other. Each time Emily came awake, it was a revelation all over again.
They talked, short sleepy conversations that were about nothing and thus, in fact, about everything. Soft laughter. The feel of each other’s skin, forever.
Dawn was late, light finally creeping in around seven thirty.
“Hey,” said Finn, coming more fully awake. “Don’t you have to get to work?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Oh. Shit, I totally lost track.”
Eventually, they both realized they were hungry. Also thirsty, and maybe needing a long hot shower. Though they still didn’t want to get up, the real world was finally having its way.
Before she pushed out from the covers, Emily thought of something from the night before.
“Are you going to keep following them around?” she said. “Like, is that the plan?”
“No.” Finn sighed. “Seems pointless, and it’s not like I don’t have plenty of other things to do.”
“Whoever betrayed you before—aren’t you worried he’ll do it again?”
“No,” he said again, but this time with certainty. “I don’t know who it was, but I’m sure of one thing: None of us wants to go back to prison.”
“So …”
“But it’s possible that someone has another agenda, all the same.”
“The money?”
“The metal.” Finn stroked her back, one more time. “Someone may be thinking about taking it all for himself.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?”
“Fucking Wes over, yes. Not everyone else.”
“In this sort of situation,” Emily said, “it seems like that might be a frequent problem.”
“It shouldn’t be. We’ve worked together for a long time.” Finn’s hand fell still on her shoulder. “But yes, that’s where I think we’ve ended up.”
“Of course, now that you’ve figured this out, you’ll make sure it’s impossible.”
“Oh, no.” She felt, more than saw, him shake his head. “Not at all.”
“What?”
“There will be an obvious opportunity,” Finn said. “One chance to grab it and run. And if someone does so?—then I’ll know. We’ll all know.”
“But that may not do you any good.” Emily could see any number of things going wrong, no one getting what they wanted. What they deserved—good or bad. “You could just lose everything.”
“You’re right.” He sat up in the bed. “In fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”
“What?”
“Making sure we actually come out ahead on this operation.”
Emily looked at him, the alertness now lighting his eyes, and realized he’d thought all this out already, probably long before. “You have a plan, don’t you?” She laughed. “I mean, another plan. On top of all those other plans.”
“I might,” Finn said. “And you might be able to help out.”