And Christ Almighty, the sight of Finn riding horseback, cream-colored cowboy hat shading his eyes from the sun and his tight Wranglers accentuating his thick thighs and bulge is enough to make a grown man weep. Fuck, he’s too hot for his own good.
“Daddy!” Tucker squeals.
“Hey, bug.” Finn comes to a stop, climbs off the horse, and ties her to the tree.
“What’re you doing here?” I ask, peering up at him as he walks over to us.
Finn sits down on the blanket beside his son, opening his lunchbox that Tucker and I packed for him last night before I went out with Tripp. “I was nearby, had a minute, and was hungry. Hope it’s okay that I’m crashing your picnic.”
My stomach dips as his gaze lifts, meeting mine. Finn’s the first to look away as he swipes something out of his lunchbox. The note Tucker wrote for him. His lip ticks up into a crooked grin as he reads the messy and adorable handwriting before turning it around for me to see.
“Tucker draw this, or did you?” he asks, something akin to humor in his tone.
I huff out a laugh as I take in the poorly drawn image of Bubba cuddling with his favorite chicken. “If I say Tuck, would you believe me?”
“Not a chance.” He shakes his head, tossing the piece of paper back in the lunchbox. “You suck at drawing,” he adds with a smirk that makes my stomach dip.
It takes a moment for my mind to catch up to what he said, and I can’t help but snort when I do. “I’d like to see you do better,” I tease.
“Daddy, look!” Tucker says, pulling our attention to him. “I peeled this all by myself!”
“Good job, bug.” Finn smiles down so genuinely at his son, and I can’t help the flutter of butterflies taking over my stomach. There’s something so attractive about a man loving on his child. Especially when said man seems to only soften around said child. It’s like getting to see a side of him not shown to many.
We start eating, but honestly, I don’t have an appetite. I feel like I could puke again, but I force myself to at least eat some of my sandwich because I need something in my stomach. That’s the last time I get shitty drunk on a weeknight.
As if he can hear my thoughts, Finn glances over at me and asks, “How ya feelin’ today?”
“Like garbage,” I huff out, which earns me a chuckle from him.
“Didn’t really expect to see you out of the house after last night.”
My eyes slice over to him, eyebrows pinching as confusion fogs my mind. “What do you mean?”
He arches a brow. “You don’t remember comin’ home and being locked out?”
“Um, no.”What the fuck is he talking about?
“Daddy, guess what?” Tucker chimes in.
“What?”
“The fire alarm went off this mornin’,” he tells his dad, and I groan. “It was so loud!”
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I say, “I accidentally burned the eggs.”
“It smelled so bad,” Tucker continues. “Ash opened up the backdoor because it stunk, and the chickens ran inside.”
His little giggle would normally make me laugh if I wasn’t so mortified. This morning was an utter shitshow. Getting those chickens out of the house was way harder than it should’ve been, and Bubba didn’t help. He was chasing them around—I swear, working against me—while I was doing my best to not hurl again.
Finn looks at me as Tucker tells him all of this in great detail, humor shining from his eyes.Why is he in such a good mood?Why is he looking at me like that? And what was he talking about, me being locked out last night? We manage to finish our lunch, with them eating more than me, before Finn heads back out to the pasture to get back to work. It’s not until Tucker and I get back to the house that it hits me…
Coming home last night and not being able to find the house key.
Talking to Finn through the Ring camera.
Him letting me in, then making me food.
Fuck.How embarrassing. What did I say to him? Did I go to bed after eating? Why did he make me food in the first place? He probably thinks I’m a fucking mess.
