Page 55 of Code Name: Harbor

Dad’s eyes cut between me and Finn.

I want to die.

I want to die approximately seventeen ways.

I’m also, in the part of my brain that’s still functioning, watching Finn handle my father with the kind of poise that suggests he’s been preparing for this exact moment his whole life.

My father, after a beat, pumps Finn’s hand. “Call me Bill.”

“Bill,” Finn echoes with a smile.

“Yeah.” My father studies him. “You’re going to want to find a shirt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And probably my daughter’s going to want to find some pants.”

“D-a-a-d,” I drawl, my face flaming.

“I’m saying.”

“I’m going.” I scurry out of the kitchen, down the hall and into my bedroom. I run around like a madwoman, finding a pair of sweats, wiggling into a bra under my T-shirt. I refuse to look in the mirror over my dresser because I can’t bear to see my own face right now.

From the bedroom I can hear them. Their voices are low but the floors in this bungalow are 1920s hardwood and they carry sound back to me. I hear my father say something I don’t catch but then Finn laughs.

I run my fingers through my hair and risk that glance in the mirror—flushed cheeks, wild blond hair, mouth pink from being kissed for the last hour by the man currently talking to my father, and I take a breath.

“It’s fine, Josie,” I mutter to myself.

I snag Finn’s shirt and head back into the kitchen. When I round the corner, my father’s on a stool at the island and Finn’s at the stove where the butter’s been salvaged and the eggs, somehow, are in the pan.

“There she is,” my father says with a grin. “And she brought you a shirt, Finn.”

I roll my eyes, toss the shirt to Finn who puts it on, and cross to my dad where I kiss him on the cheek. “Hi, Dad.”

He pats me on the back. “Hi, kiddo.”

“This is not how I ever imagined you meeting someone I’m seeing,” I say, my tone exasperated but forgiving.

“I know it’s not,” he says with a chuckle.

“I was going to do it properly. With clothes.”

“Properly with clothes is the version we’re going to pretend just happened, Josie.”

Finn snorts.

I close my eyes. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too. So, I guess we’re having our breakfast date now.”

Finn plates the eggs while I get the bacon from the warming drawer. I pour more coffees and hand them out.

The four-stool kitchen island that usually just holds me now holds three. My father’s on the middle stool, I’m on the one nearest the window and Finn’s on the far stool, leaning a forearm on the counter.

“So,” my father says.

“So,” Finn says.