Finding Faith

I reached down and picked up one of the books sitting by her feet.

“What the hell are you doing in here anyway? And why are you reading about…” I read the title of the book. “Economics in America, when you should be scrubbing my toilet or something?”

She practically hissed at me, her eyes tiny slits in her face. She was pissed and she’d never looked so fucking hot.

Snatching the book from my hand, she stuffed it in an old purple backpack with her name written in whiteout on the strap.

“I was just catching up on some reading, but don’t worry, your toilets are nice and clean.” She gave me a sarcastic smile before trying to walk around me.

I moved so she was stuck in the closet and placed my arms against the doorframe around me. Her eyes dropped to my chest and roamed across my tattoos. I had a lot more than I had the last time she’d been this close to my body. I liked the way her eyes felt on me.

When she looked back up, her eyes were softer.

“Let me through,” she said calmly.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

She took a deep breath and looked away from me. “Finn, let me out of here. Seriously, I don’t have time to play games with you.”

Her words struck a chord, and I felt myself going from playful to pissed off just that quickly.

“Why not, Faith? You had plenty of time to play games with me when you were younger. Why not now?”

Her eyes clashed with mine as we angrily stared each other down.

“I never played games with you,” she said sternly.

“The hell you didn’t. I bet you felt good—the innocent girl who played the player. Well, think again, little girl. You can’t play someone who doesn’t give a shit about you!” I shouted.

The minute I said it, her face went pale and dropped. I felt sick to my stomach after saying those words—mostly because they were a fucking lie. I’d been so in love with Faith and she’d taken me apart piece by piece when she left. I was still trying to put myself back together four years later.

It was unexpected, but out of nowhere, she exploded. Dropping her bag to the floor, she used her fists as she starting pounding against my chest. She was screaming things I couldn’t understand uncontrollably as she had a breakdown right in front of me.

I let her hit me until my chest became tender from her tiny fists, and then I grabbed her by the wrists and pushed her up against the wall. Still, she tried to kick me in the shins and knee me in the balls. Using one of my legs, I trapped hers. She struggled a little more before finally giving in.

She turned her face away from me, her hair sticking to her flushed cheeks.

“Look at me!” I shouted.

No one was allowed to put their hands on me like that—ever. Grown-ass men had gotten their asses kicked for less.

When she refused to look at me, I used one hand to capture both her wrists and used my other to turn her face to me. When I did, her hair slipped from her cheeks and I could see she was crying. I felt like the biggest dick in the world, but I had to hold strong. I couldn’t be fooled by her again.

Her big brown eyes met mine and her slow flow of tears turned into much more when she burst out crying even harder.

“Please just let me go, Finn,” she cried. “I swore I’d never let you see me like this.”

I was so shocked that I let go of her arms. She grabbed her right one and rubbed it, making me feel bad that I might have held her too roughly. I wasn’t one to hurt a girl, but she had made me so fucking angry.

She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and then reached over to grab her bag.

“Just go ahead and fire me already. I’ll find another job,” she said as she walked out of my closet.

I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but I was pretty sure the girl was having a mental breakdown. If she was still living with her dad, which I was sure she still was, why was she working as a maid? I hadn’t even thought about that. It made me wonder what Faith had been up to all these years.

When I went back into my bedroom, she was nowhere to be found. I wasn’t going to give her what she obviously wanted—I wasn’t going to fire her. If it was torturing her to be around me as badly as it was torturing me to be around her, then I could take it as long as possible.

The following day, I stayed in again just in case she showed. I sat around and watched TV while the guys went out shopping and hit up Disneyland. I waited until later in the afternoon, and when she still didn’t show, I put in a phone call to the temp agency.

“Hi, Mrs. Cooper, this is James Finn. The maid didn’t show up this morning and I was wondering if everything was okay?”