I pick up the thread, liking this direction. “Tom’s a builder, a fisherman, a man who works with his hands.”
Her eyes gleam. “Tom’s the guy you call to get you out of trouble. He’s your buddy who always knows his way out of a jam.”
“Tom is a man’s man.”
She points at me. “And the ladies love him because Tom is fantastically easy to “say”—she sweeps her gaze from side to side, then lowers her voice to a whisper—“in bed.”
“Maybe you could show me what that sounds like,” I say, since why not indulge in a little harmless flirting?
She hums, sliding into a sexy purr. “Tom.”
And maybe the flirting isn’t so harmless judging from my body’s reaction. But she switches gears in a second. “Tom also doesn’t need to be trendy,” she adds, and I don’t think she can shut up, but I don’t mind. “Tom doesn’t need to be Braxton or Jayden or Dane.”
“And Tom doesn’t have to be Jax or Ace or Diesel or some other aggressive male name.”
She slices a hand through the air dismissively. “Tom doesn’t care about any of that. Because Tom is easygoing. Tom gets along with everyone.”
“But do you know what Tom likes most of all?”
“What does Tom like best?”
“Tom likes that no one ever asks how his name is spelled, or what it means, or why the hell he was given that name.”
“Um,” she says, a sheepish expression on her face as she speaks in a confessional tone. “What does Tom mean? I don’t actually know.”
Laughing, I realize I don’t entirely know either. “I think it’s from the Bible. Wasn’t he an apostle?”
Recognition seems to flicker in her eyes. “Yes, that’s it.”
“But mostly I think Tom means”—I pause to sketch air quotes—“‘the name I really wanted but my parents needed a name to match my brothers.’”
“Tom.” She says it like a statement, and I tilt my head in question. Her eyes light up. “Look! You answer to Tom.”
“Like a dog?”
“Exactly like a dog.” She holds up a finger. “Hey. Idea. What if I called you Tom, instead of Kyler?”
“Why would you do that?” This woman is a bit of a nutjob, and yet I’m digging her crazy company.
“You like the name better, and this way you can test it out. You think your brothers would give you a hard time. You worry it’s too hard to change. I don’t know you from Adam, so you might as well be Tom to me, and then you can see how it feels.”
Right now, it feels unexpectedly good. “I’ll be Tom to you.”
She smiles. “You’re Tom to me, and Tom is strong, charismatic, and the ultimate good guy. You can trust Tom.”
“Now that we have that out of the way, are we going to change your name too?”
She shakes her head. “I’m good with Finley. Want to hear why it’s my name?”
I think she’s going to tell me anyway, so I say yes.
“I have two older brothers, and my mom didn’t want to get her hopes up by picking a girly girl name, so she chose one that could go either way.”
“She must have been happy to finally get her girl.”
Finley shrugs. “She probably was at the time, but I promptly began disappointing her, though that’s a story for another time. As for the name, it’s for the best that I didn’t land a Y chromosome because my dad was leaning toward Adler for a boy.”
“Adler is uncommon,” I say diplomatically.
“Adler sounds like something you take when you’re not feeling well.” She affects a falsetto voice. “‘Honey, can you pick up my Adler? Oh, I need to go to Target and get some Adler. I have a terrible headache, and I’m all out of Adler.’”
I laugh. “You’re funny, Finley.”
She flicks her hair. “Thanks. I kind of have to be.”
I knit my brow. “What do you mean?”
She waves it off, zipping away from my question. “Anyway, so tell me all about Cassie. You decided to big-gesture her, and you got me instead.”
“That’s my life in a nutshell. I went all out, and I had the wrong house, wrong girl, wrong everything.”
“Townhouses with A and B addresses are literally the worst thing that has ever happened to big gestures,” she deadpans.
“Fine. It’s a first-world problem.”
“A first-world love and romance problem. But don’t worry, the doctor is in.” She taps her chest and takes another drink of her iced tea. “And my diagnosis is that your effort was impressive. I’ve never seen that kind of commitment to a re-enactment. I need to know everything. What inspired you?” Her tone drips with curiosity.
“You want me to tell you everything?”
She swirls the straw dramatically in her drink. “Hello? I’m plying you with iced tea. Doesn’t that entitle me to all the deets?”
I can’t quite tell her everything, but I can tell her enough. “Cassie was my college girlfriend about eight years ago when I was twenty, a sophomore in college,” I begin, leaning back in the chair. “I met her freshman year working on a protest—”
“Ooh, what were you protesting?”
“Straws. They're bad for turtles. She wanted them to be banned, and so did I.”
“And that was before straw protests became a thing.”
“We were on the vanguard.”
She holds up a fist for bumping. “Long live the turtles.”
I fist-bump her back. “Turtles are cool. Anyway, we became friends, bonding over sea creatures and our amazing ability to drink beverages without needing straws.”
She hoists her strawless ice tea glass dramatically, taking a deliberate drink then smiling. “Look, ma, no straw!”
I laugh.
She makes a rolling gesture. “Keep going. This is far more fascinating than going to T.J. Maxx and shopping for toys for my dad’s dog.”
“Was that on your agenda for tonight?”
“That’s tomorrow night, actually. Dog toy shopping is fun, but this is better.”
I tell her about the required American History class we took together in the fall semester, how Cassie was pretty and smart and clever, and how she was thoughtful in her answers about the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Vietnam War, never strident or rude.
“She was the real deal,” Finley says, seeming to soak up every detail like a sponge.
“I suppose so. She was also pretty.”
“What did she look like?”
I tap my nose, remembering Cassie of eight years ago. “Cute little nose. Great hair. Lips like a bow.”
“Darn, you did like her,” she says, her voice laced with interest, as if she’s never heard a better story. Warmth spreads across my chest, as I remember those college days with the first girl I loved. The only girl I’ve loved.
“It was more than like. She was my first real girlfriend. She cared deeply about the world and others. She loved music. She used to wear her hair back in a ponytail every day. I remember it bounced when she walked, and I somehow thought that was the greatest thing.”
She sighs happily. “The bouncing ponytail. It’s the best. My hair isn’t long enough for a bouncy ponytail, but it’s seriously a dream of mine. An unattainable one since my hair can’t ever seem to grow past here.” She sets her hand against her collarbone.
I do a quick scan of her face. A spray of freckles decorates her nose and beneath her blue eyes. Her hair is curly blonde and shoulder length. “Your hair is fine.”
“Fine?”
“What’s wrong with fine?”
“Fine is for Switzerland.”
“And Switzerland is a fine country. One of my roller coasters is in Switzerland.”
“One of your what?”
“I designed the Boomerang Flyer.”
She blinks, recognition in her eyes. “The Boomerang Flyer? With that crazy vertical loop that launches you from the station at something like five hundred miles per hour?”