Favoring Fortuna

Chapter 5

She'd just hung up with Becky when her phone rang again. She groaned when she glanced at the name and saw it was her ex. She ignored the call to send it to her voicemail, and was busy deleting text messages when it started ringing again. She'd ignored her ex's calls three times before she got fed up and answered it forcefully,

"What do you want!"

"Good morning," came through in a soft Irish accent and she felt like sinking into the floor. She hadn't even looked at the name.

"God, I'm sorry Finn, I didn't realize it was you. He won't stop calling and texting. It's been non-stop since I woke up."

"Already? No offense, but what exactly did you see in this guy?"

"Believe me I've been wondering the same thing for months."

"Well if he's already making a nuisance of himself, you probably don't want to hang around there long. I'm up, coffee's brewing, why don't you come on over?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'll text you the address."

"Okay, if you're sure, just let me get cleaned up, and I'll head your way."

"Alright, see you in a little while."

...

Finn's place was more of a condo than an apartment, and much, much larger and nicer than hers. She had to admit she was just a little jealous. He'd greeted her at the door with a cup of coffee, and she had to laugh. They'd joked the day before about the importance of coffee to her being a functioning human being in the mornings and she was glad he'd remembered. He'd helped haul in the couple of baskets of laundry out of her car, and then offered to give her a tour, and she was more than a little curious, so she'd accepted.

Not that she hadn't already noticed, but she couldn't help but be amazed over just how different he was from what she'd thought about him before the other night. This morning he was energized and infectious, and she could almost see a little of what Becky had been trying to tell her. He'd laughed almost shyly at himself when he'd shown her his office which was covered wall to wall in various types of art and memorabilia-wrestling, comics, a whole lot of Star Wars, and many more-it was a geek collector's wet dream, and then he asked her conspiratorially if she wanted to know something about him that not many people did. She was nervous for a second, not sure what he meant until he showed her his collection of completed Lego sets and she was blown away-it was so intricate, almost artistic, and so not what she'd expected.

She suddenly realized that she truly wanted to know this man behind the wall that he showed to the rest of the world. The man that inspired such loyalty from his closest friends, who was willing to go to so much trouble to help a woman he barely knew, and who secretly spent his free time building such intricate works of art.

"So I kind of want to avoid the roster today, but I do need to get a couple of things done. Would you be up for running to the grocery store with me? We can pick stuff to make dinner here tonight, and if you need anything we could get that too."

"Sure, that would be fine, and, yeah I could use a few things, but do you have room for me to store it for the day?"

"I could probably make it work, or we could just drop it off at your place on our way back here."

"We'd run the chance of running into my ex though. I mean I hope he wouldn't camp out at my apartment, but knowing my luck we would show up at the same time as he did."

"I don't know, maybe that would be for the best. If we are going to have to deal with him then doing it away from everyone else might be our best option. I think we can risk it."