Page 20 of Brad & Finn (Gomillion High Reunion #3)

Different folks had stopped to talk to Chloe and Brad, and Finn had participated as best he could, but as another unfamiliar face approached Chloe, Finn’s bladder had finally had enough.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” he announced to no one in particular and pulled his hand and then himself away from the bar.

The bathroom was just as small as he remembered, and the mirror above the sink was cracked, distorting Finn’s image more than usual.

It had taken a long time for the person he saw in the mirror to match even a passing resemblance to how he saw himself in his head.

Tonight, whether it was the alcohol, the splintered glass, or the lingering feeling of Brad’s hand in his, he found he didn’t much mind what he saw.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, a hand he was beginning to recognize the shape of grabbed him by the wrist and guided him behind a stack of boxes and a coat rack.

“Brad—” Finn tried to ask.

But his words died as Brad cupped his cheek and bent his head down. He paused a hair's breadth away from Finn’s lips, once again asking him to take the final step. Finn had come this far, and he wasn’t backing down now. He tilted his head up, and their mouths met for the third time.

This kiss was light-years different from their first two. Brad parted his lips as he slid his hand around to the back of Finn’s neck. His other hand found Finn’s hip, and he fit his thumb into the hollow there, as if it was made for him.

When Finn gasped, because it was all just so much, Brad traced his tongue over Finn’s bottom lip before sliding it into his mouth.

Instead of pausing to debate the merits of making out in the back of a bar at the reunion he wasn’t even supposed to be at, Finn slid his hands into Brad’s expertly styled hair.

A few of the guys he’d kissed before had product in their hair, and it was usually a massive turn-off for Finn.

He would stop mid-kiss, wipe his hands on his pants, and return to much more lackluster kissing after that.

Tonight, he couldn’t find the will to care.

He traced his fingers gently through Brad’s hair, and he groaned into the kiss, sliding his tongue along Finn’s, causing him to make his own plaintive noise.

His was much closer to a moan, or possibly a whimper, and he didn’t want to be making such noises with his best friend only a handful of yards away.

So, he decided it was time to take over the kiss. He pulled Brad down even farther by his hair—gently, of course—and chased Brad’s tongue out of his mouth. He nipped at Brad’s bottom lip and then soothed his tongue over it, scratching his nails over Brad’s scalp at the same time.

“Finn,” Brad groaned into his mouth.

The sound of Brad’s honeyed voice saying his name, the name he’d chosen—the one that represented everything he was and everything he hoped to become as a man—nearly undid him.

His hands went slack, and he wrapped his arms around Brad’s neck.

Brad wrapped both arms around Finn’s lower back and turned his head, burying his face in Finn’s neck as their chests and hips came together in an aching hug.

Finn could feel a bulge pressing against his hip, and his own dick was throbbing. When was the last time kissing had gotten him going like this? He ground his hips against Brad experimentally and bit back a whine.

Brad groaned against his neck. “Sweetheart, if you keep doing that, you’re going to make me embarrass myself in a way I haven’t since…well, probably since high school.”

The soft, rumbling “sweetheart” caused goosebumps to break out across Finn’s arms. He’d often heard Brad and Kendall exchanging “hon” and “baby,” but he’d never heard such a tender endearment from the larger man.

“I guess it’s safe to say you’re not fazed by me being trans?” Finn asked.

Shock rushed in like an icy tide as Finn wondered where the hell that had come from and why that usual weight in his mouth hadn’t been able to stop it.

Brad pulled his head up, so they were eye to eye. “Were you worried about that?”

Finn bit his lip, surprised to find it was already swollen from kissing and beard burn.

“Not exactly, but…it seemed like you wanted one thing, and then after we talked and you found out who I was…and then the sort of awkward kiss in the gym…” He sighed deeply.

“I guess I wasn’t sure if maybe you didn’t want?—”

Brad sealed their mouths together and ground his hips against Finn, as if that was all the evidence he needed. And actually, it kind of was.

Finn moaned as Brad pressed on his lower back, forcing their bodies together in a slow roll that made Finn lightheaded.

He had to break the kiss to suck in a desperate breath before Brad claimed his lips again.

He pushed Finn back against the scuffed boards of the hallway wall, and it rucked up the back of his blazer.

His arms were nearly above his head, and there was surprisingly little pull in the shoulders or arms of the jacket.

He’d have to tell Chloe it had an impressive amount of give?—

Ugh, Chloe, who he assumed was still waiting for them at the bar.

Finn pulled back and brought his hands around to Brad’s chest and pressed. Brad immediately withdrew, throwing an arm up to brace against the wall.

“You okay?” he panted.

Finn fanned his fingers out, marveling that if he placed them thumb to pinky across Brad’s pecs, he couldn’t cover his entire chest.

“Finn?” Brad whispered, and Finn stopped staring at his chest and instead looked up at his face. His eyes and nose were scrunched in concern, but his cheeks were flushed an endearing pink around his beard.

Finn couldn’t help himself. He went up onto his toes and softly kissed the corner of his mouth before dropping back down to his feet. “Maybe this isn’t the best place for us to be doing this.”

Brad placed an achingly soft kiss on Finn’s forehead. That, even more so than the teenage level makeout session they’d just had, weakened Finn’s knees until he had to fist handfuls of Brad’s button down.

“Finn, sweetheart—” Brad said, an almost giddy laugh interrupting his words. He threaded his fingers through Finn’s, disentangling his hands from Brad’s now very wrinkled shirt. “I think it might be a bit obvious now.”

Finn tipped his head back to take in Brad’s hair. At Finn’s stare, Brad reached up and groaned when his hand came into contact with the unruly waves.

“Chloe knows,” Finn said, because apparently he had absolutely no filter whatsoever.

Brad cocked his head as he tried, and failed, to pat his hair down. Finn batted his hands away and smoothed his fingers through the unruly locks until it was back to some semblance of order.

“She knows…?”

“That we kissed. That I…wanted to kiss you again. And I’m assuming since you told her about the maple candy, she probably knows we’re…” Finn bit his lip, the familiar weight in his mouth finally making its incredibly inconvenient return.

Brad’s eyes pinched, and he pursed his lips. “You might have to help me out with this one, sweetheart. She probably knows we’re…what?”

Into each other? Hopefully going to go back to the hotel to suck on things that weren’t just maple candies? Playing out a real life friends-to-lovers second-chance romance story?

“That we’re going to go back to the hotel to…be lovers?” Finn said, his errant thoughts colliding in one of the most cataclysmic ways possible.

He tried to bury his face in his hands, but Brad pressed him back against the wall and grabbed his face.

As if to further torment Finn, Brad’s index finger brushed over that sensitive part of his jaw.

Finn could feel the synapses in his brain rewiring, overlaying the feeling of Brad’s large hand on top of the memory from twenty years ago.

“Look at me, sweetheart,” Brad whispered, but Finn’s eyes were glued to Brad’s wrinkled shirt.

Brad began to stroke his thumb over the stubble on Finn’s jaw, as if he was trying to read a secret message in his skin. If he did it long enough, maybe he’d be able to read Finn’s entire history spelled out in the soft hairs on his face.

Finn forced himself to meet Brad’s eyes. They were like two pools of molten chocolate, warmth and kindness overflowing and leaving no room for doubt.

“There you go,” Brad murmured, his lips curved in a sweet smile. “I would like nothing more than to become your lover tonight. With or without Chloe’s knowledge and blessing.”

Finn shivered and grabbed onto Brad’s forearm for support, so he wasn’t tempted to slide down the wall into a boneless puddle like the previous night.

“O-okay,” he whispered.

Brad’s grin spread across his face like sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

They held hands as Brad guided him out from behind the boxes and coat rack. Brad squeezed his fingers once before dropping his hand as they emerged into the bar area. Chloe was standing alone at the bar, looking down at her phone.

She didn’t look up when they approached. “There’s a tour of the campus from nine to eleven tomorrow, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not that interested in it.”

Brad and Finn glanced at each other. “I ended up walking around near the end of the icebreaker, so I’m good,” Brad said.

“And I’m fine without,” Finn agreed.

“There’s a basketball game between the current varsity team and our old team,” she told them. “That could be fun? If you both come over and help pack some of the heavier boxes, we should be able to finish in time for the game.”

Finn agreed, because he couldn’t care less which parts of the reunion they attended, but he gently nudged Brad’s side. “Are you sure that’s okay? We don’t have to take you away from the reunion.”

He wouldn’t have been able to put it into words when they were kids, but Brad tended to say yes to too many people and too many things. Finn had already seen hints of it at the reunion.

So had Chloe, it seemed, because she finally looked up from her phone and narrowed her eyes at Brad. “Yeah, don’t say yes just because I asked, Bradley. There’s no need to people please with us. We can go if you want to.”

Brad blinked in surprise, but then shook his head. “It’s fine. Seriously. I just want to hang out with you guys. I have less than zero interest in looking at our old, falling-apart school building.”

“Well then,” Chloe said, pocketing her phone and giving them both a broad, shit-eating grin. “I hope you both have fun eating maple candy together.”

Brad laughed, scratching at the back of his head, and Finn felt his flush run from his forehead down into his pants.

“Thanks, Chloe. It was amazing to see you today, and I can’t wait for tomorrow,” Brad said, pulling Chloe into a classic, Brad-style bear hug.

Chloe grumbled and slapped at his back, but her grin was just as wide as his.

When Chloe was able to extricate herself, she gazed steadily at Finn. He felt something in his chest tug, pulling him forward until he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“Be careful with your beautiful heart, hon,” she whispered. “I think Brad will take good care of it, but you make sure you take good care of it, too.”

He squeezed her tightly until he felt her spine pop. She sighed, and they laughed together as he pulled back. It was an old trick Kendall taught them that they’d often employed during grueling practices and long games.

Chloe slung her arm around Finn’s shoulders, and he offered to walk her back to the high school to get her rental car. Brad opted to head back to the hotel to “do a bit of tidying up.”

Fifteen minutes later, Chloe dropped him in front of the hotel with a campy salute, and Finn shook his head and laughed to himself all the way to his room.

He ran through a quick hygiene session in the bathroom and threw a few things in a bag before rushing across the hall to stand in front of Brad’s door.

He could hear shuffling, and for a moment, he was nearly paralyzed by nerves.

But then he told himself he’d already crossed a turning point back at the bar. Or maybe it had been the previous night, when he’d invited Brad into his room and been more vulnerable with him than sex could ever be.

Finn straightened his shoulders, knocked on the door, and hoped that if they’d gotten through that, they could get through anything.