Page 37 of Brad & Finn (Gomillion High Reunion #3)

He kept his head down as he walked across the lobby, trying in vain to figure out what he was going to say to Finn, where his college transcript might be saved, and wondering if maybe his mom had a copy of his social security card.

Maybe he could call Chloe on Facebook and push the promposal back twenty minutes? It wasn’t going to take long, and they could be a little late to the cocktail party before the dance. Besides, there hadn’t been a cocktail party at their actual prom.

Maybe he and Finn could take a few minutes and talk before he promposed.

It didn’t have to be the full “what are we, and can it maybe be boyfriends, but also can you put up with my work schedule and how disorganized and run ragged I am?” talk, but maybe he could at least suss out if Finn was interested in the two of them having a future.

A familiar combination of scents, apple orchards, and oak barrels, made him glance up right in time to see Chloe and Finn walk out from behind the coffee bar.

Chloe’s face lit up when she saw the flowers, and she was holding a folded-up sign, just like Brad had asked her to make from her mom’s craft supplies. He stumbled to a stop in front of them, and he couldn’t deny that Finn looked happy to see him.

His eyes were the color of Brad’s lawn each summer.

His mom had always made sure to keep their lawn watered and tended to, even when it meant pushing their mower through the hot, muggy summer days as Brad played with his toy trucks on the porch.

She took pride in her yard, the house, and, apparently, in her son and his work.

The lobby had a few people milling about, and they cast him, his flowers, and pompoms a cursory glance before going back to their phones and conversations.

Brad’s head was beginning to ache, and it wasn’t just his thoughts.

He was hearing his mom saying she was proud of him and Chloe commending him on being romantic, but he also saw the haunted look on his mom’s face and heard Chloe say that Finn wanted—no, needed —someone who was sure about him to be the one asking him to prom.

Next to him, Chloe bounced on her toes in excitement, her love for Finn practically leaking out of her.

Brad had never been that sure about his love for anyone, except his mom.

In high school, he thought he loved Kendall, and that had gone nowhere, but he’d also loved Chloe and Finn, and all that had gotten them was twenty years of lapsed communication.

Chloe had been there for Finn through every stage of his transition, and now they had what sounded like a beautiful life in Indianapolis, including Christian and, soon, Chloe’s mom.

They were Finn’s family, the one he’d found and made for himself, and Brad knew how important family was.

His mom was his entire world. Who was Brad to come in and take that away from Finn, when he wasn’t even sure what he’d be able to offer?

A sad, scared voice in his head tried to argue that they’d make it work if they tried hard enough.

Brad had proven he could make anything work.

He could be a bisexual college football player and eventually go on to be a coach who made his team feel welcome and safe, not only on the field, but off it as well.

He could support himself and his mom, and he desperately wanted to believe he could support a partner as well, but… maybe not today.

Chloe had been clear: only do this if he knew for sure what he was doing. And given the emails clogging up his phone, it was clear he had no idea what he was doing—except apparently taking a step forward to hand Chloe the pompoms and take the sign out of her hands.

Her look was questioning but trusting, and he prayed he wasn’t about to break that trust. Hopefully, she would understand that this was what was best for Finn.

“Finn,” Brad said as he unfurled the poster.

It read “ We’ve got three questions for you ,” with megaphones and pom poms scribbled all around the edges.

It was a sign the cheerleaders and the Gomillion fans had often held up during games.

It led into a cheer that would have the cheerleaders shouting questions to the crowd: “who are we, why are we here, and what are we going to do?” The answers were, of course, “we are Gomillion, we’re here to fight, and we’re here to win.

” The cheerleaders would do a call-and-response cheer spelling out “W-I-N,” and everyone always went wild at the end, screaming and blowing air horns as the team ran out onto the field or started a new half.

Today, it was much simpler.

“Chloe and I have three questions for you,” Brad said, and Chloe held the pom poms out in front of her, making them shimmer and shake.

He locked eyes with Finn, his sweet, gorgeous, wonderful best friend, and he knew he couldn’t do it.

He needed time to get his head on straight, to figure things out for work, and talk to Finn about what they were going to do.

He couldn’t start things off by rushing in with a promposal.

Chloe had explicitly told him not to do it if he wasn’t ready.

That same scared voice pleaded with him, said this was the worst form of people pleasing he had ever done, and that he was going to regret it.

Brad had no idea whose voice it was because he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d done something and not thought about how it would affect everyone around him and whether or not he would regret it.

How could he regret protecting Finn and giving his mom what she wanted—her little boy’s success in a career he wanted, even if right now it felt like it was killing him?

“First…who are we?” Brad said, every muscle in his body tensing up as it prepared to launch him onto the football field—or perhaps carry him away from this scene he’d gotten himself into.

“Gomillion!” Chloe said, throwing her arms in the air.

A laugh escaped Finn’s mouth, and he pressed his hand over his lips in a way that tore a chunk of Brad’s heart out.

“Why are we here?” he said, his voice quiet and strained. Hopefully, the others would read it as nerves and not Brad fighting to catch his breath.

“For our twenty-year reunion!” Chloe said, bouncing up onto one foot, her beautiful purple dress flowing around her feet.

“And what are we going to do?”

Thankfully, he could recite this cheer by memory. What it said that he’d memorized all of Finn’s cheers, he didn’t want to think about.

“We’re going to go to—” Chloe rolled the pom poms in front of her before throwing one arm up in the air. “Give me a P,” she said, in a volume below a shout, but loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Brad had planned for this to be a call-and-response between just him and Chloe on the football field, and it would have been cute and funny, and maybe even would have made Finn laugh.

Instead, Brad replied with the required “P,” and when Chloe asked for an “R” he said it a bit louder, and some of the folks in the room joined in.

By the “O” the whole room responded, and the “M” actually echoed around the old walls of the hotel lobby.

At least he could give Finn a public promposal experience. Folks were standing up, and someone even had their phone out.

“What’s that spell?” Chloe asked, and she turned to look at Brad expectantly.

He made sure Chloe was looking directly into his eyes before he blinked twice.

Chloe’s smile froze, and her hands lowered ever so slightly.

Brad somehow managed to avoid Finn’s gaze, even though it felt like a physical weight around his shoulders. He could see Finn’s bemused smile, and he prayed it didn’t disappear as he said, “It spells, Finn, will you go to prom with Chloe?”

Brad had seen plenty of off-Broadway productions while living in Chicago, so he knew exactly what it looked like when a curtain closed. As he glanced at Chloe out of the corner of his eye, he saw the moment her face shuttered, and she pasted a cheerleader-worthy smile on her face.

Finn chewed on the bottom of his lip, his arms winding their way around his chest.

“What do you say, hon?” Chloe asked, her smile turning tender as she lowered the pom poms down to her sides. “I know you’ve always wanted a promposal, so I asked Brad to help.”

“Uhm…yeah, of course, I…” Finn glanced around at all the people, and then a painfully fake smile seemed to claw its way out of him. “Yes, I will go to prom with you.”

The room broke out into applause, and someone even wolf-whistled. The two former cheerleaders walked towards each other, meeting for a production-worthy hug, and the onlookers gave a few more hoots and hollers before dispersing back to whatever they were doing.

When Chloe pulled back from the hug, she gestured for Brad to come forward, and he did, feeling like a man approaching his execution.

“Well…you nailed the promposal,” Finn said, gazing skeptically at the pompoms. “Where did you even get these from?”

“Kendall gave them to me as a joke,” Brad said softly, keeping his eyes on Finn’s hands and the way he was wringing them in front of his chest. “I think she told your coach she lost them and she got new ones.”

“That sounds like Kendall,” Finn said absently.

Brad’s fingers tightened, and he remembered he was holding the flowers. When he handed them to Finn, their fingers brushed in a way that sent icy hot tingles down his arm.

“I kind of thought we weren’t doing the whole fake dating thing anymore, but…regardless, I really appreciate it.” He pressed the flowers to his face, and his lips turned up into the tiniest of smiles. “These are gorgeous, Chlo. You shouldn’t have.”

The look Chloe gave Brad could have stripped the paint off the wall behind him. “I wish I could take all the credit,” she said, “but while it was my initial idea, Brad did all the execution.”