Page 38 of Brad & Finn (Gomillion High Reunion #3)

Heat seared along Brad’s neck and prickled in his armpits.

His eyes were prickling, too, but he ignored all of that, realizing with sinking dread that there was no way he was going to be able to go to dinner and the dance.

Chloe would want an explanation, and she looked pissed enough that she might demand it in front of Finn, and that could ruin everything.

He needed to fix things for work and take the rest of the evening to figure things out in his stupid head.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said slowly, looking at Chloe, before turning his entire attention on Finn.

“For not being able to join you tonight. I missed a few important emails from work, one of them about the promotion and job change, and it's become urgent. I need to track down some documents, possibly go back to my mom’s place, and then I might try and get some actual sleep tonight.”

Finn ducked his head, but not before Brad saw a look of raw hurt on his face. Sweat ran down Brad’s sides, and he rushed to clarify.

“Not that I haven’t enjoyed the past two nights!” he exclaimed. “Honestly, they’ve been some of the best I’ve had in…well, in a very long time. I just haven’t gotten a good night's sleep in weeks, and it’s starting to take a toll.”

Finn kept his eyes on the floor but slowly nodded. “That…makes sense. I’m sorry you have so much work on a weekend and…that we won’t get to see you tonight. Chloe and I will be in town until Monday evening, if…”

Part of him wondered if he should cut the cord now and not drag Finn through more of his floundering and uncertainty. But then Finn looked up at him through his soft brown lashes, and Brad’s resolve crumbled.

“I’m also catching a late flight on Monday,” he told Finn. “It made the flight almost half the price, so I thought I’d stick around for a bit.”

“Good, then we’ll both see you tomorrow,” Chloe said, and there was no doubt in Brad’s mind it was a threat. It hung between them until Brad nodded.

“Are…those for us?” Finn asked, gesturing at the florist box Brad was still holding with the hand not currently clenched around the flowers.

“They are–sorry, I forgot I had them.”

He set the box down on a nearby table and dropped his letterman jacket onto a chair.

Finn either hadn’t noticed it yet or didn’t realize what it was, and he didn’t want to draw any more attention to it.

He’d been planning on wearing it while he promposed, but he’d forgotten about that too—thank god.

He pulled out the two boutonnieres and turned to Chloe first. “The florist was out of corsages.”

The lie felt believable coming out, but it reflected in Chloe’s eyes as she watched him fumble through affixing the flower to her dress.

He tried to hand her the one to do for Finn, but she kept her hands firmly at her side.

Brad steeled himself and then turned to Finn. His eyes were slate gray, almost entirely clouded over with confusion and hurt he was trying to hide. His smile was wan, but he kept it affixed to his face as Brad lifted the flower to his chest.

He wasn’t sure how his fingers could be so sensitive that he swore he could feel every breath Finn took and yet also so numb that he almost didn’t feel the prick of the needle as he stabbed it through the jacket lapel and grazed his finger.

“I’ll…see you tomorrow?” Finn asked.

Brad slowly smoothed out his lapel, letting his hands brush down Finn’s chest one last time before he stepped away.

“Yeah. Hopefully I’ll be better rested and have less of this work bullshit hanging over me,” he said, even though deep down, he wondered if work bullshit was the only thing he had left.

Chloe and Finn said goodbye, and Brad retrieved his jacket from the chair before dragging his aching body back to his room.

All he wanted to do was sleep for a month, but instead, he did as he’d promised, gathering all the forms and tax information he could before concluding he needed his mom’s help.

To further pay penance, he stopped by the hardware store on the way over and grabbed supplies for the railing.

This time, when he parked on his old driveway, Mrs. Walters didn’t wave. She tilted her head in a way he could tell even from across the street meant confusion. Yeah, he felt a bit confused, too. He had no idea if he was doing the right thing, but it was far too late now.

His mom was equally surprised and quite a bit concerned to see Brad back, but he explained as briefly as he could what he needed.

His mom came to his rescue because she always had, and he prayed she always would be there for him.

Even if he did end up alone, without a partner and without grandchildren, she would still accept him, so long as he pursued his dream job and did well at it.

That little voice chided him the whole time he sat hunched over, painting the railing on his mom’s porch. It said there was no way his mom felt that way. She just wanted Brad to be happy.

Too bad Brad didn’t know what made him happy anymore.

By the time he got back to his hotel room and sent the email with all his documents neatly attached, he desperately needed to drown out that voice and the rest of his swirling thoughts.

He decided to go for a run, jamming his earbuds in and cranking them up to a volume that his phone tried to warn him away from, but he dismissed the notification.

He took the path behind town that would lead past the high school. He wasn’t sure why he did it. There was no good reason, and it felt like picking at a splinter, driving it deeper into his skin instead of letting it heal on its own time.

As he crested the hill next to the school, he was hit with the sound of bad 80s music, and he remembered that the theme was an 80s prom.

He let himself picture Chloe and Finn in their matching purple dress and suit, dancing and laughing, surrounded by their old classmates.

They’d hopefully have fun stories to tell Chloe’s mom and Christian and maybe a few more photos to fill out Finn’s yearbook.

As he turned to go, his phone buzzed once and then a second time, and he pulled it out.

The first buzz was an email, and he opened it to see a note from HR.

Brad had met this particular HR rep at the end of his six hours of interviews, and she’d been very kind to him.

He read the email in her voice, thanking him for the documents, apologizing for making him work over the weekend, and informing him that if he ever missed a deadline again, he just needed to get things in by Monday at 9 am when they opened.

Brad closed his eyes for a moment before checking his other notification. He began to walk down the hill, but had to stop and catch his breath because it was a Facebook message from Chloe that read, “ Did I do something wrong? - Finn ”

He read that text in Finn’s voice as well, and it rang in his head the entire run back to the hotel.

He put his phone on to charge without answering because the only answer he could think of—the one that played on a feedback loop through his mind until he finally collapsed into sleep, still fully dressed—was that, no, Finn hadn’t done anything wrong.

But Brad sure had.