Page 40 of Brad & Finn (Gomillion High Reunion #3)

Chloe trailed off, and Finn’s mind ran in two separate directions.

He needed to clear some things up for Chloe about their friendship—like the fact that she and Christian were, without a shadow of a doubt, enough for him.

He had never wanted for more platonic love as long as he’d been with them.

The way he felt for Brad was something entirely separate and apart from his relationship with them, and if she didn’t know that, he was going to have to fix that—soon.

Unfortunately, he felt a bit too drunk to do that talk justice right now.

Instead, he chose the more masochistic path, the path that wanted to know why he, to use Chloe’s words, hadn’t “been enough” to convince Brad to put aside work or to, at the very least, extend an invitation to sleep next to each other tonight.

“What did he say?” Finn croaked.

Chloe closed her eyes. “He said he wanted that, too, and that…that he thought maybe he could have that with you.”

“And then…”

“Then he still didn’t go through with it.”

The breath wheezed out of him, and he pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, Finn, I’m so sorry,” Chloe said, and she threw her arms around his neck, sloshing his stomach as she pulled him down against her shoulder.

A chasm was opening up in his chest, and he wished for one terrible moment that he could fall into it.

He didn’t want to do the adult thing and track Brad down to talk about this.

He knew that’s what he needed to do, but all the alcohol and stomach-knotting, teeth-clenching pain he was feeling told him there was no point.

“Can I…message him? On your phone?” he asked because that felt like a halfway point between storming back to the hotel and getting on a plane back to Indianapolis tonight.

“Of course,” Chloe said, pulling her phone out of her clutch. Christian hadn’t been able to add pockets to this dress—too many layers of tulle.

He accepted her phone with limp fingers. She had pulled up Brad’s profile, and he let himself look at Brad’s picture for probably a little too long, based on the way Chloe’s fingers pressed into his leg.

“How about I grab us some ice cream, and we can go back to Mom’s place?” Chloe offered.

Finn could only nod, even though frozen dairy was the last thing he wanted right now.

He did want a few moments alone, though, which Chloe knew.

She seemed to know everything, except that they were the kind of forever friends that people wrote songs about.

Again, though, he’d have to deal with that later, when the blue on his tongue faded and they could carve out some time for a frank conversation.

He pulled out his phone and set a reminder for the following evening to have a nice, long chat with Chloe.

He managed to misspell her name twice, which might have been a sign that texting Brad should also wait for the morning, but of course, he didn’t listen.

Instead, he typed, deleted, retyped, and deleted again, until he landed on one sentence filled with so much pain that, if he were Brad, he wouldn’t have responded either.

By the time they arrived back at Chloe’s house, her phone had been silent and still in Finn’s hands for so long that he handed it back to her in resignation as they walked in the front door.

The light in the living room was on, but the way Chloe’s house was set up, they couldn’t see who was in it from the front door.

“Chloe? Finn? You’re home early,” her mom called.

Finn felt that bitter taste rise in the back of his throat again. Chloe looked to him for approval, and he jerkily nodded his head that she could answer. He busied himself with hanging his jacket in the front hall closet.

“Yeah, it’s been…not a great night,” she said, as she handed him her empty clutch and he hung it over the hanger.

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before walking towards the living room.

“Brad went back on his promposal and then backed out of the entire evening. Finn is, understandably, pretty upset, and I’m hurt?—”

Chloe’s voice cut off, and the silence that followed was concerning. Finn moved towards the sitting room with quick, stumbling steps.

Ms. Willson was sitting on the couch, curled up in the old throw blanket Finn had spent many sleepless nights clutching to his chest on that very couch. Her eyes were wide, a cup of tea halfway to her mouth as she looked slowly from Chloe to Finn, to Chloe’s mom, and then back to Chloe.

Finn was ready for that gaping hole in his chest to swallow him whole now. Any minute, really. Maybe Chloe would want to hop in with him, based on the shocked and somewhat stricken look on her face.

The only sound in the room was the soft clicking of Mrs. Abernathy’s nails on her glass.

Finn noted, in a somewhat detached way, that he must have picked that habit up from her.

Funny, he’d always thought it was something he’d done innately.

Now that he thought about it, though, he could remember sitting at her kitchen table, struggling with homework his dad had promised to help him with, but hadn’t, and that noise was like an ever-present soundtrack.

“How about I get you some tea?” Mrs. Abernathy finally said.

On stiff legs, Chloe made her way over to the loveseat across from the couch, and Finn, at a complete loss for what else to do, followed her.

Ms. Willson seemed equally at a loss, gazing into her tea as if maybe it was to blame. “Are you…” she began, but her voice trailed off, and she raised the mug to her lips instead.

Mrs. Abernathy returned, holding a tray with a steaming teapot and two mugs.

She set it on the table, poured them both a cup, then refilled Ms. Willson’s mug.

“I can leave if you’d prefer to talk just the three of you?

” she offered, but at their unanimous chorus of no’s, she took her seat next to Ms. Willson again.

Chloe tried to clear her throat, but she ended up making a horrible, gravelly noise that set Finn’s teeth on edge.

“What were you going to ask, Ms. Willson?” Finn prompted. “I’m happy to answer any of your questions, and…I’m sorry you had to hear that. It wasn’t our place to tell you that about Brad.”

Chloe squeezed his knee when he said “our,” but thankfully, she didn’t contradict him.

Ms. Willson stared at Finn, as if seeing him for the first time. It almost looked like recognition flashed in her eyes, but it was there one moment, gone the next. “Are you two…not together?” she asked, nodding her head at Chloe and Finn.

Chloe shook her head and, thankfully, fielded the question, explaining her relationship with Christian and her friendship with Finn. She left out the other reason why Finn had agreed to attend the reunion, and Finn almost chimed in, but Ms. Willson spoke first.

“And…you live in Indianapolis?” Ms. Willson asked, which felt like a weirdly specific question.

“I do. I own a condo a few doors down from Chloe, which I bought because none of the rentals near her allowed dogs. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper that I’ve never been very inclined to fix.”

“And you’ve been thinking about planting some flowers to make it more homey, but you’re not sure if that would help,” she murmured.

Finn nodded. “Everything I told you at The Roll was true, except I’m not in a romantic relationship with Chloe. We’re more like platonic partners in crime—and in life,” he said, and Chloe leaned into his side. “But we’re not ‘together’ in a way that would make it unacceptable for Brad to prompose.”

His air quotes felt silly, but just like her son, it seemed to make Ms. Willson smile. That is, until her face fell, and her shoulders curled forward in a way that was so familiar, it threatened to drive Finn to his knees.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I’m afraid I may have ruined your night.”

She went on to explain how Brad had stopped by the house, and she’d been excited for him until he admitted the person he was “promposing” to lived in Indianapolis. She borrowed Finn’s air quotes, which made him smile, even as he wanted to cry.

“I’ve had a bad habit of encouraging Brad to look for fulfillment outside of work, in relationships and, hopefully, one day with a partner and a family,” she said. She reached for the teapot, but it shook in her grasp.

Chloe hurried forward and took the pot from her hands. “Brad told me a little about that. Something about adoption papers for Illinois?”

Finn’s heart beat out a staccato rhythm, each beat pulsing in his temple and that spot on his jaw.

Ms. Willson sighed and rubbed a tired hand down her face. “Yes, probably not my best moment, but I worry about him. He’s so lonely, and he thinks I can’t tell, but a mother can always tell.”

Chloe’s mom placed a gentle hand on her leg in a way that was almost as familiar as Chloe’s hand, which had returned to Finn’s leg the second she sat back down. He’d had no idea they were such good friends, and by the way Chloe was staring at them, he didn’t think she’d known either.

“What happened after Brad told you Finn lived in Indianapolis?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.

Ms. Willson did her best to explain her reasoning, specifically that Brad seemed so excited about the promotion, and she wanted to be supportive.

There was more to it than that, though. Slowly, she shared how bad it had been with Brad’s father.

As she spoke, she made herself as small as she could on the couch.

With aching clarity, Finn realized it was probably a learned response, in both mother and child, to being around a volatile, angry man.