Page 49

Gritting my teeth, I make no move to follow my friend inside.

I move elsewhere instead, closer to Finn, hovering over his hunched form, peering down at him with a bitchy crooked brow and a bitchy curved mouth and bitchy crossed arms because Yasmin can think and say whatever she wants, but at the end of the day, bitch is my default.

Bitch is my comfort blanket. Bitch allows me to meet Finn’s gaze without feeling so fucking sad .

“So?” I press with practiced nonchalance, as if I’m not squinting at his mouth in search of smudged lipstick, at the open top two buttons of his shirt, at the hands that are braced against thick thighs now, but maybe earlier they were wrapped around a woman.

“Are there happy, smiley children in your future?”

He doesn’t even pretend to be amused, though he does play a little. “Any minute now.”

“Huh. Fast worker.”

“You done?”

I sigh. “I guess.”

“Good,” he claims.

Except when I try to stride past, he grabs my wrist. Holds me in place while he pulls himself up, jaw ticking when I kiss my teeth and back up a step. “Go bother Carmen.”

“I don’t want to bother Carmen.”

“I don’t want you bothering me,” I start to say, but I don’t get to finish.

Only the first four words are out before Finn is snapping, “Yeah, I’m aware of that.”

“What’s up your ass?”

“I don’t like Carmen.”

“You don’t like the beautiful, kind blonde horse lady?” My eyes roll. “ Okay .”

“I don’t like Carmen ,” he repeats, he emphasizes her name, he makes my head spin with the why of it all. “I don’t like beautiful, kind blonde horse ladies.”

I don’t know why I feel compelled to ask, “What do you like?”

“You don’t wanna know,” he claims the same thing he did weeks ago, and time has not made the assumption less infuriating.

“Jesus, again with that? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not interested in Carmen.”

“Then why’d you go out with her?”

“Why do you care?”

The question of the fucking night. “I asked you first.”

“Because I’m trying, Charlotte.”

It strikes some part of me, some weak, malleable part, that this is the first time someone has said my name, my actual name, like that. Tenderly . Not in anger or reprimand or to get some point across, but just to say it. And that little, susceptible part likes it. It wants to hear it again.

The rest of me, it hits like a brick shattering glass.

“Baby,” I drawl, and Finn winces because it doesn’t sound anything like the endearment he occasionally tosses— tossed —at me. It sounds mean and mocking and I hate it even though I’m the one who made it that way. “I am not in the mood for cryptics.”

It hardens him, that word. More that it hurts him.

Shifts him from irritated to furious—not at me though, I don’t think, but then I don’t know where else it would be aimed.

“How can you be so fucking sharp, but so clueless about this? Do you really not get it? Fuck ,” he curses, he backs up, he drags his hands down his face before levelling me with a look I can only describe as devastated, before gutting me with it.

“You break my heart, you know that? The fact you can’t tell breaks my fucking heart. ”

All of a sudden, mine doesn’t feel so whole either. “Is this a riddle? Because I’m not in the mood for those either.”

“I’d spell it out for you if I didn’t think there'd be a Lottie-shaped hole in the wall after.”

“We’re outside.” I gesture wildly, brattily , at all the empty space around us. “No walls.”

Finn groans. Bleeds pure exasperation, hands on his hips, eyes boring through my face to my fucking brain. “Do you know why I’m out here?”

“Star-gazing?”

He huffs, those long legs eating up the space between us until we’re not apart at all. Until I see every ounce of truth when he lowly admits, “To make sure you didn’t bring home some useless fuck who doesn’t deserve you.”

My lips part with a quiet gasp. Dark eyes drop to them, narrowing at the words they form. “That’s a little hypocritical.”

“No, it’s not, baby . It’s different. Because I was never gonna bring her home.”

I tense at the mere thought, and Finn notices.

And he croons, “Do you even know that you’re jealous? Can you admit it? Or are you that fucking scared of feeling anything other than anger?”

I flinch. “Fuck you, Finn.”

A single step away—that’s all I manage before he stops me.

With a hand on my waist. With a mouth against my temple.

With sombre, honest words. “I can’t remember a single thing she said.

I don’t know what she was wearing. I don’t remember what drink she ordered.

I do remember all she ordered was a drink, one drink, because that’s all I lasted before I told her I couldn’t do this. ”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snap without realizing what I’m snapping, what I’m admitting, what causes the corner of Finn’s mouth to curl.

“A denim mini skirt. The hem was all frayed and you kept pulling on the loose threads. Your shirt was red and lacy, one of those ones you tie together in the front, and I still imagine tugging that bow free. You had these little hot pink butterfly clips in your hair and Eliza teased you, said they clashed, and you smirked and said, ‘well, they match something else,’ and I spent the entire drive home wondering if you meant what I thought you meant. If you were sitting in my passenger seat wearing a skirt the size of a fucking belt, and wearing a bright pink thong underneath it.”

Whether to tease him or to torture him, I’m not sure, but I snidely admit, “I was.”

“I know. You fucking flashed me when you got out of my truck.”

His grip shifts. Coasts around to the small of my back, to the skin just above the waistband of a different skirt, no less mini.

“I remember exactly what you wore that day. I remember everything you said. I remember everything you say , and I don’t even try.

It just sticks. And that’s the difference, Lottie.

I know . I know what I want and who I want it from.

You haven't figured it out yet. You think you’re still looking. ”

“And you think you’re what I’m looking for?”

“I think you're terrified I might be.”

I open my mouth—to scoff, to swear, to deny, I’m not sure, but I don’t get a chance to do any of it.

Because Finn is suddenly turning me towards him, cupping my face, stealing any words from my throat, any thoughts from my brain, the air from my fucking lungs.

“I wanted to kiss you in that closet. I wanted to never stop kissing you. I want to kiss you pretty fucking often. I want to touch you. I want to tease you until you fix that pretty scowl on me. I want to do a lot of things that are not friendly. Things that you don’t want.

I’m only trying to respect that. I’m only being your friend.

I’m keeping my distance even though it kills me because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and because I need a fucking break from all this wanting.

Because that kills me too and it’s worse . ”

I’m frozen. Stuck in place, and in thought too. Held by hands and shock and utter disbelief.

“So, what?” I mouth slowly, I scoff . “You… like me? That’s what you’re saying?”

“There you go.”

There you go , he says. Proud. Relieved as if he’s been waiting for me to catch up for a while.

Except I don’t think I have caught up. I’m still so lost. I repeat, “You like me.”

Finn hums.

My eyes narrow. “Say it then.”

He makes me wait. Dips closer. Sweeps calloused thumbs across my cheekbones, tucks my hair behind my ears, brackets my neck so his thumb hovers directly over my fluttering pulse—so he can feel it become even more erratic. “I like you.”

“You were just on a date with someone else.”

“I had half a drink and came home, and you told me to go.”

“If I told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?”

“Yes, Lottie,” he snaps without hesitation. “I would. I would do literally anything you asked me to do. I wouldn’t even question it.”

I go so very still. “That doesn’t sound very healthy.”

“Doesn’t feel it either.”

“You should probably stop then.”

“Can’t. Wouldn’t even if I could. Don’t want to.”

I don’t have a name for the emotion that sweeps over me. It’s not one I’ve ever felt before. It’s entirely unfamiliar, it’s utterly unnerving, and it’s… warm. Light. All-encompassing, calm comfort.

Terrifying .

It grips me by the throat, an unyielding noose beneath a soft embrace. I can’t breath, I try to, I manage the tiniest wheeze and—

I recoil at the whiff of alcohol that invades my fragile senses. “I thought you said you only had half a drink.”

“I did.”

It doesn’t smell like he did. Fuck , now that I look at him, really look at him, it doesn’t look like he did either.

His eyes are a little red, a little too heavy-lidded, and his face is a touch too expressive, as if he can’t control what crosses it.

Like he maybe can’t control his tongue either. “Quite the lightweight then, huh?”

“I had a few beers with the guys when I got home.”

Disappointment knocks me back another step. Has me curling my fingers around thick wrists and yanking them down, pushing him away.

Finn frowns. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know that this, a drunken confession, is my own personal circle of hell. Inebriated words that won’t mean shit tomorrow.

“I’m gonna do you a favor,” I croak, the words cutting my throat. “And forget this ever happened.”

Unknowingly proving my point, it takes more than a couple of seconds for Finn to catch up. “What?”

“I’m giving you an out. You don’t have to wake up tomorrow with beer fear, okay? I’ll pretend you never said anything.”

“Lottie, no—”

“Finn.” My voice shakes. I shake. My fucking soul shakes, it trembles . “You’re drunk. You’re confused. You’re gonna regret this in the morning.”

“I won’t,” he insists, but I don’t believe him. I can’t believe it.

How can he expect me to?

“Go to bed, Finn.” Keeping as much distance between him as possible, I dart around him and up the porch steps, relief deadening my nerves when he doesn’t try to stop me, devastation ravaging the rest of me. “And don’t bring this up again.”