Page 125 of Oleander

I sat up, blushing a little. “I’m not squeamish,” I said.

“Okay, but you’re something, I’m just not sure what.” Finn smiled easily. “You saving yourself for your wedding night?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

He laughed before his eyes turned serious again. “Look, I’m not pressuring you. And you don’t need to figure shit out before you’re ready or whatever. I’m easy.”

I believed him. There was nothing underhand about Finn; with anyone else, I might have sensed the lie in a statement like that, but not Finn. I just didn’t know why I was so hesitant about it. I’d slept with girls. Okay, two, but I hadn’t overthought that to this degree. Deep down, I suspected it was related to Cas, but I didn’t want to even attempt to figure out what.

“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked, sidling up so he was next to me on his bed.

“You want me to talk about my feelings?” I asked, eyebrow raised.

“Fuck, no. Just like...whatever you’re stuck on with this.” He waved between us. “Maybe I can help.” He gave me an odd kind of look. “You’re not a virgin, are you? I mean, you’ve had sex before? You had a girlfriend in high school, right?”

“Yes, I had a girlfriend. Yes, we had sex.”

“Okay, thank fuck for that.”

I hit him lightly on the chest.

He laughed before his eyes roamed over me appreciatively. “Look, I’d love you to fuck me, I’d love to fuck you, but all this is good too. I guess I’m just trying to understand where your head’s at. You’re a bit of a closed book, Jude Alcott.”

I frowned at that. “Someone once told me that my eyes gave everything away.”

He studied me then, hard. Not in the lusty way he had before but as if he were sincerely trying to figure me out. He stared into my eyes, then at my mouth, then back up to my eyes again.

When he leaned over me, noses almost touching, he whispered, “Oh yes, I see it now. Clear as day. You want to get fucked, hard.”

I shoved at him, and he tipped back over, laughing.

“Dickhead.”

I wasn’t even going to go. Finn hadn’t properly invited me. But then, we didn’t really do that – make firm plans with each other. But it was his birthday, and maybe I was trying to take things to the next level by turning up and showing him I cared. Plus, at the very least, we were friends, and it seemed the decent thing to do.

I’d shot off a text to ask Bast to come with me about a half hour before, and he’d agreed, meeting me outside P&P, with a six-pack of Scrumpy Jack and a big smile. He was more sociable than Conn and less conspicuous than Nikita, who a lot of people were afraid of for some reason. Bast was the perfect wingman.

Seve had given me a bottle of wine for Finn – who he knew via Abby – and let me go early since the place hadn’t been busy, Marta throwing me a murderous glare as I pulled my jacket on and ducked out of there. It was raining. That consistent, weighty rain that seemed to drop from the sky in puddles so that I was sodden by the time we got to Finn’s place.

“I’ll find a girl and leave you to it, my friend,” said Bast as we headed up the stairs of the house on Fromme Street, a sky-blue townhouse Finn shared with four others, including Alex.

A few people were huddled together on the steps outside, two umbrellas shared between them, smoking weed. I smiled as I passed, though I didn’t recognise any of them. Inside, some awful dance music played over the sound system as we made ourway through the house. Bast spotted someone he knew from the bike shop in the sitting room, so he went over to say hello while I went to the kitchen.

There, I found Finn, leaning against the fridge, while talking to a tall guy who was built like a rugby player. I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or not, and I couldn’t decide how I felt about it, so I hesitated just out of their eyeline a moment before deciding to just dump the wine and go mingle. But then the rugby guy turned, Finn, a second later.

A look of shock moved over his face, which I assumed meant that hewasflirting. And that I’d interrupted.

“Jude? I didn’t …you’re here...” He paled, panic pouring off him in waves as he stammered. I glanced at the rugby guy again and tried to give a reassuring smile.

“Yeah, bar was dead so Seve let me go.” I shrugged and held out the bottle of wine to him. “Happy Birthday.”

He stepped forward to take it. “When did you get...here?” He was looking over my shoulder and around the room. I thought he was looking to see who I came with.

“Literally just now. I came with Bast. You okay?”

He slammed the bottle of wine on the counter, took me by the arm, and manhandled me toward the utility room, practically shoving me inside. It was a small windowless space filled with cleaning products, dirty laundry, and unopened boxes of wine and beer. I looked at him, wide-eyed.

“Look, it’s fine, I don’t give a shit if you’re trying to fuck him, Finn. You know we’re not like that.” Maybe I’d come here with some other notion, but clearly that was stupid and I was actually pretty okay about it.