Page 103 of The Hot Shot

“Are you happy?” I can’t help but ask.

He strokes his beard, clearly thinking about how to answer, which doesn’t bode well. We all fall silent, waiting.

“I’m in flux,” he finally says. “I’m in love with a woman, and she is my joy. And that scares the shit out of me.”

The table is silent as we all take in his words. North nods slightly, looking so mournful my heartburn rises again.

“Am I happy?” Dex repeats. “Yeah. I’m happy as much as a clueless guy can be. Am I at peace? No, not yet, but I’m working on that.”

“I’m depressed,” Jake announces, shoving his plate back from his place. “This conversation is depressing.”

“We can’t always be talking about the newest Zelda expansion pass,” I say, pushing my plate back, too.

Jake rolls his eyes but then looks at me. “What are you going to do?”

“I asked her to stay with me. I can’t take that back.”I. Don’t.Want. To.“I guess I’ll proceed with caution and hope for the best.”

Sometimes I really fucking hate that I can read people so well, because my guys clearly think my new plan is crap. They’re kind enough not to say it out loud, but the damage is done. By the time I head home in a cab, I’m popping antacids, in a foul mood, and slightly drunk.

Seventeen

Chess

Finn isn’t there when I get home. I laugh at myself because I’d expected him to be. After all my huffing about independence and the choke hold of living with someone, I hate that I come home to an empty place.Oh, irony, you bitter bitch.

I find his note on the kitchen counter.

Went to Rolondo’s house for dinner. Didn’t want to text and interrupt your friend time.

See? Totally giving you space.??

—F

At the bottom of the note, he’s drawn a smiling stick figure of a guy wearing a crown and holding a football and... I lean closer, peering at the drawing in the dim light, then let out a spurt of laughter. “Sick, sick man.”

Stick figure Finn also has an enormous stick dick. And it is clearly happy.

Grinning wide, I hold the note to my heart in a moment of complete sappiness then secure it to the stainless-steel fridge with a fleur-de-lismagnet. Happy Dick King Finn can now rule over the kitchen.

His note has cast out some of my sorrow, but not enough. It’stoo quiet in the condo, the hum of the fridge highlighting the fact. I help myself to a glass of red wine and take it to my room.

Changing into pj’s, I eye the bed with trepidation. Finn’s room is just down the hall in the far corner of the apartment. I’ve seen it. Of course I looked. But I’ve never really been in there. It felt like a threshold I’d dared not cross, as if entering it would make the temptation of Finn more real.

Picking up my glass of wine, I head for his room. It’s ridiculous how my heart rate kicks up as if I’m trespassing. The room is dark, illuminated only by the light coming in through the massive arched windows facing the river and the one looking toward Jackson Square.

Creeping like a thief, I make my way across the wide space and flick on a bedside lamp. Like my room, his has a fireplace on one wall, but his room is double the size of mine and painted a rich, deep red. The color is too dark for me, but it feels cozy, like a cocoon. A king-size bed of weathered wood and natural linen padding takes up one wall, while a sleeping couch takes up the other.

The TV is arm-mounted over the fireplace, and I can imagine Finn pulling it out and making it face the bed so he can lie down and watch his beloved sports highlight shows.

It feels strange now that I’ve never visited him in here. He’s certainly popped his head into my room enough times to see what I was up to. Although, I always got the impression that he’d been vaguely disappointed not to find me naked. The imp.

I turn on the other bedside lamp and look at the artwork. There isn’t much, a few abstracts on the wall above the couch, a large black-and-white abstract with a splash of gold paint running through it over the bed. On the wall next to the bed, there is a large framed picture of Haystack Rock in Oregon. A bit of landscape, which, I realize with a little jolt, was featured inThe Goonies.

I stare at the picture and another frisson goes through me. Of all the pictures to have. Dust has settled on the edge of thewhite frame, so I know it isn’t new. It’s been there a while, sitting right where Finn could look at it while lying in his bed.

I turn away and investigate his bathroom. “Jesus.”

It is a palace. All white marble, with a huge freestanding tub that could hold two people, and a glass walled shower that could accommodate three. The toilet has its own room, and throne jokes run through my head as I close the door.