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I force myself not to jump as my head pops up. I wasn’t expecting company. “What’re you talking about?”
“You making yourself welcome to our kitchen since I did the same at yours.” Finn derides, hopping up on the counter beside me.
Too conveniently close.
He’s joking; he has to be right? I’ve been doing this since Rory and I’d first become friends, but suddenly it’s like I’m being unwelcome. Intrusive.
Like a guest, one who’s already packed up their car with an overnight bag and a pillow when they were only invited for dinner.
“I’ll have you know Rory and I were about to have a mac and cheese night,” I remark, feigning all the nonchalance I can physically muster. My composure is calm on the outside, but I’m the complete and total opposite inside. There, I’m a sweating, nervous ball of energy.
Has he scooted himself closer? Or is it the way he’s leaning, shifting his weight more in my direction, that’s so unsettling? I don’t think he’s even realized he’s done it—almost like it’s natural—until I move, too jumpy, and he pulls back.
His mouth drops lower as he nudges me. “Hey, what is it?” Worry evident in his tone. I swear something else is coated in there as well. Disappointment maybe?
You.
You.
You Finn. It’s only you.
He’s making me feel these things when he shouldn’t. Weaving his way deeper than my mind and back into this thing in my chest when I don’t want it.
That’s part of the reason I left the first time. Break it off clean before the inevitable happens and things get too deeply rooted…like with my parents.
Children suffer the most.
I probably should’ve better anticipated this once I agreed to come back, but even in my darkest days, I never could’ve predicted how intensely his hold over me still is.
I’m not sure what I did expect to happen, but he and I finding this peaceful lull between us was not it.
I never used to be like this. Finn’s making me go berserk, acting as if he cares and I’m what? Reciprocating? He once told me we aren’t friends, so then how would you define us? Fuck buddies doesn’t seem appropriate since he won’t actually fuck me, but it’s the same way I won’t allow him to kiss me. We each have our hard limits.
So, what does it make us?
Those! These are exactly what I’m talking about, his brows pinching, concentrating while the lines of anguish deepen on his forehead. “You going to answer me, Williams, or just keep gawking? I can’t say I mind either way.”
Then he goes and ruins everything and my legs instantly turn to jelly. I’d probably be collapsed to the floor if this countertop wasn’t here playing safeguard.
It’s his grin, but it’s not just any grin. No, this is his look-away grin. The one he uses when he wants to smile but doesn’t want me to know he’s doing it.
I’ll be senile before my next birthday if he keeps doing these things that are so…Finn-like.
He nudges me and I almost lose my ice cream–covered spoon to the action. One small touch and I’m an inferno. Everything but my mouth seems to be alive, as parched and dry as if I’d swallowed a handful of saltines.
“Come on,” he encourages, and my chest surges at the playfulness in his voice. This is the Finn I remember. The happy-go-lucky guy, not the one after he’d first found out about Aiden. He was an impostor. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not,” he says, and I hate the empathy I hear clinging to his vocal cords. He’s worried…for me. Concerned.
Distracting myself from the way this revelation impacts me, unsettling me more than I am, I reach and top off my sundae with the best ingredient. I doubted Rory would have any, so I brought my own.
He’s watching me, and the confirmation I have from his statement only solidifies that much more when he speaks. “You still treat those things like they’re their own food group, huh?”
My eyelids smash together for what? The shock of the question? His observation? Or is it as simple as him remembering at all?
Finn doesn’t allow me long to dwell on it. His finger finds the bottom of my chin and gently, so delicately, like petting the petal of a flower, he coaxes it back up to him. My eyelashes flicker open as he rips a bite, pulling the sugary sourness between his teeth. His chewing is leisurely, almost lazy-like.
