11. Ori
11
ORI
Turns out ‘possessive’ isn’t such a dirty word…
I stepped out of the old brick apartment building feeling like I’d just left one of the lower circles of hell.
It was warm outside again. I’d been stuck outside a nondescript two-story building for twenty-five minutes before the rental agent showed up to give me a tour of the place, and by the time I walked inside, I’d been sweating my ass off.
The tour had been even worse. Online, the apartment had seemed so promising. It was in Sable Valley, the next town over from Bestens that had a pretty big college and a good handful of apartments. I’d always liked Sable Valley, and the unit had looked pristine in the pictures.
In person, it had been anything but.
Now that the tour was over, I felt like I had to take a long shower and maybe some painkillers, too.
My phone buzzed as I walked the short distance to my car, and I pulled it out.
I had a text from Finn.
Seeing his name on my phone screen was starting to give me a little thrill in a way I didn’t like to admit.
I didn’t like the feeling of someone having that much power over me. But seeing anybody else’s name on my phone had been annoying me ever since I’d hooked up with Finn a few nights ago.
Hooked up with Finn , I thought, biting the inside of my cheek as I leaned against the side of my car.
If I’d gone back and told teenage Ori that anything close to a hookup with Finn would ever happen, he’d have rolled his eyes to the back of his skull.
A breeze hit my skin under the canopy of a tree with fresh green leaves all over it. I opened up Finn’s text, trying to whack-a-mole my own little happy flutter of excitement.
Finn : So? Did you find your new home?
Ori : I think I found Tennessee’s best-kept secret roach spa.
Finn : Oh no.
Ori : I’m telling you, Finn, the roaches must be feasting in that apartment. It smelled like weird chemicals. The rental agent had to pick up a half-eaten strawberry that had been molding in one corner of the kitchen floor.
Finn : No fuckin’ way.
Ori : One of the windows had a hole in it near the bottom the size of a baseball.
Finn : Naturally. How else are the roaches supposed to come in?
I snorted, pulling in a deep breath.
The breeze was finally making me feel a little bit better about today.
Or it’s Finn’s texts .
Goddamnit .
For years, it had been so much easier for me to expect nothing from anyone. No loyalty, no real friendship. After what had happened with Aaron, I was particularly wary of anything like it.
So I hadn’t let myself feel this way—that little flutter in my chest when I saw a guy’s name on my phone screen—in years. It felt dangerous.
But I also knew Finn was different. He might have pissed me off more than anybody else sometimes, but he wasn’t a flake. He wasn’t a liar. And he’d never ghosted anyone in his life.
Even if what we were doing was a weird little burst of curiosity for him, and we both knew it was temporary, for once I was letting myself enjoy some part of it.
Finn’s texts were fucking adorable, for one. I read them all in my head with a little southern drawl, just like he had in real life.
And fuck it. Maybe I liked knowing he was thinking of me sometimes, too.
I hopped in my car and made my way through the winding, forested roads back toward Bestens.
The forest gave way to farmland, and soon I was back. I didn’t even mind when I drove through areas that smelled like manure—it meant that the farms were gearing up for summer, and that soon, we’d have overflowing farmer’s markets.
Today had been the first time I’d left the Bestens town limits since moving back to town.
And driving back in was strange. Again, I didn’t have the same deep dread in my heart that I had the first day. Even if Bestens wasn’t for me, it sure was better than that hellish apartment in Sable Valley.
I parked my Beetle in the lot behind Red Fox. My shift in the diner was going to start in ten minutes. I slid out my phone again and this time, saw something different.
There was an email on the screen from an art museum I’d applied to volunteer at when I’d first come into town, before Thomas even recommended the other gig for me.
My heart did another happy little leap in my chest.
Fuck yes.
Finally.
I’d been waiting to hear back for weeks now, and finally I felt like I could start to regain an outlet that felt like it nurtured my love for art. Something that might make me feel like Tennessee could feel like home. The position was only a once-a-week volunteer spot, but it felt like a pressure valve releasing the moment I saw that the email was from the museum.
I opened the email, smiling.
Ori,
Thank you so much for applying for the docent position at the Clearview Museum.
Unfortunately, at this time we cannot accept you into the volunteer position. Feel free to apply to other positions as they open. We always welcome any motivated applicants.
Thank you.
My throat tightened as I read the word unfortunately , over and over again.
I swallowed hard.
The air in my Beetle suddenly felt too hot and compressed, like I was going to suffocate in the small space if I stayed in here. I got out and shut the driver’s side door, biting down hard on the inside of my cheek, trying to rein myself in from a spiral.
The back door of the diner opened a second later, and Danielle walked out, taking out a big black trash bag.
“Ori,” she said, tossing the bag in the dumpster and squinting at me as she walked over. “You look like a kid who just dropped your ice cream cone. What’s up?”
“Can’t find an apartment,” I said. “And apparently can’t find a volunteer position, either.”
“Shit,” she said, coming over to give me a hug. “The nice apartment you were showing me pictures of yesterday?”
“Not so nice in person,” I told her. “Roach motel.”
She frowned at me, still squinting in the sunlight. “I really thought you were a shoo-in for that little art museum, too,” she said.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Who gets rejected from volunteering?” I asked. “I wanted to do free work for them. I used to get paid well for doing harder things at my last job.”
Danielle shifted. “Don’t a lot of people get rejected from volunteer positions at galleries and museums?”
I pulled in a long breath. I could smell cinnamon in the air emanating from the diner, and I knew Thomas was making a fresh batch.
“Yeah,” I told Dani. “A lot of people get rejected. There aren’t that many spots. But I have an art history degree and almost three years of work experience. I thought… I just thought I’d get it.”
“I did too.”
“And I thought it would make being in Tennessee just a little bit easier.”
My chest was tight.
“I have to get back in,” Dani said. “Dad’s on milkshake duty, and you know how that goes. But you’re going to be okay, Ori. You’ll find something.”
I nodded. “Go ahead. Thank you, Dani. I’ll be in soon.”
She disappeared inside and I pulled out my phone again. I had a new text from Finn, and again I felt a little uncomfortable with how much better it made me feel.
I couldn’t rely on that feeling.
One day, I’d be moving out of Bestens again, Finn would be married to some great woman, and this little blip in time would be another distant memory. I wanted to enjoy his cute texts—and his attention —without ever starting to expect it from him.
I opened it up to find a photo.
It was of the progress he was making on a new rose bush he was planting in the backyard this morning, on his day off.
But he was also pictured in front of the rose bush.
Shirtless. And sweaty. And looking very proud of the gardening work he’d done.
Heat rippled through my body. I had no clue if Finn knew what he was doing or not. Truthfully, he’d always worked outside shirtless. Even when we were teenagers, he’d sometimes go out in my parents’ backyard and do push-ups and high-knees and whatever the hell else football players did in their spare time.
Since when did I give a damn about muscles this much?
Maybe I only gave a damn when they were his.
And when I knew how fucking good they felt when he was pinning me against a wall.
Ori : Pretty flowers, Cumshot King.
I’d been using that nickname every now and then for him, and I liked the way it made him squirm just a little every time I said it.
I wanted to… play it cool, almost.
Like I was the one reminding myself to be casual.
I waited outside another few minutes, willing my cock to go back down. Thinking about the apartment and the art museum position helped make it go away pretty damn quick, though, and once I got inside the diner, I was swept into a very busy afternoon shift. A ravenous group of firefighters came in after a shift, followed by a seemingly endless stream of high school kids wanting lattes, milkshakes, and afternoon waffles.
It was another two hours before I got to talk to Dani a little more, while both of us were in the back washing dishes.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Danielle said.
“Go for it.”
“You are so much better at handling rushes than Mom and Dad.”
I snorted. “That’s not a secret. So are you, by the way.”
She sighed. “It’s just really good to have you back.”
“Thank you, Dani.”
“I know you hate it,” she said, giving me a side look.
“I don’t hate it that much,” I said. “I know I act like I do, but… I like getting the chance to be around you guys more, too. Mom wants to have a ten-minute conversation with every customer and Dad wants to complain about the espresso machine instead of learning it. But working with you is always good.”
Danielle looked down silently for a little while, washing dishes. I could tell she was deep in thought, but I didn’t press the matter.
“You know,” she finally said, “before you said you were moving back, Mom and Dad were pretty sure they were going to sell.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Like, joking about selling? Like they always do?”
“No,” she told me, catching my eye. “Like talking to other local restaurant owners and interviewing prospective buyers.”
I took a step back from the sink. “No fucking way.”
She nodded. “I thought it was going to happen.”
“You didn’t tell me any of that.”
“Yeah. You had a lot on your plate already.”
I looked around the back kitchen, glancing out toward the front like I was seeing Red Fox for the first time.
It crushed me to think about not being able to be in this diner anymore.
I’d basically grown up in Red Fox. It had been a part of my family’s life forever, and even when it went through bad years and the normal ups and downs of a restaurant, I never thought my parents were anywhere close to actually selling the place.
They rolled with the punches.
They always bounced back.
They needed to change a few things on the menu and upgrade some furniture, but I didn’t think they’d been considering selling.
“They stopped thinking about it when I decided to move back to Bestens?” I asked.
“Decided to give it another good shot, at least,” Dani said. “They lucked out when they hired Thomas to try to get some quality baked goods in here. But they also knew you would be a huge help.”
“I feel like I barely help at all.”
Dani shook her head. “You’ve always been the best worker we’ve ever had here. When you were gone, do you know how often Dad said nobody could handle a rush like Ori?”
My heart squeezed a little inside.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know that at all.”
“I swear sometimes you don’t know how much they love you,” Dani said.
“I thought of myself as the odd one out. I still do.”
“Just because you don’t ride horses and don’t like country music doesn’t mean you don’t belong.”
I felt a little wall building up inside me, brick by brick.
But I don’t want to belong. Not here. Not in a place that chewed me up and spat me out as a kid.
I had always dared to be myself when I was a teenager, and that was something I always got punished for, here. I even got made fun of for enjoying painting , for fuck’s sake. The kids I saw on TV in New York or LA were able to flourish creatively. They were encouraged to be different, unique, or anything they wanted. So why couldn’t I?
Leaving Bestens had been my only escape route.
I’d never let myself stop to think about what I’d left behind.
The people who did love me.
“You know, Finn likes having you back, too,” Danielle said. “Even if he won’t say it like that to your face.”
“He says it in other ways. Sometimes. When he’s not antagonizing me.”
He says it with his eyes, when his mouth is wrapped around my cock.
“He likes taking care of you,” Dani said.
Something twisted in my chest.
“I guess. Sometimes.”
“You shouldn’t worry about the housing situation so much, by the way,” she said. “Finn can help you with that.”
“How so?”
She gave me a conspiratorial look. “Don’t tell him I said this.”
“Oh, God. What?”
“He told me he has his eyes on that house for sale, over by Full Moon Ranch,” she told me, waggling her eyebrows. “I think he went to go talk to them about it last week.”
I paused. “What? Does he realize the house is for sale , not for rent?”
She was suppressing a smile. “You know Finn’s made some good cash from a couple of his instructional videos, right? He’s too modest to talk about it, but he’s doing really well.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, I think he might be willing to help you with putting a down payment on a place,” she said. “You didn’t hear this from me. But if he can talk them into a good price, I think he’s going to offer it to you.”
Whatever wall had been slowly building in me suddenly seemed to snap into existence.
Instantly I had a fucking stone castle wall inside me, armed and ready to fire.
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “He’s been doing that without talking to me about it? He knows I’m not ready to purchase anything in Bestens. Am I even going to be living here in a year or two?”
“I mean, if he dropped a wad of cash on it, you’d certainly be able to handle the mortgage payments.”
A tense coil was winding itself up in my chest.
I shook my head, undoing my apron. “I need to go on a quick break. I’ll be back in ten, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, giving me a questioning glance. “You doing alright?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, giving her a nod before stepping out the back door.
I sucked in a deep breath outside, walking over to lean against the brick wall out back. I watched cars driving down the side road a little further past the lot, trying to reel in my emotions. My shirt suddenly felt too tight, and I knew I was going to get a headache.
How many times was Finn going to try to do this?
To try to “fix” things in my life—but without ever letting me in on it until later?
It wasn’t that I didn’t like his help. I loved that he wanted to help me. But not if he was going to treat me like a charity case instead of discussing things with me. Allowing me to have a say. Even fucking asking me if I wanted to own a home in a place I probably wouldn’t be living permanently.
A fresh burst of anger surged through me.
The frustrating thing was that I knew that I was deeply grateful, too. I was so fucking lucky to have someone in my life who would consider doing anything like this for me.
But sometimes, I felt like a pawn.
My parents hadn’t even told me they were considering selling Red Fox. Finn apparently hadn’t told me he’d been considering helping me buy property.
And Dani hadn’t told me she was pregnant with Olivia a couple of years ago. I’d found out from Finn accidentally, when he mentioned offhand that Dani was going to need childcare.
I leaned my head back, pressing it on the cool brick exterior of the building.
The truth was scarier than what I’d been doing.
I’d been running away. For years.
But the truth was that I gave a fuck.
I cared about my family, the diner, and even goddamn Bestens itself, which I never could have admitted before.
I really fucking cared about Finn, too.
But I wasn’t going to let him treat me as anything but an equal. I was an equal, now. I wasn’t a scrawny teenager getting bullied every day, and I didn’t need to be saved. I didn’t need to be spared the details of my friend and family’s lives.
I needed to show up.
And I wasn’t running anymore.
The moment I got back to Finn’s house, I threw my car in park, got out, and headed around to the backyard. I could smell the scent of the grill going in the backyard and I knew Finn was out there making the chicken he’d had prepared for the night.
I found him out there, still shirtless, pulling off the last of the chicken and closing the lid of the grill. The string lights above the patio were on, casting him in a glow, making him look frustratingly good, as usual.
His backyard felt more like an oasis now than ever, with fresh rose bushes along one edge, the smell of the grill, and the tiny fireflies in the corners of the yard.
Stay strong, Ori.
“Just in time,” he said. “Come eat this chicken and let me suck your cock afterward?”
Nope.
Quit it.
Stop being fucking perfect, for once .
I didn’t bother with small talk, because Finn and I never had before.
“Want to involve me in your decisions in the future?” I said, crossing over toward him on the lawn.
“You knew I was making chicken.”
“How about the decisions that involve me owning a home in a town I don’t even fucking plan on living in?”
Recognition spread over Finn’s face. He set down the plate of chicken on the outside table, looking down for a moment.
“Dani told you?”
“She did what any sane person would do,” I said. “Informing someone when huge life decisions are being made for them.”
Finn was silent for a moment. My heart was slamming in my chest the same way it always did when I had a confrontation with him.
But I couldn’t help but notice a tenderness toward him, even now.
He’d fucking broken me down, so quickly. I wanted to forgive him already. Too-nice Finn, working his charm on me, as always.
Stay. Strong.
“Come on, Ori.”
“Nope,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, looking at me, a defiant look suddenly on his face. “You want to do this? You want to talk about how you can’t accept help?”
“Help is letting me stay in your house,” I said. “Not trying to force me to settle down in this town.”
His eyes flared with anger.
“Maybe I wanted you to have a fucking reason to like Bestens again,” he said, something breaking in him. In an instant, he wasn’t talking in his typical calm way. “You always said you hated this place, thought I was unattractive, every fucking thing in the book. How else am I supposed to impact your life?”
I furrowed my brow. “What was I going to do, tell my straight best friend he was hot as fuck?”
He froze in place. “You didn’t ever think that.”
“I forced myself to not go there with you,” I corrected him. “Because it was pointless. Of course I wanted to make you feel comfortable. To think there was zero chance of attraction, even though I was gay.”
He looked me up and down. “Ori, when you first left for LA, I thought you truly hated me.”
“So buying me a house you don’t even know if I like is the way to make up for that?”
He rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to buy the house. I would have talked to you about it. I never would actually put the payment down without showing it to you first—”
“I’m not charity. You can’t be everyone’s guardian angel, Finn.”
“Then what the fuck else would I be here for?” he said, his tone rising in a way I’d never heard before.
He was upset.
Not in a combative way, like he usually was when we fought.
For the first time, I felt like I was seeing behind the curtain. A lingering plume of smoke slowly filtered out of the grill as Finn fixed his eyes on me, a helpless expression on his face.
Oh, fuck.
Don’t look at me like that.
My heart ached for him, cutting right through the bitterness I’d felt all night.
“What do you mean?” I asked gently.
“ I’m the one who is charity,” he said. “Parents didn’t fuckin’ want me. Your parents took me in when I needed it. I followed the rules in school. You were my best friend, and then you hated me, more and more, until you split town and barely called. Why?”
The look in his eyes was so raw. I’d never seen so much pure feeling in them, all at once.
It felt like there was something slowly cracking inside me.
“Because I wanted things to be different,” I said. “I always, always wanted things to be different.”
“What?”
“Maybe I wanted you to like me for who I was, not fix who I was.”
“Ori,” Finn said, his voice catching as he shook his head. “I’ve always loved who you are.”
The wall inside me crumbled to dust. I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream or cry or flee the goddamn state again, but I sure as hell didn’t know how to react to Finn saying that.
“Why were you always telling people in school that I didn’t mean it, when I told them to fuck off?” I asked. “That I wasn’t really different from them? That I was just another Tennessee boy, like anyone else?”
“Because they needed to fucking treat you better.”
“I know. I know,” I said. “But I didn’t need to be swept under a rug. I didn’t want to change. I needed to let myself be different.”
“Fuck.”
“And that’s why I ran away, Finn. You know it.”
He was shaking his head as he walked across the lawn, looking up at the night sky.
“I never gave a fuck about any of those people in school like I did about you,” he said in a low voice. “Not one of them.”
“I know you were friendly with everyone. I’m not upset about that—”
“Friendly, sure,” he said. “But I mean it when I say I loved you, Ori.”
God fucking damn it .
Every part of my body was pulled to him like a magnet. I started moving before my brain could catch up. I felt further away from him now than I ever had in LA, even though I was just ten paces away. Tears welled up in my eyes as I crossed the lawn, and I threw my arms around him from behind, practically tackling him as I squeezed around him in a hug.
“Shut up.”
“You know it’s true.”
But in reality I didn’t know it was true.
I’d felt like a burden to him, growing up. Like if I just fit in and acted like the other guys, he wouldn’t have to deal with me.
Deal with explaining me to his friends. Deal with how different I was. Or the fact that I was gay and other people made jokes about us like it was their full-time job.
I was a nuisance he had to manage.
“Motherfucker,” I muttered, hearing my own drawl come out when I least wanted it.
He spun around in my arms, hugging me, his hands gripping against the back of my head.
“Could say the same thing to you,” he mumbled against me.
We were clutched together.
He gripped his arms around me, hugging me so tight as if this was the first time we’d been reunited in years.
Like all the awkward moments in high school never happened. Like the Christmases where I visited hadn’t existed. Like I hadn’t been back here for weeks now.
This felt like the real reunion.
Like I had my friend again.