Never Too Late

Chapter Eight

My palms were sweaty as I stood in front of Finn’s door. Far sweatier than the first time I’d showed up here when I’d half expected him to slam the door in my face. I might not have known—or understood—his reasons for leaving, but I would have had to be stupid not to realize that I’d fucked up. People didn’t just up and move to another country on a whim. They did it to escape situations they were no longer comfortable with, and make a fresh start. And they weren’t usually keen on the things they’d left behind pursuing them.

In retrospect, Finn slamming the door in my face would have been less painful than his friend’s performance, where I was forced to watch him stick his tongue down Finn’s throat. Someone stabbing me in the chest and twisting the blade would have hurt less. Nothing had been sweeter than the relief I’d felt at discovering it was simply an act.

I ran a hand through my hair to fix any loose strands and took a deep breath before knocking. I was early, but better early than late, and if Finn wasn’t ready, I was happy to wait. Barely a beat passed before he flung the door open. Our outfits were alike; we both wore blue jeans and jumpers—mine black, his green—with a white pattern—that brought out the color of his eyes. Rather than running an appraising eye over me as I was doing to him, he fixated on the object in my hands, his brows drawing together. “You brought me cat food? How romantic.”

“Oh.” I held up the box of cat biscuits, heat rising in my cheeks as I stared at it. “I kept thinking about that cat. It was skinny, and I thought I could give it at least one good meal. Only, it’s nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, someone’s been kind enough to take it in.”

Finn crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb, his smile crooked. “Who’d be stupid enough to do that?”

“Someone might. If I lived here, I would. I hope nothing’s happened to it.”

Finn laughed. There was a split second where I reconsidered everything I knew about him, if he was cruel enough to laugh at a cat’s demise. Then, he shoved the door open wider to reveal a familiar ginger cat washing itself on the arm of his sofa. “You took him in?”

He rolled his eyes. “It was supposed to be for one night. But he made himself so at home that I didn’t have the heart to throw him out. And he’s actually quite sweet, so…” Finn shrugged. “I guess I have a cat.” He plucked the box of cat biscuits from my hand and gave them a shake, the cat interested enough in the noise to stop washing and sit up. “All contributions to the cat-that-eats-more-like-a-pig fund gratefully accepted.” He headed back into the flat, turning when I didn’t follow. “Come in. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not wearing shoes. And I’m not ready to go gallivanting around Paris barefoot.”

“I can wait outside. I don’t mind.”

He leveled me with a hard stare. “No baggage, remember? Or was that just lip service?”

Accepting his point with a slight inclination of my head, I stepped inside and let the door close behind me. Recognizing a friend, the cat immediately leaped off the sofa and came over to say hello. He wound himself round and round my legs until I gave in to the inevitable and crouched down to rub him behind the ears, his purr growing louder once he gotten what he wanted. “Have you thought of a name for him?”

Finn glanced up from tying the shoelaces of his trainers. “Pain in the arse.”

“Bit long to have to shout and somebody might take it as an invitation.”

“Have you got any suggestions? It’s your fault he’s here, so the least you can do is help name him.”

“Something French,” I mused. I looked around while Finn was otherwise engaged. It was tidier than his place in London used to be, but I suspected that was more about him not having had the chance to mess it up yet, rather than turning over a new leaf. Potted plants were already encroaching, and I doubted he’d done more than look at the pictures in the French magazines.

“Van Gogh!” Finn said with something close to triumph. He circled a finger at the side of his head. “You know, on account of the missing ear.”

“Van Gogh was Dutch, not French.”

“I didn’t say it had to be French. You were the one that said that. You’d have me call him Eiffel or something.”

“Champs-élysées?” I suggested with a grin.

“Too posh.”

We were still suggesting names when we sat down in a small cafe overlooking Notre Dame. In what I took as a good sign, the day had all the hallmarks of being a lovely one weather-wise, the temperature warm enough, even at this early hour, that we’d foregone the option of a table inside to watch the world go by instead. The only downside was Finn producing a pair of sunglasses, which robbed me of the sight of his long-lashed green eyes.

I gave serious contemplation to whether my phone at the bottom of the river would like some sunglasses for company before reminding myself there was a world of difference between throwing my own things in and throwing other people’s in. This was supposed to be a perfect date, an opportunity to prove to Finn that he’d be making a huge mistake if he let me disappear from his life. Not convince him he was right.

Finn made an appreciative noise as he took a bite of his pain au chocolat and washed it down with a gulp of coffee. “You’ve gone quiet,” he said once he’d swallowed.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Names.” I figured the white lie was better than telling the truth. A bolt of inspiration hit as I stared at the elaborate brickwork of Notre Dame. “I’ve got it!” Finn quirked an eyebrow and didn’t look convinced. “You wanted a name that wasn’t perfect, right? That sums up his slightly unusual appearance? And I wanted something French.”

“I don’t remember it being half your cat, but yeah.”

My gut filled with warmth at the idea of sharing something like that with Finn. First, a cat, and then maybe a few years down the line, kids. I still had an awful lot of damage control to do before that became anything but a pipe dream, though. And I needed to remember that he’d said we didn’t share a cat. “Quasimodo,” I said.

Unlike all the other names that Finn had summarily dismissed, some silly, some serious, he thought about that one, tipping his head to one side as he considered it. “That does kind of fit,” he finally admitted.

“French and imperfect,” I said.

He nodded. “Quasimodo, it is.”

Finn shifted in his seat, the movement bringing his thigh closer to mine. My fingers itched to reach out and touch, the urge so strong that resisting took willpower. Not being allowed to touch was the hardest thing about our estranged relationship since my arrival in Paris. At first, because I knew it would be unwelcome, and then in the moments where he’d mellowed toward me, because I hadn’t wanted to risk being accused of trying to seduce him in case it ruined everything.

Finn had said it himself when we’d raked over the ashes of our dead relationship—the relationship I’d killed—that sex had never been the problem. Therefore, that part didn’t need fixing. It needed placing reverently on a shelf like the finest of bone china, only to be brought down when the time was right, and to be handled with the utmost care when it was.

When I broke from the rather strange analogy of comparing Finn to something I might take on The Antiques Roadshow , he’d removed his sunglasses and was staring at me with a quizzical expression. “What do you think might happen if you touch me?”

Surprised by his directness, I weighed my answer. “If I’d tried it that first time I came to see you, probably a punch in the face.”

“Probably,” Finn conceded with a wry smile. “But what about now?”

“I don’t know. Your feelings about my presence in Paris seem to oscillate from one moment to the next. It’s hard to keep up.”

Finn grimaced. “Fair. And true. But you know why that is.”

I did, but his request that I articulate it surprised me. “Because you still have feelings for me, but you wish you didn’t. You’d rather fight it with every fiber of your being.”

“Do you blame me?”

“No.”

Finn’s thigh jigged up and down, muscles flexing beneath the denim. “You should try it and see what happens.”

“You’re baiting me now?”

“Maybe.” He left a deliberately long pause. “Maybe not. You won’t know unless you try.”

I half expected him to retract his leg as I reached out cautiously. He didn’t, my fingers curling around his knee. I left my hand there, warmth seeping into my palm and everything suddenly right with the world. Sun. Good food. And a handsome companion. What more did you need in life?

“Bit different,” Finn said after another bite of his pastry, “to the night we first met. I don’t remember you being shy about touching me then.”

I let my hand stray further up his leg. Not high enough for anyone looking over to be scandalized, but high enough that it became less like friends and more like lovers. “I don’t remember you being shy about being touched.”

Finn leaned forward over the table. “What do you remember about that night?”

“I remember a very boring party, and working out how early I could leave without upsetting anyone. And then I remember looking across the room and seeing you.”

“Did your heart skip a beat?” There was an amused look on Finn’s face that said he was taking the piss and didn’t believe that for one moment.

“Pretty much.”

He laughed. “Right…”

“It did. You were by far the best looking man there that night. That’s why I made a beeline for you. It was only the length of the restaurant, but it was the longest walk of my life.”

Finn frowned. “Why?”

“Because… I had this little voice in my head saying, what if he’s not gay? Or what if he is, but he didn’t come to the party alone and he’s already got a boyfriend? Or, even worse, a husband?”

“And instead, I was very much gay. And very much single.”

“And we went home together,” I said, the memory not as happy as it should have been.

“Yeah,” Finn agreed. He lowered his voice, so it didn’t carry to the surrounding tables, all of them occupied. “And we screwed against the wall of your living room. We didn’t even make it as far as the bedroom.”

And that was why it wasn’t a happy memory. “You deserved better.”

Finn shrugged. “I had no complaints at the time. At least you took me for dinner the next night. Just for the record, I class that as our first date. Not the bonkathon of night one.”

“That phone call,” I said, “the one you mentioned when we were in the brasserie, the one that I went outside to take and you weren’t happy about. I want you to know that it wasn’t what you thought.”

Finn’s thigh twitched slightly beneath my hand. “No?”

“I rang Amrita.”

“Right,” he said, “your PA. That’s exactly what I thought.”

“She is my PA, yeah. But you know she’s far more than that to me.” When Finn nodded his assent, I continued. “I rang her to tell her I’d met a wonderful guy. Someone who was sexy, but who could also make me laugh. I know it sounds crazy considering how I treated you afterward, but I really felt like all my Christmases had come at once.”

“It does sound crazy,” Finn said. He sounded more sad than annoyed, though. “And that was one phone call out of the hundreds that followed.”

There was no arguing with that. “I haven’t missed it,” I said. When Finn raised an eyebrow, I elaborated. “Having a phone. Being bombarded with calls from dawn till dusk. Whatever happens between us, it’s clear that I need to make some changes, that I need to find a better work-life balance before I find myself alone forever.”

Finn raised his coffee cup in a toast. “Then this trip has been fruitful for you.” He finished his coffee and stood, my hand slipping from his thigh. “Come on. Someone promised me a day packed full of activities. And so far, as nice as the coffee and pastries are, we’ve just sat on our arses and moaned about the past. No more mention of it today, alright? It comes firmly under the category of baggage.”

“Agreed,” I said as Finn pulled me to my feet. That was a sentiment I could get fully behind.