Stir (The Sizzle TV Series Book 5)

Chapter 14 – Finn

The longer I’m around them, the more I’m convinced I’m right. Tiny hints of his feelings for her litter that office, so small they’d be easy to miss even if you see them every day. Maybe especially seeing them every day.

He knows what she’ll order for lunch before they’ve even decided on a restaurant. Her coffee order. He asks about Moira, her mother, and other mutual acquaintances I don’t know. When I first started working in their office, I thought the flowers on the coffee table in their tiny foyer were fake. They’re not. Natalie said the building manager ordered them for every office, and I bought it, too. Until I caught Nic placing the order himself one day.

I have the oddest urge to apologize to him, which is strange as fuck. He’s a grown-ass man, capable of making his own choices. Stranger still, I don’t know why I bother considering what he wants anyway.

Liar. You know why.

That voice in my head sounds a lot like Natalie. I don’t know what he wants, which is maybe why I keep flashing back to that day at the lobby elevator with Alex, before I met Natalie, before Nic’s blackmail, before any of this started.

That look he’d given me, the one that, loosely translated, said I want to climb you like a tree. I only saw that look from Nic once, and while I’m pretty sure he was just doing it to try to get a rise out of me at the time, I’m starting to think it might have been real. More than once lately, the memory of that look has, in fact, gotten a rise out of me.

It turns me on, and I don’t know what the fuck to do about that.

I’ve tried calling Alex because if anybody knows what the fuck is going on in my head, it’s him, but we keep missing each other. I could always talk to Sully, but… yeah, nah. He wouldn’t get it.

That leaves Weston.

We’ve texted a few times the last couple weeks, but we haven’t talked since that day at Hale House. Despite the radio silence, despite the gulf between us these last few months, I could talk to him. It’ll be weird as fuck now that he’s with my sister, but like Alex, West might actually get whatever’s going on with me.

Natalie’s got plans with her mother tonight, so West and I meet at some pub Sully likes named Rusty’s. West is sitting in a booth nursing a beer when I get there. I order a pint from the bartender and carry it over, sliding into the seat across from him.

“What’s up, man?”

“Not much. Long time no see.”

He looks straight at me. “You sick or something?”

“What? No.”

“Just, your text said you needed to talk,” says West. “And the last time you wanted to talk, it was all about the skeletons in your closet. I couldn’t figure out what the hell else you might have to say to me that you didn’t want Callie around to hear.”

Laughing uncomfortably, my face heats, and I take down about half the pint before I can answer. “Sick in the head, maybe,” I mutter. I scrub my face with my hands. Okay. We’re really doing this. “So there’s this girl?—”

West’s face lights up. “Shit, that’s all this is about? You fucking drama queen.”

“And this guy,” I say.

West doesn’t say a word. I don’t even think he’s breathing.

“Not fucking funny, Finn.”

“I’m serious, prick,” I say, glancing around to see if anybody heard me. I finally glance at West’s face. He’s skeptical, deeply so. About a five and a half out of ten on the about-to-punch-me scale.

“If this is about Lee and Callie?—”

“It’s not. I swear.”

Another pause. “Elaborate.”

I tell him about meeting Natalie on the balcony and that we’ve been seeing each other.

“Have you slept with her?” he asks. I narrow my eyes at him, but he just shrugs. “It might be relevant.”

“Relevant, my ass,” I say.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

I clear my throat, shifting in my seat. I wish to God I’d ordered a pitcher instead, or maybe I should have gone straight for the whiskey. It never occurred to me how hard it would be to say this out loud.

“His name is Nic.”

“Nic,” repeats West. “Same as your next-door neighbor, huh.”

“One and the same.”

West’s eyebrows jump up. “So that’s… complicated.”

“It gets worse. Natalie works for him. That’s why she was over there the day we met. Running errands for him.”

West sits back and cocks his head. Waiting.

I blow out an unsteady breath. “I think I’m attracted to him.”

Something flickers in West’s eyes, but it’s gone before I can identify it. “Do you think he’s attracted to you?”

“I think so? There was a… moment.”

“I see,” he says flatly.

“I’m not fucking joking, Weston.” I glare at him for real. “You know what, maybe this was a mistake.”

“Sit the fuck down, Finn.”

I sit the fuck back down, burying my head in my hands. “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do. But I’ve got nobody else to talk to about this.”

“What, Alex wouldn’t answer your calls?”

That has me sitting up straight. “Hang on. Are you—are you jealous? Seriously?”

The dirty look he gives me would have withered a lesser man on the spot, but I’m onto him now. “You’re my best friend, West. You both are, but you—” His scowl intensifies. “You were there, man. You were there for the worst of it. You know me better than anybody except Callie.”

Alex is my oldest friend, yeah. But West was there for the worst year of my life, every step of the way. Even when I hated him for moving on my sister, even when I thought he’d lied to me about Lee, he was still my best friend. That never changed, not for me.

“Apparently, I don’t know you as well as I thought,” he says, but I can tell he’s calmed down some. “Since when are you into men?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Since when were you into men?”

“High school.”

I damn near drop my glass. “Are you kidding me?”

He shakes his head. For the first time since I caught him with Callie and Lee all those weeks ago, I see regret in his eyes.

“You kept it a secret that fucking long? Why?”

“Why do you think?” he asks. “To avoid awkward conversations like this one, for sure. I didn’t want you coming at me with ‘quit checking me out’ and ‘do you have a crush on me’ and shit. Besides, I like my privacy.”

The silence turns sullen. Or maybe that’s just me. Then something occurs to me.

“Wait. Did you have a crush on me?”

West groans and rolls his eyes. “No, asshole. I didn’t.” His gaze sharpens. “You never answered my question. Since when are you into men? Is this because you have a crush on me?”

He looks kind of green at that one, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Sorry, dude. You’re really not my type.”

The lame joke hits way harder than it should, and before I know it, we’re both clutching our sides, laughing our asses off at each other. A waitress comes up smiling at us both, takes our orders for another round, and leaves, shaking her head.

“Shit, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages,” I say.

“Same. But don’t think I haven’t noticed that you still haven’t answered my question,” says West. “I take it that means Nic is the first guy you’ve… noticed?”

I nod slowly. Laughing that hard has taken the awkwardness out of the conversation, cutting off my fear at its knees.

“I guess maybe I might have noticed once or twice before, but yeah. Yeah, he’s pretty much the first.”

“And you think he’s into men?”

That look at the elevator. “If he isn’t, I’m fucked.”

West snorts. “If he is, you’re fucked. Or maybe you haven’t worked out the top or bottom issue yet.”

I feel the blood draining from my face, my eyebrows crawling up my forehead. West starts laughing again, but it’s quieter now.

“Dude, relax. Relax. It’s not a zero-sum game. Don’t let it freak you out. You guys will figure it out.” The waitress brings the next round. “So, how does Natalie fit into all this?”

“He wants her, too. And I’m pretty sure she’s interested in him. I don’t know how that all shakes out, but…”

“You think you might be ready for throuple-dom?”

I frown. “Is that what it’s called?” There has to be a better word than that.

West grins. “Call it whatever you like. You got pictures of them?”

I grin back, pulling up a photo I’d snapped of Nic in the office a few days ago, speaking sternly into his phone, all button-down shirt, shirtsleeves, and suspenders. Then I flip to a selfie I’d taken of me and Natalie before dinner the other night.

“Damn.”

“Nice work, right?”

“Goddamn,” he says, looking at the photo of Natalie again. I flip my phone over and scowl at him.

“Aren’t you happily monogam—diagam—You’ve already got your hands full, you prick.”

West laughs. For the first time in weeks, it feels like we might really get back to our old selves, only better this time, because there aren’t any more secrets. At least, I don’t think there are any more secrets left.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” West asks, looking over the top of his glass.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you know what you want. How are you going to get it?”

Condensation runs down the glass between my palms, so I scrub my hands on my jeans to dry them.

“I don’t know. Nic’s already warned me off about treating Natalie with respect.” I tell him about Nic’s dad coming on to Natalie that day. “I don’t know if Nic would make a move on somebody who works for him, not after seeing the way he handled his old man.”

“You work for him,” West points out.

“Yeah. This whole thing might be DOA.”

“With that attitude, absolutely.”

“Shut up. What am I supposed to do?”

“Lock yourself in his office and kiss him, for starters,” West says casually. The image that brings to mind makes me flush.

“Fuck off.”

“Or you could try, oh, I don’t know, talking to them. Both of them. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, they might be open to the idea of sharing. If not, then at least you’ll know.”

Right. So it could work, or the whole thing could go down in flames. “That’s like saying, try lighting yourself on fire because it might just warm you up, or it might kill you.”

“That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.” West shakes his head, finishing off his beer. “There again, fucking drama queen. I have to go. Let me know if you catch on fire.”