Chapter 31 #2
He rolled his eyes at me, then gestured dismissively to the spread he had on the kitchen counter. There were two naked pizza crusts, bags of shredded cheese, sliced mushrooms, and much to my amusement, a can of anchovies.
“I thought you didn’t like tinned fish.”
“I thought anchovies on pizza were a thing,” he said.
“I asked for a tuna melt. That’s not quite the same.”
Finn sighed heavily at me, feigning annoyance. “You aren’t obligated to use every topping on your pizza, baby brother. There’s pepperoni in the fridge. I just haven’t gotten it out yet.”
I scratched the corner of my mouth, trying to hide my smile from my brother.
“I’ll have both.”
He looked smug. “I knew it.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever seen me eat anchovies in our whole lives,” I said, coming around into the kitchen. I grabbed the pepperoni out of the fridge and then joined Finn in front of the dough.
“It was a guess.”
“Your suspicions?”
“Marshall hates them,” Finn murmured, picking the safety seal off a squeeze container of pizza sauce. “Figured you’re not that much like him after all.”
Something about the casual way Finn said it, like the comment was meant to be a throwaway, hit me in the center of the chest like a bag of bricks.
He hadn’t meant it in a critical way, and he definitely hadn’t meant to imply it was good or bad to be like Marshall.
Finn was only calling out the fact he saw me as my own person, something I didn’t realize I’d needed until he gave it to me.
“Come on,” he said before I could thank him. “This pizza isn’t going to make itself.”
“Right.”
He passed me the sauce, and I smeared some over the crust he’d clearly meant to be mine.
The pizza was by no means small enough for one person, but I figured I could take the leftovers home or something.
We didn’t talk about anything while we finished prepping our lunch, but it was nice to do something with Finn again.
It had been…it had been a really long time.
“What’s been going on with you?” I asked him after we got the pizzas into the oven.
Finn rested his ass against the edge of the counter and folded his arms in front of his chest, frowning at his reflection in the black glass of the oven door.
Looking at the two of us together, I didn’t think a stranger would have immediately called us brothers.
Finn was tall and lean where I was short and a little stockier.
His hair was darker than mine, his features more angular.
He probably looked more like Marshall, but Donovan, the mysterious sixth brother, could have been Marshall’s twin.
Genetics were weird that way.
“I was dating someone,” he said, sucking his tongue across the front of his teeth.
Marshall was sometimes in the room with us even when he wasn’t.
“Did you want to elaborate?”
I could tell he did, but he wanted to do it on his terms so I didn’t ask again. Didn’t push until he uncrossed his arms and sighed.
“Someones,” Finn corrected. “I was involved with a married couple.”
Of everything I might have expected from my brother, that wasn’t it.
“Okay.”
“It didn’t work.” He shrugged one shoulder. “They’re in the middle of a divorce.”
“Because of you?”
“Jesus, Smith.” Finn rubbed his eyes, dropping his head back and staring up at the ceiling. “Not because of me. They were…I think they were looking for a Band-Aid, something to bring them closer together.”
“That’s unfair of them.”
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, lips still pulled into a frown. “Was it?”
“You’re a person, Finn. Not a tool. Of course it was unfair, especially if they didn’t tell you up front.”
“I don’t really think they knew how bad things were in their marriage until I was also in their marriage.”
“That’s…fair,” I said tentatively, “but that doesn’t excuse bad behavior.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Does Hunter know?”
“Yeah.”
“Marshall?”
Finn scoffed. “What do you think?”
I smiled, stepping closer to my brother and resting my head against the outside of his arm. “Did you have…did you love them?”
“Right for the jugular, eh, brother?” Finn laughed, but the sound quickly died in the back of his throat. “I don’t think so. I mean…no. But I did really love the idea of them. Of being together that way.”
“A throuple.”
“That’s such a stupid word.” He knocked his shoulder into mine, and I pressed myself closer to him. It was important Finn knew he wasn’t alone, even if he felt it.
For a while, he didn’t say anything. We stood together and watched the timer on the oven countdown. When it reached one minute left, he said to me, “I don’t feel like I’ll ever go back to normal. Like, I don’t know how to stop feeling this way.”
It would have been a Marshall thing to ask him, “What way?” so I didn’t.
Instead I stood with him, and watched the timer with him, and when it went off, I took our pizzas out of the oven with him.
Finn was in a rare state. It was so uncommon to see him so serious, I wasn’t quite sure how to handle him, but I wasn’t going to make it weird and I wasn’t going to walk away.
I might have invited myself over, but Finn clearly needed the company more.
We sliced our pizzas and ate over the counter, standing up and still touching. The crust was crunchy, the sauce sweet, and the anchovies delivered the perfect amount of saltiness.
“I’ve had breakups before, and they sucked, but I felt like myself again. I got back out and I dated again.” Finn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then reached into a drawer and handed me a napkin. “After being with them…with Neil and Annette…I don’t see how I can just date again.”
“Maybe you did love them,” I suggested gently.
“Maybe,” he agreed.
We finished two more slices of pizza before I was too full to eat.
After that, I helped Finn clean up. We took two beers from his fridge—and I didn’t ask when he started drinking beer not bourbon—and carried them into his library.
It was one of the homiest rooms in the house, recently painted a soft pink color, and it had arguably the best seat in the house—a window seat tucked into a bay window that overlooked the back yard.
There was just enough room on the cushion for two, and we sat there together, backs against the wall and knees bent.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it.” I knocked the side of my foot into Finn’s ankle. “But it won’t be like this forever.”
He arched a disbelieving brow in my direction, sniffing in amusement at me.
“Are you the father figure of the family now?”
“No,” I answered quickly. “I’m just your brother.”
Finn blinked hard and turned his attention toward the paned window. “That’s more than enough, Smith. Don’t let anyone else ever tell you otherwise.”