Chapter 11
ELEVEN
FINN
Silence pressed in around the corners of my mind, almost physical in its weight. The apartment was too damn quiet.
Not something I’d ever thought I’d say about New York.
Now, though? Neil’s shift would keep him out until morning, and Sam’s room, door ajar, was dark but for the glow of her charging laptop.
Tessa and Khai were both still working. Distant traffic hummed through the veins of the city, but it couldn’t drown out the leftover adrenaline still tugging at my chest. I needed to do…
something. Sleep, except not a chance in hell. Scream, run, dance. Find someone.
I showered until the water drained some of the shake from my hands, then pulled on clothes—dark blue jeans, a spritz of cologne, and an off-white shirt, buttons open lower than I would have dared back home. This wasn’t home, though. It might be, one day. But not just yet.
Which was reason enough to at least choose a familiar bar.
No eyeliner, not tonight—this wasn’t a rerun.
Just something easy that didn’t force me to check reviews.
Nothing to do with Jesse and the way he’d trusted me, with how earlier, my world had shrunk to him and me and the rise and fall of a tiny chest. Nothing to do with hoping he’d be there.
After all, what are the odds?
I repeated it to myself on the subway ride, a mantra or a prayer. What are the odds?
The bar was neon and noise, the floor vibrating under my feet—or maybe I was the one vibrating, couldn’t quite tell.
I squeezed past grinding bodies to down a lemon drop shot, then grabbed a beer and parked myself against the wall just off the dance floor.
I wasn’t looking for anyone in particular.
Just finishing my beer before throwing myself into the fray. Really, yeah.
A tall guy in a sleeveless tee tried his luck, then a bearded dude with glitter dusting his lashes.
Neither was my type. I gave them polite smiles, nothing more, until they moved on to brighter prospects.
And yeah, right, I remembered this—the slap of open want, how it slicked the air like sweat and beer.
But I’d forgotten how stark it felt to sit under this kind of spotlight, how exposed, and how easily people jumped to the next thing.
I wasn’t used to it. Wasn’t wired for it, maybe.
The next guy who slid into my space was all curated scruff and buy-you-a-drink swagger. Handsome—but somehow, it left me cold. I smiled anyway because that’s what I was here for.
It was.
Until I looked up and Jesse was there. My pulse stuttered and went quiet.
Jesse.
Blue-tinged light from the bar dripped along the lines of his face.
He hadn’t seen me yet, seemed more interested in his drink than the glances directed his way.
It let me look my fill as if it had been days rather than hours—strong, slender fingers clasping the glass, a sky-gray sweater that teased more than it revealed, jeans that hugged his thighs.
Holy shit. I hadn’t seen him out of scrubs since… Yeah.
His gaze swept over the room—distant, almost bored. Then his eyes found mine.
For a second or two, everything else fell away.
He looked… stunned. Not displeased, though. Caught, focused, intent. As if he—Jesus. As if he felt it, too. As if maybe I wasn’t alone in this.
“Come on,” the guy next to me wheedled, voice raised over the music. It barely registered. “Someone like you should come with a crowd and paparazzi. Or a dance partner, at least.”
I angled my head just slightly, enough to show that I’d heard him. Polite habit. Truth was, the words barely touched down. Because Jesse was still looking right at me, steady and unsmiling.
What are the odds?
I drew a shaky breath and dipped my chin, looked back up at him through my lashes. Heat thrummed in my bones, thicker and slower than the throbbing bass, and I let one side of my mouth curl up.
Your move, Jesse. Because I’m not running.
The guy touched my shoulder. Jesse put down his glass.
“I’ll be your best bad decision tonight,” the guy beside me promised, and yeah, yes. Not him, though. Not him because Jesse was moving, drink abandoned as the room narrowed to a single focal point—Jesse, drawing closer.
Seconds fractured like glass. I felt the wall solid against my back and shifted to shrug off the guy who’d been hitting on me just as Jesse stepped up, eyes dark. God. There wasn’t enough air in the room.
“Hey, man.” The other guy drew himself up to be taller. “You’re kind of cutting in.”
Jesse spared him half a glance. “Yeah,” he said—not rude or regretful, really just stating a fact, indisputable like gravity. “I am.”
I inhaled and smiled.
The stranger might have caught it—I didn’t care enough to check. But he made some kind of dismissive noise before he melted away, swallowed by the crowd. Gone. Just Jesse.
“Finn.” It was the shape of my name rather than anything that translated over the music. I felt it, though—heat that shivered up my spine and settled at the base of my skull. The way he watched me held the weight of a thousand suns.
I let my smile unfurl further. “Hi.”
People pressed in around us, damp skin and swaying bodies, but the space between him and me seemed personal and private, something that existed outside of the surging music.
I reached for him—slowly, hooking both thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans.
A question? A dare? My heart was beating high in my throat.
His gaze flared. He stepped in, chest stomach thighs, all up against me, no air between us. I tilted my head like it was an answer.
He kissed me.
Hot and hard, no apologies. The smoky taste of bourbon fogged up my mind, like the aftershock of adrenaline still pounding in my bloodstream.
The world swung out of orbit. I opened for him with a groan that he swallowed, one of his hands framing my jaw, thumb digging into my cheek.
The other gripped my hip and pulled me closer, closer.
I tightened my hold on him, knuckles pressing into his stomach, until there was nothing but shadows and heat and yes.
Someone bumped into Jesse’s side. He stumbled, caught his breath against my mouth, and pressed even tighter into me.
The music blurred into thunder in my ears, strobe lights like glitter in my mind.
Every slick drag of his mouth over mine felt like an epiphany.
A recalibration, as if my body had tuned into a new frequency.
When he broke away, it was by a fraction, breaths tangling. Pupils wide, the green of his eyes turned into a swirl of shadows as if the blackout still lingered in the corners of his mind. In mine, too.
“Please,” I said—wasn’t sure if he even heard me, what he made of it. His chest rose against mine, breath a whisper.
“I don’t live far.”
Oh. Fuck, yes. A strange, distorted reflection of that first time when I’d led him to an empty hotel room in a city that I barely knew.
His place. It felt like a promise, doubt burned away somewhere between the frantic beep of a failing ventilator and this moment, his hands on me, strobe lights catching in his dark hair, colors smeared across the edges of my vision.
I nodded, swallowed hard. “Lead the way.”
Night air hit like a bucket of water, like jumping into a spring-cool lake in the early days of summer. Car horns and distant music sliced through the haze in my mind and threw into sharp relief the reality of what we were about to do.
Maybe Jesse felt it, too. He stopped walking, two minutes after we’d left the bar, time that had passed in stolen glances and charged silence. “You sure about this?” he asked, hushed.
I turned to face him. Neon shop signs cast him in multicolored hues, something about him still off-kilter, a far cry from the clear, decisive surgeon who’d held his nerve while the monitors screamed and the power failed.
That Jesse had been steady, in control. This one was something else entirely—gaze flicking over my face like he needed me to be sure.
Just a man. And fuck, I only wanted him more for it.
“I’m sure, yeah.” The words scraped along my throat, more sweet than bitter. “You?”
“I’m sure we shouldn’t.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, then ducked his head and exhaled a laugh that sounded like surrender. “But right now? I just don’t fucking care.”
The smile started somewhere in my toes, rolled over me like a warm wave. I dropped my voice. “So take me home.”
It took a beat before he smiled back, eyes the shade of secrets.
Two misses and a muttered “Fuck.”
Under the bright glare of the hallway outside Jesse’s apartment, his fingers, normally so sure, fumbled with the keyring as if he’d left his fine motor skills back in the bar.
Flattering. I edged closer, biting down on a grin as our bodies brushed, my breath skating across his cheek. “Where’s your precision, doctor?”
His sideways glance was almost shy—an unspoken this never happens. “Cut me some slack,” he said. “Blood’s mostly south.”
“Could be a vascular issue. Better investigate.” I cupped him through his jeans, and he inhaled harshly, hips tilting into my touch.
“Or…” He shoved the key into the lock. Click. “You could put that mouth to better use.”
“Been there.” I kissed his jaw. “Done that.”
His chuckle was honey-warm. “Not actually how I meant it.”
“No?”
“No.” He pushed open the door and reached back, towed me along so we never lost contact.
His place was cedar smell and shoes in an uneven line, a single plant leaning toward a window, framed by the city’s nighttime glow.
A little bird feeder sat outside on the windowsill, a couple of books abandoned on a couch that looked comfortable, just like the place itself—small but lived-in.
Nothing like that hotel room I barely remembered, my suitcase the only personal touch.
Jesse kicked the door shut behind us. The soft thud echoed down my spine, and I turned into him, let him walk me back against the wall. Yes, God. In the shadowed entrance, his eyes looked close to black.