Chapter 16 #2
A small frown before Finn blinked like someone climbing out of a dream, sleep clinging to the wispy tips of his lashes.
He squinted at me as if I was a little too bright for him—then he smiled, slow like a secret.
And, oh. I could have had this the first morning.
Maybe not this exact smile or the warm, trusting way he looked at me, but something like this moment, Finn sleepy and soft, with nothing to prove.
If I’d stayed rather than slipping out like a ghost, leaving money on the nightstand like an afterimage.
I would have if I’d already known him then, past the magnetic body and quick-witted charm.
But I hadn’t. I’d only known the surface. This, now… It wasn’t anything like that.
“Morning,” I said, low like an admission. “Again.”
“Good morning.” His voice was thick, still heavy with sleep. He rubbed a hand through his hair, less artfully tousled and more just messy now. “So we start here?”
“Yeah.” I nodded toward the trailhead sign at the far end of the lot.
Casual, casual. “I picked a nice loop that shouldn’t be too busy—about seven miles, takes us past two lakes.
We’ll hit the second one around lunchtime, so that should be good for a picnic.
” No big deal. Cross-referencing trail maps with pictures for the past three days? Not me, nope.
Finn’s gaze caught mine. “Thank you for organizing this.”
“We haven’t even started yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. I know it’ll be great.” He slipped out of the car and tipped his face up to take in the canopy as I did the same.
The morning air carried the sharp freshness of autumn, and he inhaled as if he meant to fill himself to the brim—like a balloon, ready to float away.
“Even just being here…” He glanced at me, eyes bright. “Feels like I can breathe again.”
God, I like you.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “It’s like… everything seems wider here, more open. Lighter.”
He nodded. “Trading concrete for wood.”
“Traffic for wind.”
“Yeah.”
For a beat, we smiled at each other across the hood of the car, something slow and brilliant twisting through my veins. Finn looked away first, moved to collect his daypack. I grabbed mine, and we set off, gravel and dried leaves crunching under our steps.
“More than six years in,” Finn began after a minute, “does New York feel like home to you?”
I gave myself a moment to turn the answer over in my mind.
“You know, when people ask me that—especially people back home—I usually say that parts of it do. But truth is: no, not really. It feels like a place I’m passing through.
” I paused for a sideways glance at him, the fairly narrow trail forcing us to walk close.
“I’ve got Shane, but other than that, I haven’t put much into…
building a life. And no relationship, obviously. ”
Until now. Except this wasn’t one—but it was dangerously easy to picture it even though I’d always been fine on my own. It was simpler, safer.
“See,” Finn said, “I’ve always been the opposite.” He nudged a twig with the side of his shoe. “From one relationship straight into the next. Like maybe I needed that external validation—proof I’m worthwhile. Trying not to do that anymore.”
Trying not to do what anymore—line up a string of relationships? Or relationships in general? But then he wouldn’t be here. This was too much trouble for a casual thing. Right?
I kept it light. “Look, someone like you? You could have a revolving door of guys, sure, but you shouldn’t need any of them to feel good about yourself. Just look at where you are, what you’ve already done.”
He tried for a smirk that didn’t quite make it, quirked into something almost self-deprecating. “Like winning the Suture Bowl, you mean?”
“That’s one thing, yeah.” I hesitated, words balanced on the tip of my tongue. I set them free. “I wanted you to win, you know?”
His expression tipped fully into a smile, shy but pleased. “You did?”
“Yeah.” I bumped our knuckles together. “Which is to say that even then, I couldn’t be fully neutral. Not about you.”
He didn’t answer—just shifted a little closer.
Sunlight sifted through branches and speckled his face in gold. He looked at home here, the same way I felt—tuned into the frequency of whispering leaves and gently humming insects.
“You told me to hold my question,” he said eventually. “About your parents. Whether Shane knows you better than they do.”
“Yeah.” I stepped over a root. “It’s nothing big, really.
We get along fine—great, even. But they don’t understand my life.
They’re proud, massively so, but they don’t understand the hours, what it took to get here.
When I tell them about cases, it’s like a foreign language.
” Did that sound whiny? I lifted a shoulder.
“Like I said, nothing big. I know I’m lucky.
They love me, they’ve always been fine with me being gay, and I’d like to think they raised me well.
Many kids would be happy to be in my shoes. ”
“Sure.” Finn paused. “But it’s such a basic human need, isn’t it? Wanting to be understood. Especially by the people we love.”
How do I keep you?
I inhaled crisp forest air, the taste of autumn on my tongue. “Your dad’s a doctor, so… probably different for you?”
“I guess?” His expression shifted, quiet for a few seconds as if he was truly giving it some thought rather than handing me a prefabricated answer.
“I told you he’s a small-town GP—well-loved, knows not just his patients by name, but also their parents and kids and pets.
Surgery isn’t that. And I think there’s a part of him that’s disappointed I’m not following his path, that I won’t take over his practice one day. ”
Same expectations, different shades. “Were you ever tempted?” I asked.
“When I was younger, yeah. But it’s…” He thought for a second.
“New York is too big for me. My hometown is too small—everyone up in everyone’s business, and no gay community to speak of.
I’d want to settle in a place that’s somewhere in between, you know?
A city that isn’t overwhelming, nature within easy reach. ”
“Yeah, same. I think, you know—maybe that’s why I like feeding birds. Because it’s at least a hint of wildlife among the skyscrapers.” I watched bright leaves spiraling down, caught by a breeze. “You said your mom’s an artist?”
“She is.” His mouth tilted in fond indulgence.
“Painting, mostly. So, very different. All she’s ever wanted for me was to find a sense of balance and happiness.
Yoga, meditation—she took me along from a pretty young age, so picture me at awkward fifteen with a bunch of thirty-five-year-old women doing Downward Dog. ”
It tugged a laugh from me. “Well, hey. I’d watch. I mean—maybe not fifteen-year-old you.”
He shot me a smile, dimples flirting around the edges of it. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, though.”
Oh. We were doing this, then.
“True.” I let it sit for a moment. “But with true craftsmanship, you can’t take it all in on the first viewing. It deserves… repeat studies.”
His dimples pressed in further, fully visible now. “All you have to do is ask.”
Not quite true. But this bubble felt too bright to burst, so I slid him a grin. “Maybe later.”
“Just say the word.”
For a second, we watched each other, tension stretching thick and syrupy between us.
Then he ducked his head, a small flush on his cheeks, smile only just visible.
I exhaled a chuckle, and we kept walking, our steps rustling across the trail strewn in dried pine needles and rusty leaves, the forest opening ahead of us.
No answers, no promises.
Just an unspoken sense of I want to be here with you.
“Wow,” Finn said, and—yeah.
The lake opened like a revelation. Sun glistened on the water, a breeze rippling the surface and cooling sweat on the back of my neck. Kids were flinging flat stones toward the glitter, far enough that their voices blurred into ambient excitement.
I stopped beside Finn and took a deep breath that carried the smell of pine and damp leaves. “Yeah. Just needs a couple of frolicking deer and a swarm of butterflies to complete the Disney setting.”
“And a squirrel giving us the side-eye.”
We claimed a spot under a sugar maple—half shade, half patchy sunlight, set slightly apart from the human buzz that hugged the shoreline.
I set down my pack and spread out a thin, lightweight blanket.
All very laid-back, if you ignored the two hours I’d spent hunting down this exact spot. Casual date energy, yup.
Finn dropped down with a happy sigh, palms braced behind him, all lean, easy length, as if a painter had poured him into that specific pose.
He took in the view, then me, face going soft.
The skin under his eyes still carried the dull bruising of a long week, but the spark was back.
“Thanks, J. This is… I didn’t even realize how much I needed a day away from skyscrapers and traffic. ”
J. There it was again, just like when he’d been sick and his guard down, familiarity slipping through.
“It’s a brain reset, isn’t it? Looking at a skyline that isn’t a cityscape.
” I smiled as I started laying out our lunch—nothing fancy, just foil-wrapped sandwiches, a couple of apples, a bag of chips, and a thermos with coffee that didn’t taste and look like dishwater.
As Shane would have put it: respectable for someone who used to drink instant by preference.
There was dessert, too, but I kept that hidden inside the pack for now.
Finn watched, something bright in the corners of his eyes. “No swans folded out of napkins?”
I laughed. “The local wildlife might get territorial.”
He tipped his head back and inhaled deeply, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. I studied the stubborn slope of his nose, the tilt of his lashes, and the generous curve of his mouth. When he caught me staring, his lips tugged up further.
“Just a reminder,” he said, teasing. “A picture will last longer.”