Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
FINN
The drive back was quiet. Not bad quiet, more the kind that reminded me of my childhood—returning home after a day spent on roller coasters and water rides, a friend and me dozing in the backseat while my dad drove and my mom chatted quietly to keep him awake.
When I shared the thought with Jesse, he slid me an amused look before focusing back on the darkening road, traffic thicker now than it had been in the morning.
His hands were sure on the wheel, competent, and I wasn’t sure why it made me flash back to the way he’d worked me open, the blackout night when I’d followed him home—slow and thorough and so, so good.
His voice pulled me back into the moment. “You sayin’ my company is just as thrilling as riding roller coasters?”
Yes or no? Yes.
“Maybe I’m saying I want to ride you all day.”
Too much? A couple of my exes had accused me of that—no filter once I trusted someone, subtlety left on a hook by the door, jokes that lacked class.
Jesse swallowed visibly, fingers tightening around the wheel. “Jesus, Finn,” he said, a touch raspy. It didn’t sound like a bad thing. “I’m driving.”
I grinned. “So I’m distracting?”
“You know you are.”
I did. It wasn’t the same as being seen, though.
Travis, Ken, all of them—they’d liked the way I looked, but even five months in, Travis had kept forgetting how I took my coffee, and Ken had needed half a year to stop dragging me to surprise horror movies when I hated gore.
Jesse and I weren’t even really dating, and yet he’d picked exactly what I’d needed to clear my head and feel like I could breathe again.
He’d brought lemon bars, so fresh and soft they’d melted on my tongue, when I’d never actually told him they were my favorite.
“Thank you for today,” I said. It must have seemed like a non-sequitur outside my head because Jesse shot me a surprised glance before he smiled—just a tiny thing that sat mostly around his eyes.
“Thank you for saying yes.”
I’m in love with you.
Yeah, no. Not about to trip over my tongue when all he’d offered was a resounding “maybe” after my rotation, unclear what that even meant.
Repeat hookups without a side of guilt? Friends with benefits?
Let’s just see what happens? He’d told me that he wasn’t the relationship type—it hadn’t seemed like a warning, just… information. Still, point taken.
I shoved the words back into some dark corner where they belonged and reached for a chuckle instead. It felt a little clunky in my throat. “Okay, wow. If we get any more polite, we should grab some ties.”
His mouth crooked sideways. “All the better to restrain you with?”
“I’d let you,” I said, low. “Not—you know. Not exactly something I’ve done before. But I’d let you. I know you’d make it good.”
He exhaled a harsh breath. “Still driving.”
“I’m just finishing what you started.”
“Okay, fair.”
We turned onto my road. A sagging chain-link fence blocked off a vacant lot slotted for redevelopment, overflowing trash cans spilling takeout containers onto the sidewalk even though pickup day was not until tomorrow.
While Jesse’s area wasn’t posh, this was…
Well. Quite a step down compared to his place.
“Here we are,” he said right into that thought.
“Metaphorically?” I asked, and he huffed out a small laugh as he pulled up next to the curb. The engine fell quiet.
“Literally, for now.”
I didn’t move just yet, watching him in the fading light. He met my eyes with a slight raise of his brows—not challenging but curious, waiting for me to put voice to thoughts I struggled to grasp.
“I think…” I trailed off, then tried again. “Today, getting out like that—it felt really good. Kind of confirmed that I’m not cut out for big-city living. Not in the long run.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He leaned back, hands falling off the wheel and to his thighs. “It’s an amazing place to learn—Devon. One of the best. But it’s not my forever choice.” His mouth curved up. “Just don’t tell Dr. Novak.”
Ha. “That’s gonna be difficult, what with my daily heart-to-hearts with her.”
“Do you talk about boys and all the ways your parents failed you?”
“We mostly exchange eyeliner tips.”
Jesse’s grin crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I seem to remember you have some skills.”
“Mad skills,” I agreed with a solemn nod.
“I bet.”
A moment of silence stretched as we smiled at each other, light as a feather, while the city flowed around us. I reached out to touch the back of his hand, and he turned it over so our fingers brushed, his thumb swiping over my knuckles.
“He’s at least half in love with you.”
Maybe. But he wouldn’t be the first guy to fall for me quickly and lose interest soon after.
I pulled back and grabbed my daypack, then nudged the passenger door open. “I’ll probably see you tomorrow?”
“Bright and early.” If Jesse had noticed my slightly abrupt retreat, his tone didn’t show it.
“When is it ever not bright and early?”
“When it’s still dark out,” he said.
With a small laugh and a wave, I slipped outside. He was still parked by the curb when I glanced back just before entering my building, and I told myself I was the reason he lingered. Fat chance, but a boy could dream.
I took the stairs rather than entrusting my fate to an elevator that had seemed to sputter a little more than usual this morning.
The TV was on when I unlocked the door, blaring about a home run.
I found Neil camped out on the couch with some leftover Chinese, grinning up at me through a bite.
“Welcome back! Let’s see—twigs in your hair? Grass stains on your knees?”
“Afraid not. It was all very PG-13.” I took my shoes off, then dropped the daypack by the door and my body onto the couch. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Such is life.” He clicked his chopsticks together. “Really, though—how was your big romantic day in the woods?”
I considered playing it cool. It wasn’t one of my strengths, though, so I let a silly smile take over as I thought about Jesse letting me nap while he drove, the route he’d clearly put some effort into, the lemon bars. Kissing in the shade of a maple tree.
“Magical,” I said.
“Magical?” Neil blinked like a startled owl. “Did you feed a bunch of talking ducks? Did you skip through a meadow holding hands while a golden retriever yipped its approval?”
I kicked him with a socked foot. “Mock all you want.”
“Thanks—I think I will.”
The game switched to an ad break. Red Bull promised me wings. A deodorant claimed it would make me massively successful with very beautiful women. Wrong tree, little dog.
“Hey, Neil?”
“Yup?”
I hesitated. Cleared my throat. “I think I’m in love with him.”
Neil lost the smirk, his brows pulling together as if trying to decide whether I was being dramatic or serious. “Okay. That’s… You know. Complicated. But kinda mutual, right?”
“Maybe?” I stole a spring roll from his plate. “But even if it is, I’m not really clear on what he wants. And upon closer inspection, people have a tendency to fall out of love with me.”
“People?” Neil’s voice sharpened. “Or your douchebag exes?”
Well.
“How do you know they’re douchebags?” I asked.
“You said it yourself—you’ve got a habit of dating guys who drop you the second you stop catering to their whims.”
I probably had told him something like that at one point or another, maybe over a breakfast bowl of cereal or a rare moment like this, catching up with the TV on, neither of us in a rush to get somewhere. And—yeah. It wasn’t exactly a wrong assessment, was it?
Travis, with his muttered “might as well marry your ambitions” when he’d kicked my ass to the curb.
Ken, who’d sulked for two days because I skipped some late-night slasher flick in favor of studying for an exam.
But maybe part of it was me. I’d always kept my sharper edges under wraps in the beginning, tried to be charming and easy.
By the time they realized how much I worked, how serious I got, it was too late for them to back away without making it sting.
I must have gone quiet for too long because Neil nudged my knee. “Hey. For the record, Jesse doesn’t seem like a self-involved douche.”
Just a simple statement, but it tripped up my breath because… No. No, he wasn’t. And he’d been where I was, he worked just as hard. He got it—what it meant and what it took.
“He’s not,” I said into the commentator’s excited announcement that we were back with the final inning, a time for guts, not grace!
Life advice? Yeah, probably not.
And yet.
Monday rolled in with a thunderstorm, rain lashing the windows when I dragged myself out of bed.
I replied to a sweetly rambling text from my mom about a painting in progress that gave her trouble, then pulled up Jesse’s name, hesitating.
We’d exchanged a few texts about logistics before the hike—no real reason to keep the conversation going now.
Good thing we didn’t go today
I wrote anyway.
He replied within a couple of minutes, clearly on the same schedule as me.
There’s no wrong weather
Just wrong clothes.
The North Face tell you that?
My dad. While duct-taping a trash bag around me because—quote—it works just as good as the fancy stuff.
I grinned into my coffee and tucked the phone away to get ready.
Somehow, as if acting on an unspoken signal, we kept texting after that—little notes here and there, random observations about strangers on the subway and the cafeteria’s daily special, things we couldn’t say when we passed each other in the corridors.
There’s a lemon bar in the fridge with your name on it
Jesse wrote on Wednesday, and on Thursday, I ducked out to grab some coffee from the nearest place that did the good stuff—one for Tay, one for me, and one for Jesse.
Black, one sugar, with an extra sugar on the side because he always grimaced at the first sip yet wouldn’t admit that he liked it sweeter.
“Dr. Maddox is gonna evaluate me after the twin surgery,” I said at Tay’s quizzical glance at the cup with Jesse’s name on it. “Just trying to cover all my bases.”