jesse
CHAPTER EIGHT
I couldn’t honestly say I woke up to a clear and crisp fall day when I hadn’t exactly slept.
The entire night, rain and thunder rumbled and whispered outside the window, relentlessly rattling against the windowsill and rolling over the sky, yet they were the respite from the sounds that were actually keeping me up.
Every time Finn drew a deep breath of air, I wondered if he was haunted by the same thoughts.
I wondered if he was still up because the proximity of our bodies wouldn’t let him shut his eyes.
I wondered if I was going crazy. That I couldn’t even sleep next to him because of the sheer possibility that I might drape my arm over him by accident, driven by the subconscious—and let’s face it, fully conscious—desire for even more closeness between us. It was a little mad.
So when the first glimmer of light shone through the last wisps of clouds smudged across the sky, my eyes were framed by dark circles of insomnia, eyeballs stinging with every blink like I’d suffered a fistful of sand thrown into my face.
Finn’s breathing was even. He slept on his side through the night, never turning, tossing, or kicking. Good for him. I was a kicker, so that was another reason why I couldn’t let myself fall asleep.
Let, I thought, wanting to laugh. As if I’d had a choice.
Every time I closed my eyes, the same scene appeared behind my eyelids as it did when they were wide open.
Finn, inches away from me, knees pulled up, lower back curved inward, ass pushed out just enough to drive me a little wild, hair spilling over the pillow he hugged with both arms, holding on to it like it was a tether to the Earth.
Just because we wore clothes for the sake of decency, I never forgot that Finn was there, fully human, flesh and blood and not a figment of my imagination like he had been for years, breathing, radiating heat into the space we shared, and naked underneath.
We all were, but I was somehow a lot more aware of Finn.
What did it even mean that two scrappy T-shirts separated us from his flesh touching mine.
As if a pair of shorts made it any more difficult to know exactly the shape of his body, the curves, the hills, the valleys that I longed to touch just once in my life.
But all these thoughts only made me angry with myself. How was I so incapable of letting go? How was I so stubbornly attracted to him? To hell with it. I could be stubborn in spite of myself. I could fight this war with myself until my dying breath, never once letting myself win.
So I pressed my hands against the mattress and tucked them just a little under my ass so I’d basically lie on them. I couldn’t move them without thinking about it.
I sat up early enough to put the rooster to shame, stretched my arms high above my head, then stood up as quietly as I could.
Finn was fast asleep, mercifully, because just standing up was enough to send all my blood into my dick, making it throb achingly once or twice.
I went to the bathroom, turning away from Finn just in case he was sneaking a look at me—because that’s what he’d be doing.
Right—and leaned over the sink to splash my face with cold water.
Finn was still asleep when I came back into the room and changed into my pants as quietly as I could. The floorboard creaked once as I stepped out of Finn’s shorts, but it didn’t seem to stir him.
I left him sleeping in his bed, casting one glance at him before shutting the door.
He lay on his right side, left arm draped over the pillow in a tight embrace, back expanding and shrinking with each breath, T-shirt lifted off the small of his back enough to reveal the fading tan of the past summer.
Fuck, he was cute. He was so much cuter now with a strong jaw, pronounced cheekbones, and the stubble on his chin and above his lip whenever he didn’t shave in the last twenty-four hours.
But as I came downstairs, there was activity in the house already. I’d hoped to leave without bumping into anyone, but those hopes were gone when I saw Harrison and Taylor making some elaborate version of French toast in the open kitchen at the bottom of the stairs.
“Early riser, huh?” Taylor remarked after looking at me. “And how’s the sleeping beauty?”
“Asleep,” I said before I could think. There was no question in my mind about Finn being the sleeping beauty, and Taylor noticed. He shared a soft laugh before turning to the burning butter in the pan.
I started for the door.
“Have breakfast with us,” Harrison said casually.
“Ah, I usually have coffee first,” I said, looking for any lame excuse just to get out of here.
Harrison’s smile was so smug and victorious that my heart sank.
He pushed a mug over and poured coffee pointedly while looking into my eyes.
How he didn’t spill it, I didn’t know, but the effort and showmanship were enough to convince me that my attempts to leave were futile.
Any resistance will be met with the outmost pleasantries.
So I sighed and dragged myself over to the kitchen island. “Can I do something to help?”
“Just watch,” Taylor said, shaking the pan with a feverish look in his eyes.
He moved it quickly, jerking it forward and back, which kicked the two thick slices of bread right out of the pan.
They scattered in two different directions, flipped in the air, and plopped onto the marble top of the island around the stovetop.
“Well, fuck me,” Taylor said, amused like he’d just discovered something unexpected.
Harrison leaned and kissed the top of Taylor’s head, then turned back to me. “You’ve known Finn for a long time.”
I fucking knew it. So I shrugged. “I sort of missed a crucial decade in between.”
“Right, of course, but he still laughs the loudest when you’re being funny,” Harrison said. This was about last night, then. It was true. Finn laughed every time I teased Harrison about King Kong.
“I guess there’s something that’s left over,” I admitted grudgingly.
“So we were thinking you could help us out,” Harrison said. “I’ve got Bennet’s binder here if you could take a look. Take it with you, read it, and see if we’re missing something. We’ve been trying like hell to match him with someone romantic and perfect, but it hasn’t been easy.”
“Perfect for him, or perfect for a romance plot?” I asked, looking at Harrison. Taylor, busy correcting the French toast accident, paused his work to look up.
“One and the same,” Harrison said lightly.
I shrugged. “I get the tropes and all, but that’s not how real life works.”
Harrison and Taylor looked at each other.
Of course, Finn had told me about them. Starting with a dare and a bit of fake dating, they slowly fell in love, forgot all about the fake half of fake dating, and simply made it work.
It was rare, but it was textbook. They wouldn’t know that for us regular people, dating was a constant struggle to be interesting, be interested, not do something stupid, not fall in love too fast, fall in love eventually, and so on.
“You’re just the exception that proves the rule,” I said, disgusted with myself for using such a trite and meaningless phrase. I was supposed to be a philosopher someday. An academic. Ha. “Finn’s had a rough time connecting with these perfect matches.”
“We noticed,” Taylor said defeatedly. “So if you’d shed some light on how Finn’s brain works, what he likes, that’d be peachy. We have three choices for next weekend to set him up with, and if you could just look over all this stuff and give us your opinion, I’d appreciate it.”
“It’s for Finn,” Harrison added.
And that was the one thing I couldn’t argue with. Truthfully, I didn’t want Finn to be set up with anyone. I wanted him to be single like me, free to stumble into some stupid accident, but that wasn’t something I’d say aloud. And I’d never sabotage him.
So there I was, agreeing to set up the only guy I’d ever been in love with. Because he wasn’t going to fall for me out of nowhere. And it wasn’t fair to stop him from falling for someone else.
At first, when I got back to my dorm room, I simply left the folder on my desk. I had a few hours before my first lecture, and poring over Finn’s love history and interests only to find out how incompatible we were was not at the top of my wish list.
Malcolm was out already, if he’d even been in the room during the night, so I had the quiet that I desperately needed, and I went straight to bed. As I undressed, I realized that I had never changed the T-shirt. Finn’s was still on me, here, and I’d left mine in his room.
I held it for a moment, almost bringing it to my lips and nostrils, but then I decided against it. I’d worn it all night. It had my scent all over it. And it came clean from the closet. I was just being silly, anyway.
I tossed the T-shirt over the back of my chair and lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling.
The cool air filled the room through the window that was left ajar, so I guessed Malcolm had been around at some point after the storm.
Maybe he’d had someone over. It didn’t bother me.
Sharing a room always had its difficulties, but it was easier if you simply accepted that it wasn’t your space.
In fact, it wasn’t even that I cared whether someone was around to see my desk and my bed. What wormed its way into my brain was this crazy sliver of envy that Malcolm cared so little, and he was free to screw around without regrets.
I’d gone through it, and it felt like having gone through a tunnel with no end in sight. I’d cared too much to have fun with it by the end. If only I could shut off my brain and not pick at the healing wounds, I would have a fine time.
When sleep still wouldn’t come—thanks, Harrison’s coffee!—I sat up and lost a staring contest against an inanimate object on my desk. Never stood a chance.