Chapter Fourteen #2
A sturdy platinum chain looped through a matching ring: a thick band engraved with a chevron pattern that reminded Finn of the marks skate blades left on fresh ice. The centre chevron was inlaid with diamonds.
Robbie was right: it was perfect.
Finn nodded at it, swallowed the tightness in his throat, blinked back the joy and happiness and relief and everything else. “Now ask me to be your boyfriend.”
Robbie’s lips twitched in a small smile. “Babygirl….”
That uncontrollable animal sound escaped Finn’s throat again. “Oh my God, just put it on me and get me out of here before I get fired.”
“Can I be honest?” Robbie asked in bed later, sprawled out on his back with Finn on his side next to him. “My heart’s not really in the competition anymore.”
“Well, shit,” Finn said, smiling the smile of the incredibly well-fucked, if Robbie said so himself. “Here I thought you were going to say you should’ve got me pearls.”
Robbie laughed and poked him in the side. “Don’t tempt me, babygirl. You’d look beautiful in them. Both kinds.”
Finn caught his hand and gave an unrepentant grin. “Salt- and freshwater?”
“Three kinds, then. Brat.”
“I know what you mean, though.” Finn sighed contentedly and rolled onto his back. “With the trial and Sawyer and us….”
“Lots going on.” Robbie was never going to get tired of the way his ring looked around Finn’s neck. He’d probably go fully feral once he moved it to his finger. Robbie looked forward to it.
“Lots of important stuff,” Finn clarified. He turned his head on the pillow. “You know… I’m contractually obligated to be at the arena for practice and filming a certain number of hours a week.”
Robbie raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t tell where this was going. “Yeah…?”
“But it’s, uh, a significantly lower number of hours than I have been spending there.”
Was Finn saying what Robbie thought he was saying? “We basically already won the thing anyway. We beat Chad. I got you….”
“When you put it that way, there’s really no point continuing.”
“Except the contractual obligations.”
“Exactly.” Finn paused. “So did you have something in mind, or…?”
“I have a couple ideas. I mean, I hate to throw out Stef’s perfectly good choreography….”
Finn waved that off. “She’ll understand. Especially if we let her help with Plan B.”
“I can just give Youth Line the money,” Robbie said. “Like, at this point, that’s the only thing I’m still in it for. And then my schedule for the whole summer opens right up. A much more stable environment for a minor child, really.”
“Only if you get him some really good headphones.”
Robbie cackled. “God, I don’t know, part of me thinks he deserves it. This whole thing was his idea, you know. His and Imogen’s. Matchmaking. They should be traumatized for meddling.”
“Yeah, Imogen kind of spilled the beans about that.” He curled onto his side again and tucked his hands under his pillow. “We could arrange some light payback. Make sure he’s there when the gallon tub of lube arrives from . Leave an empty condom wrapper in the couch cushions.”
“Tempting. But let’s try not to scandalize the poor CAS people who are going to be showing up at random-ass times to make sure I’m not waging a campaign of terror on my kid.”
Finn sighed gustily as if about to commit himself to some great trial. “Fine. I won’t try to give the ick to my new stepson.” Then his mouth dropped open with dawning horror. “Oh God, stepson?”
Robbie laughed at him. “I did mention that I come with a kid….”
Finn poked him in the ribs. “It’s—it’s different thinking ‘my boyfriend has a kid’ than ‘I’ll be that kid’s stepparent when I put on this ring.’” He spun the ring around the chain and eyed it with surprise, as if it were offering him adoption papers.
“Well,” Robbie began, running his hand up Finn’s back and into his hair so he could scritch Finn’s scalp the way he liked, “I have it on good authority that Sawyer isn’t in the market for a stepparent, though he wouldn’t be averse to me having a cool boyfriend, which now that I think about it was an unsubtle seal of approval for you. ”
“Me?”
“Yeah, he said something about a boyfriend that was fun to hang out with.”
Finn leaned into his touch and tilted his head back to catch Robbie’s eye. “I am a hoot on movie nights.”
“Only on movie nights?”
“Well…” Finn stretched, and Robbie was suddenly aware of the naked harlot in his bed.
He rolled them over, Finn on his back, and settled on top of him. “So. It’s settled, then. We’ll throw next week—fail on a technicality—and then I can focus on getting custody of my kid and you will have all the time you need to coach sassy preteens instead of aging hockey players.”
Finn hummed. “And after?”
“After?”
“Yeah.” He eyed Robbie from beneath lowered lashes. “After the kids have gone to bed. You gonna be good to me?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you won’t believe how good I can be.”
By the time Sawyer returned for dinner, Robbie and Finn were clean and flirting in the kitchen as they prepped dinner.
Robbie had backed Finn up against the counter and placed his hands on it to either side of his hips.
Judging by the way Finn smirked and curled his fingers around the neck of Robbie’s shirt, he didn’t have any complaints.
And then Sawyer walked in and froze in the kitchen doorway. “Robbie? Finn?”
“Hey, kiddo,” Robbie said casually and flashed a smile at Sawyer, though he didn’t straighten out of his loom over Finn. “How’s Imogen?”
“Imogen? Oh, yes, of course, let’s talk about Imogen and not at all about the fact that I found you canoodling in our kitchen after you said you were just friends!”
“Robbie?” Finn said seriously, catching Robbie’s eye to impart this wisdom. “I think you need to look into the sex ed at Sawyer’s school. Clearly he’s lacking key knowledge if he thinks this counts as canoodling.”
Sawyer spluttered and Robbie laughed. “That’s—I—I know what sex is! Is that what canoodling means? Ick!”
Robbie laughed harder.
He also stepped away from Finn so he could look Sawyer in the eye. “Good question. You should look it up in a dictionary. Also, when I said friendship, I was trying to tell you to mind your own business since Finn and I hadn’t talked about telling you or anyone else anything.”
“Finn totally agreed with the friends with benefits thing,” Sawyer cut in, outraged. It occurred to Robbie he was raising a drama queen. Oh well, kid came by it honestly.
“Yes, well, there was clearly some miscommunication on our parts that is none of your business, but, uh, do as I say and not as I do and always be clear and direct when defining the relationship.”
Sawyer gaped.
Finn snorted. “I probably should have clarified too. You know, instead of assuming.”
“Oh my God. Are you two no-cap serious right now? Imogen and I have been worrying for two days about you, like, breaking each other and how it was all our fault and it turns out you just fail at talking?”
Robbie cocked his head. “Pretty much.”
“I’m too young to be driven to drink!” he wailed.
Robbie pulled a cream soda from the fridge and handed it over.
Sawyer stared at it for a moment, then snatched it from Robbie’s hand and popped the tab. “You’re the worst.”
“Says the kid who signed me up for a reality TV show and forged my signature in order to set me up on a date. You deserve any drama that comes your way for this.”
Sawyer muttered darkly into his drink. Robbie decided not to ask him to repeat himself so he could hear, and focused on getting food on the table.
He waited until they were eating before he told Sawyer about the show.
“You’re quitting?” He actually looked distressed.
“I’m bowing out gracefully.”
“But why? You’re good at it.”
“Because it’s been fun, but Finn and I want to put our focus elsewhere. Me, I got you. You are more important than a TV show.”
“So… it’s my fault?”
Jesus, was there anything that Sawyer wouldn’t accept guilt for? “Sawyer, am I or am I not a grown adult who can make his own decisions?”
Sawyer pulled a face. “You are.”
“Exactly. You are not responsible for what other people do.”
“Besides,” Finn cut in, “we can’t officially date while Robbie’s still on the show.”
“Wait, really?”
Robbie breathed a sigh of relief as Sawyer turned to look at Finn and then began to pepper him with questions, diverting from the relationship clause to ask about other elements and going down a series of rabbit holes.
As he watched Finn take each question seriously and answer without complaint, Robbie had a vision of doing this over and over, every night they could, as long as Sawyer wasn’t too grown to join them.
This right here was family, Robbie’s growing family—the one he hadn’t known he’d wanted so badly until it appeared before him.
But now Robbie couldn’t imagine ever going back, never not having Finn at his side or Sawyer turning to him for support.