Chapter 4 #3
“I get it now! You’re the cat, and I’m the dog!
” Finn exclaimed, words slurring worse than earlier, like everything he’d drunk hadn’t quite caught up to him yet.
He nuzzled his forehead against Nora’s, and when he released her, she bounded back to the chair, jumping at Smudge, who bopped her on the nose in fear of being toppled onto the beach.
Finn giggled harder, then rolled onto his front to push up on hands and knees and crawl through the sand toward Teddy. He placed his hands on Teddy’s thighs, saying playfully, “Here kitty, kitty.”
Teddy grabbed Finn’s wrists before he could part his knees like he seemed to want, much as he would have welcomed it under soberer circumstances. “I wondered why I didn’t remember your parents, but I’ve only had this place for a few years. Guess you weren’t using it after they passed.”
“No,” Finn said, slumping back on his ankles. “Until I moved here, I hadn’t been to that house since I was a kid. It was paid off, so it just sat empty.”
“What were their names?” Teddy asked.
“Abigail and Phineas.”
“You’re Phineas Junior?”
“That’s why I’m Finn! I can’t be Phineas.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Another thing we have in common.”
“You’re a junior too?”
“Why do you think I never go by Edmund? I’m not particularly fond of my father.”
“You’re not? Was he also an asshole?” Finn whispered with a grin, but Teddy couldn’t echo him.
“A far worse one.”
“Oh.”
“He never hit us, but emotional blows can be just as damaging.”
“I know,” Finn said quietly.
Teddy wanted so badly to touch him then, but he was afraid to disrupt the uneven ground they wobbled on. “Is your father why you chose physical therapy?”
“Look at you, all interi… no. Intuition? Um…. Intuitive! Ha!”
He was adorable—and very sad, drunk, and sitting in the sand.
Nora came over to sniff him, but when he didn’t respond, she jumped onto the chair with Smudge and lay down behind Teddy, which prompted Smudge to begin grooming her as if she were his kitten.
Finn smiled at them, lopsided but genuine. When his eyes shifted back to Teddy, the way they darkened with want trapped him in place.
“Finn.”
“Room for one more up there?” he asked, sliding his hands onto the chair on either side of Teddy’s hips and patting the cushions.
Teddy couldn’t resist licking his lips as Finn started to climb onto his lap. “Wait, I—” He hissed almost immediately, unable to support Finn’s weight with those strong thighs clamping down on his incision site.
“Oh shit, sorry!” Finn scrambled off him. “Shit. Fuck, I am so drunk.”
“Yes, you are.” Teddy had to laugh because it hadn’t hurt that badly.
“I’m sorry,” Finn said again, steadying himself by clamping his hands down on Teddy’s shoulders.
“It’s okay. We just need to save this for another night.”
“You don’t mean that. I ruined it.”
“No, you didn’t.” Taking one of Finn’s hands from his shoulder, Teddy brought the palm to his lips and kissed it, charmed by the owlish gaze that blinked down at him. “If I didn’t by being an ass, then you didn’t by having a bad night and needing someone to listen to you.”
“I don’t let people listen to me on this night. Ever,” Finn said, a smile quirking at his lips as he nudged between Teddy’s legs, which parted for him willingly this time; he couldn’t help it. “I just wanna be left alone so I can get drunk and not think about it.”
“Then why are you letting me listen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe coz it’s the first one since I moved, and I’m supposed to be better.
I wasn’t as better… as good, in the city.
That’s why I had to leave. New beginnings.
Like you.” He smiled dopily, twining his arms around Teddy’s neck.
“You know what was the last straw that got me to leave my ex?”
That didn’t sound like something to smirk about while wrapping arms around someone else, but Teddy was too riveted to care.
“He said I was never gonna be happy if I didn’t learn to move on. He meant coz I get like this every year thinking about Mom and Dad, but it’s like I suddenly woke up and realized I was miserable and playing it safe, coz I was too afraid to move on from him.
“Not anymore. No more not taking chances or not going after what I want. Which probably sounds pathetic coming from a drunk.”
“No.” Teddy tentatively reached for his waist to hold him steady. “It doesn’t sound pathetic.”
“I’m only this bad once a year. I’m allowed once a year, right?”
“You’re allowed whatever you need. Like you keep preaching to everyone else, Doc.”
Finn crowded closer to press his forehead to Teddy’s like he had with Nora. He smelled like beer, but Teddy didn’t care. “At first I thought you were pretty and interesting, and I just wanted to kiss you. But I really like you, Teddy.”
“I like you too,” Teddy said, thumbs circling at Finn’s hips.
Their foreheads were still together, Finn’s eyes dropping to Teddy’s lips. He was going to kiss him, and Teddy wasn’t sure he had the willpower to stop him.
Then Finn pulled back before their lips could touch. “Urg… the beach is kinda spinning.”
No kisses tonight.
“Come on.” Teddy pushed Finn back so he could stand but hung on to him and looped an arm around his waist to help him walk. He couldn’t carry Finn, but he could manage that much.
Smudge and Nora followed them inside without prompting, and Teddy got Finn to the sofa, a parody of their first night. Finn had gone quiet, sleepy, and looked nauseated. While he didn’t seem ready to hurl, Teddy got him water anyway.
Finn hummed more than said thank you, only uttering a soft “Teddy,” with a smile. When Teddy refilled the glass and came back, Finn had passed out on the cushions.
After setting the water on the coffee table for later, Teddy situated Finn more carefully, covered him with a blanket, and had to smirk at Nora and Smudge snuggling onto the sofa with him.
Everyone had personal traumas to get over; Teddy hardly had the monopoly on that. Some were just harder to see on the surface.
Finn woke with a groan the next morning just as Teddy was finishing making them coffee. Nora had stayed with Finn until Teddy let her outside earlier. Smudge had eventually gone to bed with Teddy. They’d both gotten cat food for breakfast, but Nora didn’t seem to mind.
“Where?” Finn mumbled groggily, his disheveled head peeking up from the sofa, usually perfect hair sticking up all sorts of directions. Recognition dawned on him slowly, the memories flooding back as he looked at Teddy in the kitchen. “Oh God. I didn’t throw up on you, did I?”
“You’d be waking up on my beach chair if you had.”
“I am so sorry, Teddy. I am the worst, I….” Finn swayed after standing, looking green as he tried to find even footing. “I’m not gonna throw up, I’m not gonna throw up,” he chanted.
Teddy hoped he was right. He didn’t fancy replacing his sofa or rug. “Come get coffee. I’m frying up some greasy eggs on toast.”
Another groan, Finn stabilizing as he ran a hand back through his hair. “How can that sound awful and fantastic at the same time?”
“Wonders of a truly earned hangover.”
Finn’s answering smile was sincere until it soured as he trudged over to Teddy. His shirt was still misbuttoned, and he took notice of it with a sneer, but simply sagged down onto a stool at the kitchen island. “I am so sorry.”
“I should be sorry,” Teddy said, pushing a mug of black coffee toward him. “Out of cream and sugar.”
“Oh. Got any ice cream?”
Teddy gawked at him.
“Totally sober, I promise. Ice cream does the job of cream and sugar. You’ll have to reheat the coffee after, but it works in a pinch.”
Moving to the freezer, Teddy pulled out a small half-eaten tub of vanilla.
Finn cradled his head but looked up with a weak smile when Teddy plopped a scoop of ice cream into his mug.
He stirred it for him, letting it melt, did the same with his own mug of coffee, then brought them to the microwave to reheat.
“You’re wearing your glasses,” Finn noted.
“Yes.” Teddy was barefoot and in sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt too.
“You don’t usually wear them.”
“You’re not usually here when I wake up in the morning.”
The coffee beeped just as Finn flushed with color.
Teddy put the toast on plates to wait for the eggs to finish, then retrieved their slightly less black coffee for a taste.
It was better than normal cream and sugar, and a terrible trick to have been taught when lately, he’d been craving all his worst vices.
“Even life hacks for the kitchen. Is there anything you’re not good at?”
“You can still say that after last night?” Finn rubbed his temples while nursing his coffee.
“Yes,” Teddy said, scooping the eggs onto the toast finally and bringing over their plates to enjoy at the counter, since it was unlikely Finn would want to move anytime soon.
“Baking,” Finn said after a moment, staring skeptically at the food before he took a heaping bite. “I’m a terrible baker. Why do you think Rose married Blaise? Now she has all her meals covered.” He snickered, not entirely his normal self, but trying.
“I thought you were perfect,” Teddy said, smiling without guile when Finn startled and looked up at him. “I’m glad you’re not. I wish I could accept and enjoy when I’m not. My father… made that difficult. Any misstep just meant I was weak and unworthy.”
Finn paused midraise of his next bite of food, and Teddy could see the gears turning as he remembered what Teddy had told him about his father last night. “You became a dancer to spite him? Or to be more perfect?”
“Both?” Teddy said it like a question, but he knew it was the truth.
“A worse asshole, you said.”
“Worse when he drank, which is why I tend to avoid it.”
Finn suddenly looked like Teddy had slapped him—or like he’d slapped Teddy.
“Not that I’m opposed,” Teddy said quickly. “Thankfully, I’m not an angry drunk. Like you, I just get more honest and handsy.”
He expected Finn to laugh, but instead, he stared at the counter. “I am so sorry, especially for dumping all that on you last night.”
“Think nothing of it. Made us even.”
“Not even close,” Finn snapped, clearly angry at himself and refusing to look at Teddy.
“Honestly, it was refreshing.” Something Teddy had realized that morning when the continued presence of Finn on his sofa hadn’t been annoying but welcome.
He’d never experienced that with someone who spent the night before.
“I don’t mind learning more about each other.
Telling you of my past, finding out about yours. Your parents. Your pain. Even your ex.”
That cracked a smile, however feeble. “Oliver. He’s a good guy. A great guy. We still talk, and I hope we’ll always be friends, but he was not the love of my life.”
Yesterday, that would have been all Teddy needed to hear. Today, he felt like he was worse off somehow than with all his speculations about Finn being the village serial killer. The brokenness he hadn’t fully understood until last night was plain and worsening on Finn’s face now.
“Maybe you just have terrible taste in men.” Teddy tried to lighten the mood.
Another subtle smile flickered but didn’t last long. “I’m getting better at it, just not sure I’m much of a catch in return.” With a final longing glance at Teddy, Finn pushed off the stool, not wobbling this time, though his brow knit with pain.
“Where are you—?”
“I need to take care of my pounding head and cancel my appointments.”
“You didn’t do that ahead of time?” Teddy leaned across the counter to hold Finn there for just a little longer.
Finn’s eyes were the most beautiful shade of teal, but they were anguished. Teddy couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen that until now, but maybe Finn was just that good at hiding it. “I canceled the morning ones. I thought I’d be okay by my afternoon sessions. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Rain check on our date, then?”
“Oh shit.” Finn cringed, struggling for how to reply. “I….”
“Another time,” Teddy assured him.
“Yeah.” But the way Finn said that made Teddy think he didn’t mean it.
“Finn, it really is fine. We all have bad days.”
Finn smiled, tight and false, like he was merely appeasing Teddy by not arguing.
There was a moment with Finn still standing close when his eyes fell to Teddy’s lips, and Teddy thought, horrible morning breath or not, if Finn tried to kiss him, he’d let him.
But not this time. Finn pulled away, and Teddy didn’t know how to give chase.
“Bye, Teddy. Thanks for everything.”
Something new had broken, far worse than Teddy snapping the other day. Finn—Finn was broken and didn’t want to drag Teddy into his mess of shards, even though Teddy was nothing but pieces too.
He should say something, anything to keep Finn from leaving like this, but all he got out was “Bye, Finn,” before the door closed behind him and Nora.
Teddy slumped onto the sofa that should have smelled like booze and sweat but only smelled like the beach, just as Smudge hopped onto the coffee table with a judging flick of his tail, as if to say, what an idiot you are for not kissing Finn yourself.
“Shut up. I know.”