Chapter 39 Finn
Finn
When I was a young bloke, time moved like molasses, a tiresome amble toward a future that would never arrive. At the ripe ole age of twenty-nine, I discovered just how quickly the calendar could pass.
It was a Sunday afternoon in mid-April. I was sitting in the office sorting through a pile of paperwork when Mark, Jacks, and Benji appeared in the doorway like some mismatched intervention squad.
“We need to talk,” Mark said.
I spun my chair around, startled by his stern tone. “About?”
“About the fact that you’re a whipped man,” Benji announced, flopping into the chair across from my desk. “And I’m not talking about that spanking shit. That’s for the bedroom. I mean whipped as in goo-goo eyed to the point of blindness. Wait, that might be for the bedroom, too.”
“Benji—” Mark tried to stop him.
“I’m not—” I protested. “We haven’t even talked about how we feel with each other . . . about each other . . . oh, fuck it. Whatever.”
“You absolutely are,” Mark interrupted, his raptor’s gaze shifting from Benji back to me. “And we’re not saying it’s a bad thing; but Finn, you’ve gotten far too attached to that man before we could offer proper approval, and that is unacceptable.”
“Proper what?” I spat, tossing my pen over my shoulder to land God-knew-where and leaning back, my chair whining in protest.
“You heard me. Priya agrees with us, too, though I suspect she’s more in love with Chase than you are.”
“I’m not in love with him!”
Jacks leaned against the doorframe, hunky arms crossed. “Oh, boss, how could you be so naive?”
“And how do you, Professor Pigskin, even know that word?” Benji teased.
Jacks grunted.
Mark stifled a laugh.
I folded my arms and tried to scowl despite the ridiculous scene unfolding before me. “What are you all talking about? He’s here all the time.”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “He’s here all the time, sitting in his booth, working while you work. We’ve said hi to him a thousand times but had zero actual conversations.”
“That’s not true. You’ve talked to him—”
“‘Hey, how’s it going’ doesn’t count,” Benji interrupted.
Jacks shifted his weight, uncrossing and recrossing his arms. “Look, boss, what Benji’s trying to say is that you’ve already fallen for this guy whether you want to admit it or not.
We can all see it.” He paused, his brow furrowing like he was working through a complex math problem.
“And that’s a good thing. We want you to be happy and all that, but we don’t really know him and, well, that seems wrong because you’re our people .
. . and if he’s gonna be your person, then we people should people together so .
. . I don’t know . . . we can know him and his people and he can be our people, too. Or something.”
Mark stared at Jacks.
Benji pinched the bridge of his nose.
I opened my mouth to reply, then decided retreat was the better option and closed it.
“What Pigskin over there is trying to say,” Benji said, “is that we need to vet him properly before you go all ‘put a ring on it.’”
“Nobody’s putting a ring on anything.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Not even your cock?” Benji grinned.
“Benji—” Mark warned again, though there was more humor than heat.
“Yeah, you know.” Jacks gestured. “Like, make sure he’s not a . . . what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Weirdo?” Mark suggested.
“Sexual predator,” Benji offered. “Although, from what we’ve heard, you might like that.”
“Benji!” I protested.
“Child molester,” Mark tossed out.
“A jerk,” Jacks said. “We need to make sure he’s not a jerk, that he’s good to you. I mean good for you. Or both. Definitely both.”
I couldn’t help feeling a strange affection for the poor boy as he tried to assemble sentences like a Jenga puzzle.
He meant well. He really did.
Jacks scratched the back of his head. “My coach used to say something about . . . how’d he put it?
You gotta know the whole team, not just watch them play.
You gotta eat with them and hang out and see who they are when they’re not, you know, performing.
” He paused. “That made more sense in my head.”
“Performing.” Benji snickered. “They already know how to do that.”
Jacks shoved him, though they were grinning like brothers ganging up on their other brother.
“No, I got it,” I said, smiling despite myself.
Benji magically found a sincere tone. “The point is we want to know the person who’s making you smile at your phone every five minutes. And yes, we have approval and veto power. We’re gay. Judging is in our genes.”
“Fuck right, it is.” Jacks held up his palm for a high five.
Reluctantly, Benji smacked it.
“And Priya’s dying to hang out with him, too,” Mark added.
“She’s texted me like forty times. She said, and I quote—” He switched into the absolute worst Indian accent ever attempted.
“‘I’ve had one five-minute conversation with Chase and it was while I was threatening to kill him and right before those two horny boys kept me awake all night with their banging and groaning and squealing.’”
“We don’t squeal!” I said in a squeaky voice. Then, despite everything, I laughed. “That sounds like Priya.”
“She’s a doctor. She’s smart and shit.” Jacks pushed off from the doorframe, taking a step into the room.
“Chase seems great and all. He shows up here just to be near you, and that’s commitment, you know?
That’s real.” His brow furrowed again. “But you’re family now.
We want to know him if he matters to you. ”
Family?
I hadn’t seen that coming, and the word struck me harder than I would’ve expected. Mark and I had been best friends for as long as I could remember, but Jacks and Benji were just employees, coworkers who scrambled for a paycheck by serving food and drinks every night.
Clearly, they saw us as more than just their employers, closer to brothers. I stared between them and let the weight of that settled onto my shoulders.
“And we need to know whether he can handle Benji,” Mark added with a smirk. “And not just the evil bartender, the guy behind the colorful hair and fruity drinks.”
“How could he not love me?” Benji protested. “I’m delightful!”
“You’re . . . intense,” Jacks said, grinning now.
“But Mark’s right. We need to know if Chase can hang with us, with our chaos, because if you’re serious about him—which, no offense, boss, but we all know you are even if you don’t yet—then he’s gonna be around us a lot.
We should all be, like, friends and shit? ”
“I’ll be the friends. Jacks is clearly the shit,” Benji said.
After another brief shoving match, the three of them stood there, quiet and waiting, as my mind spun with everything they’d just thrown my way.
I’d never slowed down long enough to even think about what Jacks and Benji had become to me.
They were just people I’d hired, employees I managed; but was that true?
Was that all they were? Or were they more than that?
And what about Chase? I knew what he made me feel, but how I felt was another matter. Was I falling for him? Or, as they said, had I already taken the plunge and my rational brain was being too much of an ass to recognize it?
I glanced up at Benji and his neon hair that changed from pink to blue to orange faster than I could keep up. Then I looked at Jacks, his eyes so sincere, his jaw set. Mark stood behind them all, my closest friend, my partner.
I released a sigh.
They were right.
How had I not seen this building?
How had I missed the easy camaraderie and companionship weaving its way around us?
I’d been so focused on growing the business and getting closer with Chase that I’d missed the family forming right before my eyes.
“So, what are you suggesting?” I asked.
“Nothing crazy, just a group hangout,” Mark said. “Something outside the bar, somewhere we can all talk and get to know each other without customers calling out drink orders or screaming at the TV.”
“Like dinner or something,” Jacks added. “Is that lame? That sounds lame when I say it out loud.”
“It’s not lame,” I said.
“Okay, good, because Benji wanted to do laser tag and I told him that was a terrible idea—”
“It would be fun!” Benji protested.
“You made a kid cry last time—and we were bowling,” Jacks said flatly.
“He was talking trash from two lanes over.”
“He was twelve!”
“He started it!”
Mark snorted and shook his head. “Anyway, we need to plan a dinner—and Priya obviously has to come. This is a full-family situation.”
“Exactly.” Jacks leaned forward, his expression turning serious, which was somehow even more comical than his playful face.
“Because you’re important to us, boss, and we want to make sure whoever you’re with is good enough, that they treat you right and make you happy and all that gushy stuff in Lifetime movies. ”
He scratched his jaw as though his words itched.
Benji glared, eyes wide.
Mark stood, ignoring our children. “So, dinner this weekend. Somewhere nice but casual.”
“And tell Chase it’s time he met the family,” Benji added. “Oh, while you’re at it, tell him how you feel, too. It’s obvious you’ve been an idiot and not said the magic words.”
“Magic words,” I muttered through a chuckle, trying to hide the abject terror those words instilled in my chest.
“Oh, and be gentle.” Jacks grinned, that big, genuine smile that made him look younger than his twenty-six years. “Tell him we promise to only grill him a little. Like, medium grill. Not full grill.”
“Medium rare?” Benji offered.
“Mid-rare,” Mark corrected.
“Raw always feels better.” Benji smirked.
“I don’t think that’s how grilling works,” Jacks said.
I covered my face with my palm.
“You know what I mean!”
Jacks was backing out the door now, still grinning. “We’ll be nice and friendly. Even Benji.”
As they filed out, I heard Benji say something in the hallway, followed by Jacks’s voice.
“I didn’t mess that up, did I? I feel like I said ‘you know’ like fifty times—”
“You did fine,” Mark’s voice replied. “It was very heartfelt.”
“Oh, good. I was going for heartfelt.”
The moment the voices faded, I pulled out my phone.
Me: So, something terrifying just happened.
Chase: Oh, boy.
Me: Yeah. Oh, boy’s right. My friends want to have dinner this weekend—all of us. You, me, Mark, Benji, Jacks, and Priya.
Chase: Is this a “meet the family” situation?
Me: How did you know? I almost fell out of my chair when they called us a family.
Chase: You’re precious when you’re clueless.
Me: I’m not clueless!
Chase: See? Absolutely precious.
Chase: Are they going to grill me?
Me: Probably. Benji’s already planning his questions. I think he even took a couple of law school classes to prepare. I’m sorry in advance.
Chase: Don’t be. I want to meet them, too. They’re important to you.
Me: You sure? They can be a lot.
Chase: I can handle a lot. When and where?
Me: Saturday lunch? I haven’t really thought about where.
Chase: Saturday’s good. What about everyone coming over here? We can grill out back and just be casual and comfortable.
Me: Your house? Really?
Chase: Why not? I mean, you already know you’ll have to cook. I don’t even know how to turn the stove on.
Me: Stop it. LOL. You’re not that helpless.
Me: Although, I think my butt print is still on your countertop and that was months ago. Have you eaten since then?
Chase: Only your ass. I’m living on puckers and warm fuzzies.
Me: EWW. Not funny.
Chase: A little funny.
Me: Fine. It was a little funny.
Me: They’re going to love you.
Chase: You think?
I came so close to typing, “Yes, because I do.” Instead, I typed,
Me: Yeah, I think.