Chapter 30
FINN
Ispent the rest of the day ignoring Daniel and Sophie, trying to pretend I wasn’t in love with them.
The next morning, I woke up before my alarm to find Daniel on my doorstep with two coffees in hand.
I shuffled downstairs and opened the door, not overlooking the way his stare started at my face and drifted its way down to the waistband of my pajama pants.
“You’re up early,” I said, rubbing the side of my nose and stepping out of the way to let him in.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
I knew without being told it was my fault.
“Where’s Sophie?” I asked.
Daniel closed the door behind him, toed off his sneakers, and followed me into my office. He joined me on the window seat and passed me one of the drinks, still piping hot. I didn’t need to look to know it would have enough sugar in it; he and I were the same in so many ways.
“Your brother had her working until eleven last night. She’s still in bed.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
“I left her a note.” Daniel popped the lid off his drink and steam billowed out of it. He blew over the top to cool it, taking a tentative sip. “Are you okay, Finn?”
“Yeah.”
It tasted like a lie, so I took a much larger swallow of coffee than was probably advisable to burn the flavor of it out of my mouth.
“I don’t believe you.”
I gave him a tight smile.
“I know you more than she does,” he reminded me. “I’ve done this with you before.”
I let out a sardonic laugh. “Oh, I don’t think we’ve done this before.”
“Finn.” He stared at me, and we were at an impasse.
I rested my head against the wall, knowing the only way to get through this was to have a mature conversation, but words had never been as hard as they felt in that moment. I was terrified of the truth, but another lie would take me out at the knees.
“What changed?” Daniel finally asked me, words so soft I almost missed them. “Did I do something wrong when we—”
“No,” I answered quickly, cutting him off with a furious shake of my head and a raised hand to stop him from even entertaining the thought this was somehow his fault and not mine. “You haven’t. It’s not you at all.”
“Is it…is it them?” Daniel’s voice cracked. “Did they call you or something?”
Of course he was asking about Neil and Annette.
Why wouldn’t he be? If he imagined I was mirroring behaviors from our first days together, it made sense he’d think the root cause was somehow the same.
And maybe in a way, it was. Maybe I was still spooked by the hurt that had been inflicted upon me when I was with them.
“Not them,” I said.
“Someone else, then?”
“As if there could be anyone else for me.” I set my coffee down on the floor, took Daniel’s out of his hand and set it next to me.
I crawled across the small window seat and took his face in my hands, eyes scanning his face to see if he really, truly believed there was anyone for me in this life besides him and his future wife.
“I had to ask,” he murmured, trying to look away, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Daniel, I…” Lincoln’s voice echoed in my head and my hands trembled, fingers sweaty against the overnight growth on Daniel’s cheeks. He reached up and curled his fingers around my wrists, chaining us together.
“Finn.”
“I love you.”
Daniel’s eyes widened in a flash and then softened, his fingers holding me steady, rooting me to my seat.
“I love you,” I said again, trying to channel my brother’s boyfriend and be brave for long enough to get through this confession that felt like thorns wrapped around my ribs. “And I love Sophie, and I don’t know how any of this is going to work after September and I’m terrified.”
Daniel slid his fingers over the tops of my hands, covered them with his palms and stared back at me with such an earnest intensity I worried it would be the thing to kill me after all.
“Hey.” He stroked his thumbs over mine, smiling at me softly. “Take a breath, okay?”
I did, and it didn’t make me feel any better.
“Is that all?” Daniel asked.
I scoffed, tipping my head back because it was suddenly too hard to look at him but I didn’t dare let him go.
“Is it a lot?” he asked me next, and I bit the corner of my tongue to stop myself from saying something he didn’t deserve. I was somehow able to manage a nod.
“It’s a lot for me too,” Daniel said, and that earned my attention.
My stare snapped back to his face, and Daniel gave me the softest and saddest smile, his thumbs still drawing swirls across the side of my hand.
“What?”
“Loving you,” he whispered, blinking hard. “It’s a lot. But so is being loved by you, so I’m sure it’s worth it.”
“Daniel, I—”
“Don’t try and take it back now.” He turned and pressed a kiss against my wrist bone. “Please don’t explain it away.”
“Are you…”
“I love you too,” he said simply. “I realized when I was in Boston, or maybe a little before.”
That would explain the shift, the pressing weight on his shoulders. I had felt it because it wasn’t just my own feelings coming through the line but also Daniel’s…maybe Sophie’s.
Maybe Sophie.
“I’m sorry,” I rasped, squeezing my eyes closed.
A violent pounding on my front door was enough to startle me out of whatever emotional state I’d been backsliding into. Daniel looked just as surprised, and he reluctantly let go of my wrists when I dropped my hands away from his face.
“I can guess who that is,” I said, heading to the front door with him hot on my heels.
As expected, it was Sophie, still in her pajamas and her hair in a bun so lopsided it was about to fall off her head. Her sneakers were untied and she had all of her things clutched in one hand, the other raised to bang against the door again.
“You should be ashamed,” she said to Daniel, reaching behind her cell phone and pulling out a folded sheet of white paper, undoubtedly the note he’d left her before sneaking out to come over.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I plucked it out of her hand to read it before either of them could stop me.
Went to Finn’s. I won’t let him walk away from me again. Love you.
I traced my tongue across the front of my teeth and bit down hard, staving off a wall of tears that threatened the corners of my eyes. Folding the note into a smaller square, I shoved it into my pocket and stepped out of the way so she could come inside.
Sophie kicked her shoes off beside Daniel’s and aimed a dangerous look at him.
“Why should I be ashamed?” he asked, holding his hands up in surrender.
He loved me.
He loved me, and I wanted to put myself between him and Sophie because he didn’t deserve her scorn.
“For not waking me up,” she snapped. “For not bringing me with you.”
That was clearly not what he’d expected her to say, because the wind whipped out of his sails like someone had sliced a hole down the middle.
Sophie breathed hard, her glare almost softening when she looked over Daniel’s shoulder and down the hall.
She’d never been in my house. I was in love with her, and she’d never even seen where I lived. This whole thing was beyond fucked up.
“Hold on.” I rubbed my eyes, gestured vaguely toward the office. “I’m going to get a coffee cup and some cream for you. Daniel knows where to go.”
I left them in the entry, heading for the kitchen. Something about the two of them being together in my house was more overwhelming than admitting to Daniel I loved him had been. What would they think about me, or assume, based off whatever they saw? God, I was going to be fucking sick.
I pulled down a mug and added some milk to it, then caught up to Sophie and Daniel in my office.
Daniel was back on the window seat and Sophie had her hands planted against her hips.
She turned in a half circle, looking around the room.
Blindly, I handed off the mug to Daniel, who poured half of his coffee into it and then set it on the floor next to our paper cups.
Sophie finished her assessment of the office, turning to face me with glassy eyes.
“Pelt,” she said quietly.
“A good choice.”
Her jaw worked as she swallowed, and I pointed weakly toward the window seat. She sat down next to Daniel and folded her hands neatly on her lap. Her pajamas, I realized, had dancing strawberries printed on them.
“Are we losing you?” she asked, brow furrowed. “I thought—” She stopped herself, scratched her temple. “We just…at the store, and then…”
She didn’t need to use words for me to follow the train of thought.
Yes, it had only been days since I took her in the dressing room at the bridal store.
Even less time since I’d fucked her raw for the first time while Daniel watched from the other side of the country.
Less time still since he’d been home and the burden of an unspoken love had threatened to splinter my spine into a thousand bits of bone.
“Tell him,” Daniel prompted, giving Sophie’s forearm a squeeze.
“Tell him what?”
“The thing you haven’t told me yet.”
Sophie opened her mouth and closed it again, eyes widening as she searched Daniel’s face for some hint of what he’d meant. He lifted her hand toward his mouth, kissed the diamond at the heart of her engagement ring, and nodded encouragingly.
“Daniel, I—”
He made a soft noise in the back of his throat that stopped her from whatever she was about to say, and then Sophie turned toward me, a shadowed mask of hope and uncertainty painted across her face. She still had lines on her cheek from the pillow, and I wanted to trace them away.
“I love you,” she whispered, sounding very surprised by the confession as she turned toward Daniel again. “I love him.”
“Me too.”
I screwed my eyes closed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. There was certainly no way I’d heard her right.
“What?” I croaked, arm falling limply to my side.
“I love you,” she said again, sounding far more sure of it than she had the first time.
The air left my lungs in a rush, and I sank down to my knees, and then onto my ass.
I propped my forearms on my knees and let my head hang between my legs.
It was easier to breathe when the only thing I could see was the intricate pattern of my rug and not the inquisitive want in the depths of Sophie’s eyes.
“Is it a lot?” I muttered.
Daniel laughed, and I dared myself to look up at them.
“The most,” he promised me.
I had been many things in my life to many people—a payday to my mother, a problem for my father, a bandage to Neil and Annette.
One thing I’d never been was so completely loved as I felt in that moment, and was it wrong of me to accept it?
To pretend the vows Daniel and Sophie planned to speak meant nothing knowing that I had a place in their bed—in their hearts.
Vows can be changed, Lincoln’s voice whispered in the back of my head, which was annoying of him to be right all the time.
I realized in that moment both of my brothers, Hunter and Marshall, had found themselves the love of amazing men.
Smith, too, of course, but there was something so unique in the way Lincoln moved through the world, it was impossible to be on the receiving end of his affection and not be a step above the general population.
And I pressed my fingertips against the corner of my mouth, the place he’d kissed me at lunch the day before and understood I was part of that group, not an exception.
I deserved to love Daniel and Sophie at the same time if that was what I wanted, and I deserved to have their love in return…rings or not.
With a cracking hip, I rolled onto all fours and crawled toward them, resting my forehead against Sophie’s thigh. She threaded her fingers through my hair, and Daniel laid his hand against my shoulder blade.
“I’m in love with you too,” I told her, kissing the top of her knee.
A quiet, content noise fell out of her mouth, and if it was the last thing I ever heard in this life, it would have been enough.
“We’ll figure out the rest together, right?” she asked.
“Right,” Daniel said, fingernail dragging across my shoulder. “Okay?”
Sophie gave my hair a soft tug, and I let myself relax beneath their touch.
“Okay.”