jesse
CHAPTER FOUR
Malcolm’s phone was blowing up with notifications. I could only assume he’d dropped a new batch of photos on one of his go-to dating apps to cause such an uproar. It sounded like every gay, bi, and curious guy on campus was trying to text him.
I’d rather jump off a bridge than be the target of all this short-term interest, but Malcolm was giggling, literally rolling in the bed with laughter, and furiously typing back replies.
So when he stayed in for the evening, I was more than surprised.
“What happened?” I asked, stepping into the bathroom. “Couldn’t narrow it down to one guy?” I lifted my cologne and sprayed a little on my neck and my wrists. The air around me immediately smelled like a summer breeze by the sea, pines, and sea salt.
Malcolm laughed sweetly. “I don’t need to narrow it down.”
I whistled in response. “Impressive. Is that why you’re staying in?”
“Do you want the room?” Malcolm asked, shooting me a cheeky look that said more than words could. You naughty thing, what are you up to? he was saying. But then he shrugged. “You can just ask.”
I grunted, trying to make it sound like a laugh. “I’m heading to the library, actually.”
“You know the rules,” he said. “If the sock’s on the doorknob, come in and join.”
Now I barked a laugh loud enough to shake the windows, and Malcolm joined me. He joked around like a flirt, but I was absolutely certain there was zero chemistry here. In fact, I couldn’t even form the image of something like that happening. “How ’bout I stay the hell away?”
“Even better,” he said. But then his grin faded a little. “There won’t be a sock, though.”
“No?”
He shook his head once. “I’m getting tired of this crap.”
“You know what you could do?” I asked, lifting my backpack to my left shoulder. “You could go out and meet someone in the real world.”
“Different paths, same destination,” Malcolm said automatically, but he lacked his usual conviction.
I’d met him only a few weeks ago, but it felt like I’d known him for years.
He was the type of person who slapped loud and rude humor over everything even remotely sensitive.
“Maybe,” he said. “Would you be a wingman?”
“Sure would,” I said.
“Good. I’m getting tired of our jogging dates,” he said. “It’s like I’m prepping for the apocalypse.”
I was already by the door when those words stopped me. I glanced at him over my shoulder. “And you don’t think you should be?”
“Queen, I’ll be the first to die when zombies show up, and I’ll go down singing.” He cackled, and I walked out with a silly smile on my face. He’d flirt with that zombie to the final breath.
The library is quiet in the evening. Most students had wrapped up their work between lectures and decided to participate in the fabled student life at this hour, but not me.
I’d had my fair share of parties, more than a few hangovers, and a mountain of regrets that sometimes kept me up at night.
Or, to be precise, the ways in which my life could have gone kept me up at night, because I was lucky as fuck to still be alive and well.
I’d never flirted with drugs beyond a few psychedelic experiences in the safety of the dorm room, but I’d wandered campuses while the world seemingly spun independently from me, swaying and tilting under my feet.
I’d gone to bed with strangers without a single thought of what could happen, entered cars without a passing concern, and had the whole loop of dying and being reborn again night after night, week after week, for three solid years.
I was so fucking done.
The library had become a refuge, and the Elmwood U library was richer and far better organized than my old university library.
What I read had little to do with my studies, yet it had everything to do with my studies.
You didn’t go into philosophy thinking you’d specialize in a topic, master a subject, or earn a living.
You went into it because all else was a small death.
So I waved the librarians at the entrance a greeting and went into the maze of bookshelves, around the long mahogany tables with green and gold desk lamps, walking down thick, footstep-softening carpets, until I reached the section of historical biographies.
As I passed a nook with tables, my gaze swept the faces lit by the warm yellow lamp lights and blue screens.
A curly-haired girl with a small, heart-shaped birthmark above her left eyebrow, a black-haired guy with a full beard and a stack of books on economic theory, and a head of wavy locks above a pair of bright, midday sky eyes.
My pace sped as if my feet knew before my brain could process it.
The Finn I remembered wouldn’t have been coerced into a library under the threat of hanging.
But that Finn was twelve years old and had a wickedly mischievous grin that he had used one too many times on me before my heart nearly exploded in my chest.
As I slipped around the corner, looking at him over my shoulder, he lifted his head.
Fuck, I thought, walking deeper between the bookcases.
The instinct was stronger than me, and I was the coward I’d always been.
Running into Finn was inevitable, utterly unavoidable, written in the stars themselves, but nobody had decided on how soon it had to happen, so I postponed.
If I had another day, another hour, I’d find a way to be readier.
Like hell, I would.
The floorboard creaked under the thick carpet so softly that he might have been sneaking up on me, but then I turned around as casually as I could and he was just standing there, bathed in the golden glow of the overhead light, broad shoulders packed in a tight T-shirt, wild curls going everywhere, eyes big and round and bright like precious gems.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a step back as if to turn around. “I thought…”
“Hey, Finn,” I said at the same time as he was about to mistake me for a stranger. It was past the time to let him do that. He’d figure it out eventually, and everything would be so much worse.
His lips parted first, then the sound came a fraction of a second delayed. “It’s really you.”
We eyed each other for a long time. Or a short time. Or a perfectly normal amount. Frankly, what was time, anyway? His gaze locked onto mine and wouldn’t let go, and it didn’t matter if we knew just how many seconds the torment lasted.
Then he smiled, but only a little. Not the wicked grin that ruined lives, but a small, friendly smile you reserve for a stranger who lets you go ahead at the cash register or holds the door for you on their way out. “You’re here,” he said.
“Clearly.” My throat was itchy. I tried to cough. That was a rude way to say it, wasn’t it? “And so are you. Close to home.”
“Never went far,” Finn said. “Wh-what are you…? Sorry, it threw me off to see you here. It’s been—what—ten years?”
“Ten years,” I said.
“How…?” Then he laughed. At ease. He rolled his eyes a little playfully, as if chiding himself. “How have you been?”
I laughed, too, and played along. “Good, good. Not much has happened.”
“Nah, didn’t think so,” Finn said.
In an instant, I became aware of just how hard I was tensing my abs, tightening my fists, even clenching my jaw. Relax, I whispered to myself, but I wouldn’t listen to the advice of someone as ridiculous as myself.
Finn’s eyes narrowed. I’d forgotten how sharp and piercing his looks could be. They’d only gotten sharper with time. “Were you avoiding me just now?”
I cleared my throat. “No. What? I was just… I wasn’t sure it was you. You’re all grown up.”
All grown up, I thought. And hot as hell. Gone was the boy I had tripped and fallen in love with. Finn was a smoking hot man with dimpled cheeks and glimmering eyes, his defined torso tapering down to a narrow waist, and a pair of denim pants emphasized his hips and ass.
“Saw you twice before,” I admitted. “And it rattled me that I wasn’t sure.”
“Liar,” he said softly.
Fuck.
“You always play with the seam of your pocket when you lie,” he said.
I laughed, releasing some of the tension, oddly enough. “Fine. I knew last week when I saw you.”
“Why didn’t you say hi?” he asked.
“You were with friends,” I said.
“Ooh, spooky.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to the bookshelf, scanning the titles on the spines. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.” And the thought of you not remembering me was killing me. But I never would have forced those last words over my lips. “It’s been a long time.”
He didn’t say the obvious. Not even a word about how I’d gone away and cut it all off and killed every chance of a long-distance friendship.
“We grew up together,” Finn said after a beat. “I couldn’t have forgotten you, Jesse.”
I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, running my finger along the book and lifting Hitch-22. I’d read it already, of course, but I needed a distraction so I wouldn’t keep scanning his lean figure or his bright eyes.
“We should catch up,” he said.
Should we? I wondered for a moment, but the temptation was too great, and I looked at him. There was no prank there, no mischief. He wanted to. “Alright.”
“Have George and Marrie moved back here?” he asked.
“Nah, they’re down south. I only returned because of the scholarship,” I said. “Just me.”
“Nice,” he said. “Am I keeping you? I’m just here to hide from my friends, to be honest. They’re, uh, well, they’re running an experiment on me, and I needed some peace and quiet.”
“You’re not keeping me,” I said. “What sort of experiment?” It was good to be talking about anything other than the past. Catching up sounded like an awfully loaded activity, given how I’d all but ghosted him two months after moving away because seeing his stupid face every day with a morning message in a bubble next to it when we were a country apart was driving me fucking crazy.
Finn laughed easily and shook his head, curls bouncing around his head. “A dating experiment, actually. They’re trying to engineer me a soulmate, so I’ve been going out with guys for three days straight.”
Guys?
My expression must have betrayed me because Finn paused, watching me with something close to apprehension. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Bi.”
“Oh. Cool.” I swallowed loudly. “Any luck so far?”
He snort-laughed. “Not even a little. Sometimes I wonder, how well do I know my friends?”
That had to be a dig at me, but I didn’t dare call him out. What would I say? Yeah, you’re right. You never knew any of your friends, not from the start. When the truth was that I was a shitty friend. Simple as that.
“No?” I asked, the world tilting a little under my feet.
“Nope. It’s starting to look like you can’t engineer a meet-cute,” he said.
The relief washed over me so powerfully and quickly that I almost needed to lean against the bookcase just to stay on my feet.
What goddamn reason did I have to be relieved?
That Finn was bi and single and had shitty luck with dates?
I’d gone through the misery of a relationship’s slow death already.
And I’d gone through the painful work of falling out of love with Finn.
I wasn’t doing either one of those again.
“My roommate’s single and looking for dates. I could set you up,” I said.
Finn blinked twice, then shrugged. “Is he an off-the-grid recluse? A rock star? Secret royalty?”
I shook my head sadly. “Nah, just a regular college guy. He’s cute. I think.”
“You think?”
I shrugged like it wasn’t important. “Hard to tell. I feel like he’s a little brother, you know?”
“Sure,” Finn said. “I have time on Saturday. There’s a cute coffee place on Whitmore Street. Think he can meet me there around five?”
“I’ll make sure he does,” I promised, choking on each word a little. Why did I go and do that? “Unless you meet your soulmate in the meantime, of course.”
“Of course,” Finn said, laughing.
I turned away from him again, facing the titles of the books, but they all blurred in front of me.
“And we should catch up over the weekend, too,” he said. “If you’re free.”
“Yes.”
“I live at the BEL house,” Finn said. “Swing by on Sunday. Don’t ring the doorbell; just walk in.”
I looked at him then, looked at the unfulfilled dreams that had never stood a chance, and wondered how life could have been had we not moved. “I’ll do that,” I said. And I meant it.
Finn took a step back, still holding my gaze. “It’s nice seeing you, Jesse.”
“You too.”
With another smile, he turned away and left me to my books.
It took me a full minute to fully process what had just happened. And what had just happened wasn’t an issue. The way it all left me feeling was the issue. Ten years of no contact, of not thinking about it—that was a big lie—and I still couldn’t go through a conversation without losing my breath.
When I walked out of the library, Finn wasn’t in his seat. My ears were flooded with the rhythmic beating of my heart all the way back to my dorm room, where Malcolm was watching some video on his phone and laughing. He looked up when I entered. “You’re empty-handed,” he observed.
“Huh?”
A frown creased the space between his eyebrows. “The library. It’s a custom to go and borrow a book.”
“Oh.” I blinked and looked at my empty hands. Sure enough, I’d forgotten all about the books.