Page 46 of By All Accounts
I opened my mouth to tell Finn that Daniel had it on his calendar to call, but I bit it back before the words came out. That wasn’t something for me to share, and damn if this new dynamic wasn’t going to be complicated to maneuver.
“Is that okay?” Finn asked.
“I mean, that’s between you and him, isn’t it?”
He picked up a straw from the table and fidgeted with the wrapper before tearing it off and rolling it into a ball. He dropped the straw into his drink and frowned at it like it had offended him.
“Right, yes. I just mean?—”
“It’s between you and him,” I reminded. “Just like this is between you and me. I’m sure there will be things between the three of us, but it doesn’t need to be everything. Unless we want it to be.”
Finn’s brow knit together and he nodded, stare locked onto a pile of chow mein at the top of his plate. I reached over and flicked the top of his straw. He looked at the straw, then at me.
“Nothing we need to figure out right now,” I promised.
That earned a wary smile, which I committed to memory.
“One last question and then we can move on.” He cleared his throat and looked like he wanted to die. “When are you two getting married?”
I shrugged. “We haven’t set a date yet.”
“Soon?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We have a cake tasting after work today, and we’re supposed to talk about it. Daniel would marry me tonight if I told him that’s what I wanted, but I think it should be more special than that.”
Finn nodded his agreement.
“Before the end of the year.”
It was April.
“Why?” I asked. “Are you preemptively convincing yourself that once Daniel and I get married, we won’t want to date you anymore? Or that we won’t want whatever this is?”
He clenched his jaw and exhaled a long breath. It was confirmation enough, even without a verbal agreement.
“Nothing between me and Daniel is going to change after we’re married,” I promised, and I knew it to be true. “At least, nothing besides paying a little less on our taxes.”
Finn laughed at that, and some of the tension broke.
“If you go into this expecting it to fail, though, maybe you shouldn’t go into it at all,” I suggested gently, reaching across the table to cover his hand with mine to soften the blow.
I very much wanted to explore whatever this interest between me and Finn was, but I didn’t want to let myself get attached to someone if he was always going to have one foot out the door. The partners I’d taken when Daniel and I were longdistance had mostly been sexual in nature, not emotional. There had obviously been some people where things ended up more serious or more involved, but nothing that had ever felt lasting. I hadn’t wanted anyone for my heart besides Daniel, but from the first time I saw Finn in the paint store…
“It’s not that.” He turned his hand so our palms touched. “Just a little wounded still. I’m sure Daniel told you.”
“He hasn’t told me anything.”
That gave Finn pause, his stare drifting to something behind me before making its way back to my face. “We don’t…we don’t talk about you. At least, not like that.”
“Oh.” He pulled his hand back and resumed eating. He’d grabbed at least as much food as me, and neither of us had even started to put a dent into our plates.
The mood between us was tentative but interested, and those were both things I could work with. I didn’t know Finn’s history with his last relationship, at least not beyond the basics that he’d shared, but the man was a golden retriever who wore his heart on his sleeve. He just wanted to be seen and to be loved.
“So, you’ve said you have a handful of brothers. What’s that like?”
Finn made a dismissive sound. “They’re not brothers in the way you’d expect. We weren’t raised together. I mean, kind of we were. It’s messy and complicated and none of us have good parents. The day our dad dies, I’m sure we’ll all have a party over the whole thing.”
“Bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting to go?”
