Silas cocked his head. “You’re telling me that the tension between you two downstairs was because you both remember each other from meeting on a dating app, but you never actually met in person? That can’t be it.”
“There wasn’t tension.”
Yes, there was.
“Yes, there was. He gets flustered with just a look from you, Finn. One word in that low, soft voice—which I’ve literally never heard you use on anyone else before, by the way—and he turns into a tomato and starts word-vomiting his life story. What, didyou two exchange dick pics or something? Is that what’s going on here?”
Jesus Christ.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Finn grumbled, “No, we did not exchangedick pics, you ass. And he does not turn into a tomato, it’s just his fair complexion. And I do not speak to him differently than any other client!”
Liar.
“Liar. So, what? You chatted through an app? That’s it?” Silas still looked like he had missed something, before the realization dawned. “Oh, that’shim, isn’t it? The one who stood you up?”
Finn looked away, but nodded.
“Oh, Finny, why didn’t you say something?”
Finn sighed heavily. “Our date was meant to be just over a year ago. He was going to drop something off for work in Monroe and then head up to Silver Rapids, but he never showed up. When I saw his face in the article you showed me this morning, and the date of the murder…”
“Jesus, Finn. You think that’s why he didn’t show up? It was the same night as Vera’s murder? You think he was there, instead?”
Finn nodded. “I checked the date in my calendar. He was tied up in a closet, fearing for his life, while I sat in a restaurant being angry at him.”
Silas’s face fell. “Damn, Finny. I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t tell you this morning because I was so shocked that it was him, and that the reason he disappeared was because he had seen… and then I just…” Finn trailed off.
Silas didn’t need him to elaborate, though. “You needed to be here, to see him for yourself.”
Finn looked at his dearest friend, and nodded. “I was planning on finding him on my own before the contract came in.”
Silas raised his eyebrows at that, but his tone remained neutral. “Why, Finn?”
“Because he’s a client who needs our protection.” Truth, but not the whole of it.
“Why were you going to find him before you knew he would be our client? Why did you volunteer to be his full time security detail?”
Finn’s gut twisted with guilt. “I’m sorry, Si. It’s not a lie that I’m worried about you and your involvement with the Salt Creek pack. I don’t want you within a hundred miles of them.”
“I know that. But there’s more, yes?”
Finn rolled that question around in his head. “Yes, there’s more. What that is, I don’t know. Or I’m not ready to know. This is the first time I’ve ever met him in person, it’s crazy to say there’s more there for me, isn’t it? Am I crazy?”
That steady, thrumming beat pulsed inside of him, and tugged him back downstairs to where Jaime sat.
Go to him.
Go. Go. Go.
He looked at his friend, silently asking why he felt like this after just one meeting. Silas always had the answers Finn needed, even when they were boys.
“Only you can say what it is you feel, and when you feel it. But I do know that you’re not crazy, and this kind of reaction is not… out of the ordinary for our kind, Finn. Not when we meet someone… special. Not by a long shot.”
The weight of that statement hung in the air. Finn and Silas stared at each other, an understanding passing between them as deep as the bond they shared as friends and brothers. As pack.
He smells right.
