Finn stands out of arm’s reach, as if he is a stranger cognizant of approaching a potentially drunk woman. He holds out an unopened water bottle and I close the distance between us to grab it.
“Thanks,” I say.
The water is room temperature, but since my body hasn’t yet acclimated to the cold outside the ballroom, it’s almost warm against my tongue, down my throat.
“Thanks,” I say again.
Finn watches me, my mouth, and I pat at the corner of my lips with my ring finger in case I’ve smudged my lipstick.
“And thanks for the candles.” It’s best if I get it out of the way now, so I don’t have this IOU hanging between us.
Finn frowns, forehead creased.
“The candles you gave me last year,” I prompt. “I never said thanks for them. I just remembered.”
He nods, holds out his hand, and I pass him the water bottle. Finn puts the bottle to his lips, tips his head back, and chugs the rest of the water. His eyes closed, his jaw a strong, sharp angle,his throat working with each swallow. He drinks and drinks and when he finishes, the bottle empty, the plastic crumpled in one large hand, there’s a little bit of water dribbled down his chin, a splash of it on the sheer silk fabric on his chest.
“I almost didn’t come tonight,” he says, quickly, almost whispered, as if it’s an admission he doesn’t want to make. As if I’ve torn it out of him.
And for a stomach dropping moment, for the time it takes a drop of water to glisten along his plump bottom lip and disappear into the abyss of his blouse, I wonder if it’s because ofme. Because I never said thank you. Because I told him he wasn’t nice. Because I’ve been toome, grumpy, judgy, annoyed Nora.
Or worse, because of the kiss. Because he didn’t want to give me any ideas about another kiss.
My cheeks flush in premortification at the thought of him practicing how to let me down gently, to tell me he doesn’t want to kiss me again, ever again. At all.
My face flames hotter and my stomach warms, a pool of disappointment that doesn’t quite belong. Because it shouldn’t matter whether Finn wants to kiss me at all.
You don’t want to kiss him, Nora, I remind myself.
“It’s just,” he says, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Too loud.” He gestures toward the ballroom doors behind us. “You know?”
“Oh.”Oh.
Duh. Of course, it has nothing to do with me. Or with our kiss. As it should be!
“I don’t mind when it’s just us. The group of us. But the older we get, the parties get bigger, louder.” He shakes his head, then gathers his hair in one hand, holding it off his neck.
“Do you want…” I hold out the hair tie I’ve pulled from the small clutch around my wrist. It’s the only one I have, and normally I’dnevergive it to Finn. But my hair is barely longenough to hold a pony anyway. I brought it mostly for Bea, or for a girl in need in the bathroom. But hair troubles are gender-neutral, so I can give it to Finn, I guess. “For your hair?”
He smiles, slow, looking from me to the hair tie and back again. “Are you sure?” he asks, like heknows, like he understands the importance of bestowing a hair tie unto the poor and hair tieless masses.
He reaches for it and I hold it back, just an inch. “You have to give it back,” I say.
He nods, eager and wide-eyed. “I will.”
And then he pulls his hair into a bun. He doesn’t even look for a reflective surface to do it in. He just puts his hair up, standing here, in the hallway, and he looksgood. He looks…he looks…
I turn away. Drag my hand down the side of my dress to feel the scratch of the sequins against my palm. He lookshot, and god, I hate Finn Collins, and I add this to the list of reasons why: Can put his hair up without a mirror and still look objectively and unfairly beautiful.
“You okay?” he asks again, to my back.
And I nod and turn back to him and smile.
“What were you saying?” I ask. “About almost not coming?” I arch my brow, because that’s something Nora would do. She would tease Finn about him not coming, she would wish he wouldn’t arrive at all.
He grins, shrugs. “Oh, just sometimes I wish I could stay home. In the quiet.”
I open my mouth, quick to agree with him, but stop myself before I can say a word. That’s what I want too. But Finn and I aren’t supposed towantthe same things.
