I appreciated the sentiment, but if Hunter wanted his apartment to be my home, I was going to treat it like my home.
“It’s fine,” I promised, pulling out my phone. “But if it will make you feel better, I’ll let him know you’re coming up.”
Silas’s shoulders sagged in relief. “It would.”
I helped Silas out of the car much the same way I’d helped him in. On the elevator ride up to the apartment, Hunter’s…mine…I realized we were all in uncharted territory, but we were going to have to figure it out sooner or later, and there was apparently no time like the present.
CHAPTER 36
HUNTER
Finn cried on my lap for almost an hour, which was more than all the times I’d ever seen him cry in his entire life put together. He gathered his composure on his own, shaking free of the careful way I’d been carding my fingers through his hair and downing the cold coffee left in his mug.
“Better?” I asked.
He swiped the remaining tears off his lower lash line and nodded, standing up from the couch and walking into the kitchen.
“Just let me wash my face.”
“There’s washcloths in the bathroom.”
But he was already bent over the sink, splashing cold water onto his cheeks. Finn returned with the coffee pot, topping both of our mugs off. Back to the kitchen to return the carafe to the warmer and he was on the couch beside me again, this time upright.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’d prefer you tell me something interesting,” he said, staring straight ahead. I opened my mouth, and he leveled a scathing look at me. “Not dinosaur related.”
I made a show of snapping my mouth closed and scooting a little closer to him on the couch. He let me lean into him without much more than a grumbled protest. I wanted to tell him something good, something that mattered…something that would make a difference. In the end, the only thing I could offer him was hope.
“It won’t be like this forever,” I told him.
Finn sucked his tongue across the front of his teeth, eyebrows raised. “No,” he agreed. “I imagine not.”
He didn’t say anything after that, but he did reach across me for the remote. I sipped my coffee while Finn flipped through the channels, finally settling on a show about aliens. I supposed there wasn’t anything that needed to be said between us. Finn didn’t want to talk, but he didn’t want to be alone. There was a distinct difference between the two, and while I was happy to give him both, I couldn’t force it on him. Just like Lincoln, Finn had to come around to his own wants organically. I was curious to know what appeal he found from being involved with a married couple, but that was something he would have to tell me on his own time.
The credits on the episode didn’t even finish rolling before the programming segued into a fresh episode about different aliens, only punctuated by the sound of a key in the door and the rush of hallway air that always filtered in after the door was opened.
“I have Silas with me!” Lincoln called from the doorway.
Finn tensed but was quick to paste one of his usual, casual smiles on his face. He dropped his head against the back of the couch to better see the hallway, watching the two of them walk in together. Silas held a fishbowl protectively against his chest, and Lincoln had two boxes balanced in his arms.
“Where should I put my stuff?” he asked.
“Hi, Finn,” Silas interjected, shrugging a shoulder in greeting. “Hunter.”
“Gentlemen,” Finn answered back, returning his attention to the TV. His smile faltered but held.
“Wherever you want,” I answered, getting up and coming around to meet them at the end of the hallway. I took both of the boxes out of Lincoln’s hands, relieved to find they weren’t heavy. “The guest room maybe so you have time to go through it? Or my…our bedroom. Whichever.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Before he could say one way or the other, I took the boxes into our bedroom and set them down in front of the dresser. The two of them followed me in, and Silas looked around before setting the fish down on one of the nightstands.
“Do you like the light here?” he asked the fish.
“He doesn’t care,” Lincoln answered.
Silas shot a sharp glare at Lincoln before turning the bowl a quarter turn. That seemed to please him more, and he joined us on the other end of the bed.
“I don’t know what I expected your apartment to look like, Hunter, but it’s not this,” he said.
