He turns his face toward the ceiling, the tiniest smile breaking his mask. “Maybe I wanted you to read me.”
“I’ll read every last word.” I tuck my leg over his and scoot higher until our chests fit. He gathers me in without being asked, palm spreading over my shoulder blade like a seal pressed into wax.
We lie there and breathe. I keep tracing his tattoos with my mouth—nothing urgent, just devotion in circles. Every time I finish one, I rest my lips in the center like I’m sealing a vault. Heruns his hand up and down my spine in a slow touch, the kind of touch you could fall asleep inside.
“You seeing stars again?” he asks eventually, amused.
“Mm-hm,” I say. “But, like, the calm kind. Lesssupernovaand moreplanetarium.”
“Good.” He drops a kiss into my hair. “I like you calm.”
“I like me wrecked,” I say into his skin, then add, softer. “I like me with you.”
His chest rises under my cheek; I feel the answer rather than hear it. He pulls the sheet higher, tucks it around my shoulder. We click in a little tighter, the way two spoons find each other in a drawer.
“I’m keeping you,” I say, eyes already heavy.
“Please,” he says, like it’s a plea. “Do that.”
I press one last slow kiss right over the center of his heart and close my eyes, breathing him in until the stars blur and the night envelopes us. He squeezes me tight, like the promise he doesn’t say, and I don’t make him. But when sleep starts to take me, I hear him, somewhere above the dark, murmur my name like a prayer.
I callFinn because my brain feels like a blender with the lid off—noise, flying parts, and an alarming smell of burnt rubber. He shows up in sweatpants and a hoodie and immediately clocks the state of my living room. Cookbook drafts fanned across the table, a whisk on the couch like it’s too tired for whisking, a tea towel draped over the lamp like it’s over being a towel. And then there’s me standing in the middle of it all.
“Fuck! I think I’m in love with Dom.”
“Ooo-kay.”
“I mean, maybe not. I’m probably not. That would be ridiculous, right?” I say, pacing back and forth across the kitchen.
My best friend looks at me with wide eyes.
“You’re not helping, Finn. Say something.”
“Ummm, congratulations?”
“UGH!” I grunt, throwing my hands in the air.
Finn laughs, and I flip him off with no malice. “It’s scarier than fuck, isn’t it?”
“I don’t like scary movies. You know this. Put onHalloweentown, and I’m your guy. Put onFriday the 13thand… Nope, wait,A Nightmare on Elm Street. Nope, that’s not… Okay, put on any other scary movie, unless it’s from the ’80s, and I won’t sleep for weeks,” I say, plopping myself down on the couch. I pull a throw pillow over my face. “Which is what’s happening. Freddy Krueger is my feelings.”
I called Finn over because I’m having a mental breakdown. Someone stole all my recipes and got a cookbook deal, no mental breakdown. Thinking I might be in love with Dom, put me in a straitjacket, Coach.
Finn laughs and pries the pillow away. “Okay. First thing. Breathe.”
I suck in a couple of deep breaths and shake out my hands.
“Good,” he says. “Now tell me what happened—without violating my need to make eye contact with you tomorrow.”
I sit up, heartbeat in my throat. “We had friends’ night. You were there. It was loud and good and normal. And then Dom and I went back to his place. It was—” I search for the right word. “Mind-blowing. Intimate. Freeing. Like someone opened all the windows. I felt… seen, and like I could breathe deeper than I even could in LA.”
Finn’s grin softens. “Okay, that’s a lot of good words.”
“But now my brain is all ‘you’re in love, you absolute clown,’ andalso, ‘shut up about it before you ruin everything.’” I rake a hand through my hair. “So, hi. Welcome to my spiral.”
“Why does saying it out loud ‘ruin everything?’” he asks.
“Because if he doesn’t feel it too, I’ll just have made the family dinners awkward.”
