Everyone had personal traumas to get over; Teddy hardly had the monopoly on that. Some were just harder to see on the surface.
Finn woke with a groan the next morning just as Teddy was finishing making them coffee. Nora had stayed with Finn until Teddy let her outside earlier. Smudge had eventually gone to bed with Teddy. They’d both gotten cat food for breakfast, but Nora didn’t seem to mind.
“Where?” Finn mumbled groggily, his disheveled head peeking up from the sofa, usually perfect hair sticking up all sorts of directions. Recognition dawned on him slowly, the memories flooding back as he looked at Teddy in the kitchen. “Oh God. I didn’t throw up on you, did I?”
“You’d be waking up on my beach chair if you had.”
“I am so sorry, Teddy. I am the worst, I….” Finn swayed after standing, looking green as he tried to find even footing. “I’m not gonna throw up, I’m not gonna throw up,” he chanted.
Teddy hoped he was right. He didn’t fancy replacing his sofa or rug. “Come get coffee. I’m frying up some greasy eggs on toast.”
Another groan, Finn stabilizing as he ran a hand back through his hair. “How can that sound awful and fantastic at the same time?”
“Wonders of a truly earned hangover.”
Finn’s answering smile was sincere until it soured as he trudged over to Teddy. His shirt was still misbuttoned, and he took notice of it with a sneer, but simply sagged down onto a stool at the kitchen island. “I am so sorry.”
“I should be sorry,” Teddy said, pushing a mug of black coffee toward him. “Out of cream and sugar.”
“Oh. Got any ice cream?”
Teddy gawked at him.
“Totally sober, I promise. Ice cream does the job of creamandsugar. You’ll have to reheat the coffee after, but it works in a pinch.”
Moving to the freezer, Teddy pulled out a small half-eaten tub of vanilla. Finn cradled his head but looked up with a weaksmile when Teddy plopped a scoop of ice cream into his mug. He stirred it for him, letting it melt, did the same with his own mug of coffee, then brought them to the microwave to reheat.
“You’re wearing your glasses,” Finn noted.
“Yes.” Teddy was barefoot and in sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt too.
“You don’t usually wear them.”
“You’re not usually here when I wake up in the morning.”
The coffee beeped just as Finn flushed with color. Teddy put the toast on plates to wait for the eggs to finish, then retrieved their slightly less black coffee for a taste. It was better than normal cream and sugar, and a terrible trick to have been taught when lately, he’d been craving all his worst vices.
“Even life hacks for the kitchen. Is there anything you’re not good at?”
“You can still say that after last night?” Finn rubbed his temples while nursing his coffee.
“Yes,” Teddy said, scooping the eggs onto the toast finally and bringing over their plates to enjoy at the counter, since it was unlikely Finn would want to move anytime soon.
“Baking,” Finn said after a moment, staring skeptically at the food before he took a heaping bite. “I’m a terrible baker. Why do you think Rose married Blaise? Now she has all her meals covered.” He snickered, not entirely his normal self, but trying.
“I thought you were perfect,” Teddy said, smiling without guile when Finn startled and looked up at him. “I’m glad you’re not. I wish I could accept and enjoy whenI’mnot. My father… made that difficult. Any misstep just meant I was weak and unworthy.”
Finn paused midraise of his next bite of food, and Teddy could see the gears turning as he remembered what Teddy had told him about his father last night. “You became a dancer to spite him? Or to be more perfect?”
“Both?” Teddy said it like a question, but he knew it was the truth.
“A worse asshole, you said.”
“Worse when he drank, which is why I tend to avoid it.”
Finn suddenly looked like Teddy had slapped him—or like he’d slapped Teddy.
“Not that I’m opposed,” Teddy said quickly. “Thankfully, I’m not an angry drunk. Like you, I just get more honest and handsy.”
