“I don’t think you’ve ever seen me eat anchovies in our whole lives,” I said, coming around into the kitchen. I grabbed the pepperoni out of the fridge and then joined Finn in front of the dough.
“It was a guess.”
“Your suspicions?”
“Marshall hates them,” Finn murmured, picking the safety seal off a squeeze container of pizza sauce. “Figured you’re not that much like him after all.”
Something about the casual way Finn said it, like the comment was meant to be a throwaway, hit me in the center of the chest like a bag of bricks. He hadn’t meant it in a critical way, and he definitely hadn’t meant to imply it was good or bad to be like Marshall. Finn was only calling out the fact he saw me as my own person, something I didn’t realize I’d needed until he gave it to me.
“Come on,” he said before I could thank him. “This pizza isn’t going to make itself.”
“Right.”
He passed me the sauce, and I smeared some over the crust he’d clearly meant to be mine. The pizza was by no means small enough for one person, but I figured I could take the leftovers home or something. We didn’t talk about anything while we finished prepping our lunch, but it was nice todo somethingwith Finn again. It had been…it had been a really long time.
“What’s been going on with you?” I asked him after we got the pizzas into the oven.
Finn rested his ass against the edge of the counter and folded his arms in front of his chest, frowning at his reflection in the black glass of the oven door. Looking at the two of us together, I didn’t think a stranger would have immediately called us brothers. Finn was tall and lean where I was short and a little stockier. His hair was darker than mine, his features more angular. He probably looked more like Marshall, but Donovan, the mysterious sixth brother, could have been Marshall’s twin.
Genetics were weird that way.
“I was dating someone,” he said, sucking his tongue across the front of his teeth.
Marshall was sometimes in the room with us even when he wasn’t.
“Did you want to elaborate?”
I could tell he did, but he wanted to do it on his terms so I didn’t ask again. Didn’t push until he uncrossed his arms and sighed.
“Someones,” Finn corrected. “I was involved with a married couple.”
Of everything I might have expected from my brother, that wasn’t it.
“Okay.”
“It didn’t work.” He shrugged one shoulder. “They’re in the middle of a divorce.”
“Because of you?”
“Jesus, Smith.” Finn rubbed his eyes, dropping his head back and staring up at the ceiling. “Not because of me. They were…I think they were looking for a Band-Aid, something to bring them closer together.”
“That’s unfair of them.”
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, lips still pulled into a frown. “Was it?”
“You’re a person, Finn. Not a tool. Of course it was unfair, especially if they didn’t tell you up front.”
“I don’t really think they knew how bad things were in their marriage until I was also in their marriage.”
“That’s…fair,” I said tentatively, “but that doesn’t excuse bad behavior.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Does Hunter know?”
“Yeah.”
“Marshall?”
