“Why not?”
“Because . . . well . . . because we’ve only been dating for a hot minute. It would be nuts. Love isn’t grits. You can’t just add water.”
“You are hereby banned from use of analogies.”
I let my head fall onto my arms again.
“And some people fall in love within minutes, others in days, while some poor souls refuse to ever admit what they feel.” Diego picked up his sandwich again. “Which are you, Chase? What do you feel? I don’t care what you think or what others say is appropriate. What does Chase Sullivan want? And more importantly, what are you going to do about it?”
Chapter 39
Finn
When I was a young bloke, time moved like molasses, a tiresome amble toward a future that would never arrive. At the ripe ole age of twenty-nine, I discovered just how quickly the calendar could pass.
It was a Sunday afternoon in mid-April. I was sitting in the office sorting through a pile of paperwork when Mark, Jacks, and Benji appeared in the doorway like some mismatched intervention squad.
“We need to talk,” Mark said.
I spun my chair around, startled by his stern tone. “About?”
“About the fact that you’re a whipped man,” Benji announced, flopping into the chair across from my desk. “And I’m not talking about that spanking shit. That’s for the bedroom. I mean whipped as in goo-goo eyed to the point of blindness. Wait, that might be for the bedroom, too.”
“Benji—” Mark tried to stop him.
“I’m not—” I protested. “We haven’t even talked about how we feel with each other . . . about each other . . . oh, fuck it. Whatever.”
“You absolutely are,” Mark interrupted, his raptor’s gaze shifting from Benji back to me. “And we’re not saying it’s a bad thing; but Finn, you’ve gotten far too attached to that man before we could offer proper approval, and that is unacceptable.”
“Proper what?” I spat, tossing my pen over my shoulder to land God-knew-where and leaning back, my chair whining in protest.
“You heard me. Priya agrees with us, too, though I suspect she’s more in love with Chase than you are.”
“I’mnotin love with him!”
Jacks leaned against the doorframe, hunky arms crossed. “Oh, boss, how could you be so naive?”
“And how do you, Professor Pigskin, even know that word?” Benji teased.
Jacks grunted.
Mark stifled a laugh.
I folded my arms and tried to scowl despite the ridiculous scene unfolding before me. “What are you all talking about? He’s here all the time.”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “He’s here all the time, sitting in his booth, working while you work. We’ve said hi to him a thousand times but had zero actualconversations.”
“That’s not true. You’ve talked to him—”
“‘Hey, how’s it going’ doesn’t count,” Benji interrupted.
Jacks shifted his weight, uncrossing and recrossing his arms. “Look, boss, what Benji’s trying to say is that you’ve already fallen for this guy whether you want to admit it or not. We can all see it.” He paused, his brow furrowing like he was working through a complex math problem. “And that’s a good thing. We want you to be happy and all that, but we don’t really know him and, well, that seems wrong because you’re our people . . . and if he’s gonna be your person, then we people should people together so . . . I don’t know . . . we can know him and his people and he can be our people, too. Or something.”
Mark stared at Jacks.
Benji pinched the bridge of his nose.
I opened my mouth to reply, then decided retreat was the better option and closed it.
