“I just took those out of the frying pan!” Mom picks up the kitchen towel and whips it at him. “Set the table. Your dad should be here any minute.” After a moment, she shakes her head and asks, “Did Finn pay attention to any of them?”
Dame snorts a laugh. “Why are you so interested in Finn?”
“I think he has a thing for Josie.”
I groan. “Oh my god, Mom. He accompanied me to a charity event. End of story.”
“He’s had a thing for Joss for years,” Dame says.
My heart skips. “That’s a lie.”
“What?! I didn’t know that!” Mom switches off the stove and starts plating the fried fish. “What happened? You lost touch?”
I throw my head back with a soft laugh. “We have the internet and smartphones. I don’t think it’s possible to ‘lose touch.’”
“Finn’s not the relationship type,” Dame says, and I raise an eyebrow at my mother.
“When is your meet-and-greet?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“Monday,” he says. “No, Tuesday. Fuck, I can’t remember.”
“Men like him are never the relationship type until someone comes along and changes his mind,” Mom says.
“Oh my god.” I cover my face with my hands. “Make it stop.”
“He was all over you the other night,” Dame says, pursing his lips the way he does when he’s trying not to say too much. “I’m sure people are asking you about the pictures.”
“Yep.”
As far as I know, only one picture is making the rounds, and we’re not even touching in it. If it were anyone else, it would have gone unnoticed. Because it’s us, people are now speculating like I knew they would. I don’t care, though. I’m not the one with the aversion to dating or photographs.
“Why doesn’t he like being seen with dates?” Mom asks.
Dame and I share a look. Finn doesn’t exactly “date,” but we’re not going to tell my mom that. If she could, she’d ban boys from my apartment and girls from Damian’s. She doesn’t preach “sex before marriage is a sin” anymore, but she did for so long that we accepted our place in hell a long time ago.
“He’s just a private person,” Dame says after a moment. “Not many people know him.”
I bite my lip and take out my phone to check my notifications. Anything to distract me from this conversation. I click on the notifications and sigh when I see how many times I’ve been tagged in the picture with Finn.
“And Joss is the opposite of that,” Dame adds.
I look up from my phone. “How many times are we going to go over this? I’m a private person!”
Dame shoots a pointed look toward my phone.
I roll my eyes. “I told him our picture would end up on the internet.”
Dame shakes his head and starts filling glasses with water.
“You’re not touching, but you’re looking at each other with such longing,” Mom says, almost wistfully.
My eyes threaten to bulge out of their sockets. “What isup with youtoday?”
The door chime sounds before it opens and shuts, and there is the sound of keys hitting the dish on the entry table. Titus’ dress shoes click against the hardwood as he walks in our direction. His expression is clouded with worry, but when he sees the three of us, he grins wide.
“I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” he tells Dame as he walks up to give him a tight hug.
“I have to go back later,” Dame says. “Ice in the morning, work out in the afternoon.”
