“Jo?” Cecily asks.
I’ve been staring at the wall. I blink the dryness away.
I nod. “Too much wine, I think. I’m going to go lie down.”
“I’ll let your mom know,” Cecily says.
I give her a quick thanks and beeline for the stairs leading to the basement. In the past, my departure would warrant my mom checking on me, but I figure I have at least an hour before I’m bothered. With all the cheap wine flowing, maybe more.
I settle on the couch in front of the big TV and flip on a movie.Pride & Prejudice. I’ve seen it enough times it’s more mindless comfort than distraction.
“Hiding out?” a familiar voice asks. My heart leaps, settling as Finn materializes and plops at my side on the couch.
“I’m not hiding.”
“You’re so hiding,” he says.“But no shame here.”He moves his knee closer to mine, the bone passing through mine with a bump.“Feel like company?”
“What, the dinner party boring you already?”
“No fun without you,” he says.
I ignore that and shrug. It’s enough for him to settle in. Though Finn never seems to have trouble settling in anywhere.
“Nora loves this movie,” he says.“She’s probably watched it a hundred times.”
“It’s a classic.”
Finn wrinkles his nose.“It’s boring.”
“No one said you have to watch.”
“Well, now I’m invested,” Finn says. He’s slumped on the far side of the couch, but the longer the movie goes, the more he shifts my way. I fight the instinct to tell him to scoot away. Being near him spikes the hairs on my neck and arms and makes focusing on the TV incredibly difficult. Fortunately, I’ve watched this movie every time I’ve been sick or sad for over a decade.
“Darcy is kind of an asshole. I don’t get the appeal,” he says.
“You’re not exactly the target demographic. And he’s not an asshole,” I say. “Or he can be. He’s…awkward. Prideful. But so is Elizabeth. That’s, like, the whole point.”
“He sabotages her sister’s whole deal!” Finn protests. For someone who claimed disinterest when he sat down, he’s been watching more intently than me. “And his whole ‘I love you, but your family isn’t good enough for me, yada yada’ thing…” Finn shakes his head.“Dick move.”
My lips turn up. “You talk a big game for someone who tapped out of the romance game at fourteen.”
“Who says I tapped out?”
I roll my eyes, not taking the bait. Finn’s eyes linger on the side of my face for a few more seconds, but I don’t pull my gaze from the TV. Eventually, he looks away.
“I want to write music like this,” I say at the climax of the film, the score swelling.
“Didn’t peg you as a classical fan. Aren’t you more into that sad-person-with-a-guitar style?”
The observation is spot-on and makes me stiffen.
“Yeah. But that’s not what I mean. It’s like…music that makes you feel. It doesn’t even need lyrics, and even if you can’t verbalize it, you feel it. Good music makes you feel. I want to write something like that.”
Finn’s brows pull together.“Why don’t you?”
My stomach rolls.
“I used to.”
