‘My… My da died over Christmas, a day after my birthday. Overdose. In The Big Hoose – Barlinnie. Didn’t even hear until days after, when I got a birthday call from my oldest sister.’
I blink. ‘Shit. Finn. I’m so sorry.’
He shrugs as though it’s nothing, but tension rolls off him. His chest is tight again. Not panic this time. Shame, I guess.
‘I didn’t go to his funeral because I didn’t truly know him. Hadn’t talked to him since I was eleven. He left when I was wee and got done for dealing and other stuff a few years later. Wasn’t exactly a loss, but… Still fucks you up and makes you wonder what part of you wasn’t worth sticking around for.’
I don’t speak. Just let him keep going, because he needs to.
‘My mum didn’t want a boy. Not one like me anyway. She had two daughters already, from another father. The better one, I guess. I was the accident. Loud and hyper. Got into fights and broke stuff. She used to say I came out wrong. That I gave her headaches. That I looked like him.’
A muscle under my heart pulls taut. He says it as though he’s reading a weather report.
‘She’d slap me when I got mouthy, ignore me when I got quiet. I learned early on that if I wasn’t making her laugh, I was making her mad. So I got good at the first thing.’
‘Christ,’ I breathe.
‘She kicked me out when I was sixteen. Caught me nicking a perfume from Boots because we had no money. I was gonna give it to her for Christmas.’ His voice doesn’t break – it buckles, as if each word hits a bruise on the way out. ‘She lost it. Called me a thief and a liar. Said I’d end up like my da.’
I bite the inside of my cheek. He’s not crying, but I might be. ‘You stole her a present, and she threw you out?’
‘Aye. Didn’t speak to her after that. Crashed at a mate’s for a while. Slept in a youth hostel a couple nights. On floors. Sometimes outside. Didn’t tell anybody. School was fucked, but rugby…’
I stay still and move my fingers over his chest, drawing quiet outlines only he can feel.
‘Rugby was the only thing I didn’t mess up.’
‘Tell me about it.’ I think the pitch is where he feels safe, so I take him there. ‘How did it start?’
‘I’ve been playing since I was nine. I didn’t know the rules, didn’t care. But I liked smashing into things and being told I was good at something for once. After Active Schools came a club, then trials, camps. Academy. I didn’t have the grades or the gear or the parents with cars, but I kept showing up, and I kept winning them matches. That’s the main reason they didn’t toss me out. When shit hit the fan, they eventually gave me kit and food and a bed in a host family’s house in Edinburgh.’
My chest knots around the ache to make it better. I want to kiss every awful memory out of his skin. But I can’t, so I run my hand down his chest.
‘You want to know the worst part? I kept hoping she’d change her mind. That one day, she’d let me come home.’ His voice holds, but only just. Every word is flattened into armour, every pause is a seam that wants to split. ‘I was sixteen, Theo. Sixteen and standing in the cold thinking if I made it big enough, she’d want me back.’
His inhale shudders. Not a sob, but it rips through me anyway. I’ve never heard him speak without that protective layer of charm and bravado. This is Finn stripped bare, and it’s more intimate than if he’d shed every stitch of clothing. The power cut has plunged us into near darkness, but I see him perfectly. I reach for his face. My fingers graze the curve of his jaw, then settle over his cheek. Steady, so he knows I’m not pulling away. He turns into my touch.
‘I’m so, so sorry Finn. She didn’t deserve you then. And she definitely doesn’t now.’
The faint moonlight catches his eyes, turning them silver-rimmed. I can count his eyelashes, see the scar above his eyebrow that the stitches will leave behind.
We’re nose to nose, and I feel the moment his focus shifts to my mouth. Every unspoken word, every near-miss, every fake touch that wasn’t fake at all… It all crowds into the small space between us.
‘Theo.’
He stays perfectly still, letting me lead, letting me decide.
This is no surrender. It’s a choice made in the frozen, moonlit quiet of my flat to lean into the one thing that is warm and real.
He traces a line from my temple to my cheek. The pad is rough, and it drags heat across my skin like flint catching spark. My body leans into the touch before I can stop it. My breath slows and stops altogether.
We’re about to kiss.
Oh, yes. Yes!
His lips graze mine, soft and devastatingly gentle. Not at all what I expected from the man who never shuts up. There’s reverence in it. My lips barely touch his. Finn exhales a shaky breath through his nose. He hadn’t expected this either.
I kiss him back, because there’s no oxygen otherwise.
