Chapter Thirteen
The smell of hot chocolate hit Flynn’s nostrils before he actually realized Callie was making it, which said everything he needed to know about his current emotional state. He was barely aware of his surroundings, too far in his own head to pay attention to much else.
At least Callie was here. She’d come faster than Flynn had expected, and he was ridiculously lucky to have a friend like her, and as much as he hated to lean on anyone… he needed this.
For once in his life, he was okay with accepting some help.
“Cures all ills,” Callie said as she set a mug down in front of Flynn.
Flynn wrapped his hands around it, sighing heavily. Probably notallills, but it’d make him feel better. Callie’s hot chocolates, specifically, always did.
Her secret was adding extra sugar, but Flynn pretended he didn’t know that. If he didn’tseeit happen, it didn’t count.
They sat in silence for a few long moments, Callie giving Flynn the time to gather his thoughts like she always did.
“Been cold the last few nights,” he said, not quite ready to broach the subject he needed to talk about.
“Summer in Boston.” Callie shrugged. “At least it’s sunny during the day.”
Flynn snorted. “Sunny’s kind of a generous description. It was clear and cloudless in Vegas, remember?”
Yeah, okay. He could approach this topic sideways, mentally ambush it and take it by surprise so that he was talking about Zach out loud before he actually had to admit to… everything.
“I remember,” Callie said. “This is about Zach, huh?”
Flynn suddenly found his hot chocolatefascinating, staring down into the mug like it held the answers to all the mysteries of the universe.
“Yeah,” he said, holding the mug tighter. “It’s about Zach.”
Callie made a sympathetic noise, and damn, was he really that obvious?
“I kissed him,” Flynn blurted out.
He wished, a moment later, that he’d saidwe kissed. Not that he wasn’t willing to take responsibility for his actions, but…
Maybe he wasn’treadyto, and maybe it was hard to think about what that meant.
Callie would understand, he told himself. Callie wouldgetit.
“Okay,” she said, sipping her own hot chocolate. “Gonna need a little more context before I start dispensing advice.”
“I took him to the networking thing,” Flynn said. “And he rescued me from someone else, and then I was walking him to the bus stop and he seemed cold, so I gave him my jacket, and then he was laughing at… I don’t even remember what, but I just… wanted to kiss him, so Idid, and then the bus came and he got on it and left.”
The tips of his ears burned as he remembered kissing Zach, which he’d been trying not to think too much about. There were too manyfeelingsattached to it, all tangled up together, and Flynn hadn’t even started to sort through them.
“Okay,” Callie repeated. “Soyoudefinitely kissedhim? He didn’t kiss you?”
Flynn wet his lips. Of course she’d picked up on that.
“Yeah,” he admitted, voice rough. He paused to sip his hot chocolate, letting the warm, rich liquid roll around in his mouth before swallowing, taking his time while he thought about what he wanted to say next.
“I kissed him,” he confirmed, knowing it was time to own that. He’d kissed Zach. He’d done it because he wanted to do it.
Worst of all, he’dlikedit.
Which all added up to beingreallyconfused right now.
“Right. And when he left…?”
