Maybe he was going for James Bond? But he’d ended up looking more like a waiter at a fancy event.
Gavin finally sat down, which Finn hadn’t thought he was going to do. But then, he hadn’t gotten what he wanted yet. Nolan had come out in front.
Finn planned on keeping it that way.
“So how did you end up at a sanctuary event, anyway?” Finn asked, taking Nolan’s hand and feeling a sudden burst of warmth in his chest as their fingers intertwined. He looked at Nolan, offering him a small, shy smile, which Nolan returned easily.
That was… unexpected. Not bad, though.
Kind of nice, actually. Nolan had a pretty smile that he clearly didn’t use often enough.
“You’re not our usual kind of donor,” Finn continued. “You might’ve noticed.”
“Kinda,” Gavin said. “I had a girlfriend who volunteered there once. You might remember her? Name was Briana.”
“She was a blonde, right?” Finn asked. “Idoremember her, but I think we only met a few times. I was just starting as she was leaving.”
“Yeah, well, I figured it’d impress her if I made a big donation.”
“And did it?” Finn asked, sure he already knew the answer.
“For a while,” Gavin said. “And then she moved on to a bigger fish.” He shrugged. “Life, right?”
Under other circumstances, Finn might have felt sorry for the guy. He’d obviously been hurt.
But being hurt didn’t give him a good reason to hurt other people.
That was why Finn was here, really. Sure, he wanted to see the look on Gavin’s face.
But mostly, he wanted to take away his ability to hurt Nolan. Like he wanted to rescue every mistreated animal in the world.
“That’s rough,” Finn said. “But you got the joy of helping animals out of it, right?”
Ryan had told Finn that Gavin had just made the one big donation once, years ago. They were working on getting old donors interested in the sanctuary again, and inviting him to the auction was obviously part of that strategy.
He’d also apologized profusely and offered to take Gavin off the mailing list so he wouldn’t know about future events when Finn explained what had happened. Which was good, because ifRyancould see it was wrong, too, then Finn wasn’t just being oversensitive on Nolan’s behalf.
Finn had insisted that Gavin stay on the mailing list, though. He had plans to get a picture of Nolan having fun in their next newsletter.
“Oh, yeah,” Gavin said with exactly zero sincerity. “You guys do great work. I encourage everyone at this company to have something they believe in. I’m so glad Nolan’s found something.”
Every single word sounded like bullshit, but Finn smiled anyway.
“He just needed someone to believe in him first,” Finn said, sipping his cider. “He’s incredible.”
Nolan blushed and looked down at his soda.
Finn was starting to like making him blush like this. Not out of embarrassment like Gavin did, but because he was being paid a compliment.
Nolan was like a puzzle no one had bothered to solve yet, but Finn was increasingly convinced that the reward would have been worth the effort.
Not that Nolan was interested. If hewas, he could have just invited Finn to this. Finn was just the rope in a tug-of-war between Gavin and Nolan.
He planned on letting Nolan win, but that was about as much as he was good for. Nolan deserved someone better, especially if he was new to dating.
There were so many bright, vibrant people in the world that he really didn’t need to settle for an overworked vet who constantly smelled of animals and didn’t even like going out anymore. Finn wanted to settle down comfortably with someone equally tired.
Nolan hadn’t had the excitement of first dates—orseconddates, which were more exciting in Finn’s opinion—and waiting for people to text back. He hadn’t done all the fun parts yet.
