“The only information I have is that he’s cute and you’re screwing him,” Ezra. “And his name was Nolan, right?”
“Right,” Finn agreed. “His aforementioned asshole cousin won me at auction.”
Ezra’s eyes widened.
“We were doing a thing for the sanctuary. Y’know, bid on a date with our hot eligible veterinarian. I figured one of the older ladies might want a nice afternoon hanging out with me, but Nolan’s cousin paid five thousand dollars for the privilege of embarrassing him.”
“Embarrassing him?” Ezra asked.
“He marched poor Nolan up to me, told me he was passing the date over, told me Nolan was avirgin, and then I chased him away to save him any more embarrassment. I felt awful for the poor guy.”
“Yeah, wow. His cousin isdefinitelyan asshole. I’m on Nolan’s side here.”
“Right? Plus, he was cute. So we did the first date-thing,” Finn said, smiling as he remembered the way Nolan had phrased it. “And then he asked to volunteer at the sanctuary and the rest is more or less history.”
“I hear he heroically rescued the little otter you’ve got in observation,” Ezra said.
“Yeah,” Finn agreed, the memory of Nolan risking falling into the river for the sake of an otter he’d never even met before warming his chest as it played through his mind. He’d never gone from vaguely liking to desperately wanting a person so quickly. They’d joked about being superheroes, butdamn. Nolan had it in him to be incredible, if only he believed in himself.
And then there was thetrust. The way Nolan had just trusted Finn not to let him fall had been amazing.
The connection between them wasn’t something Finn was imagining because he was desperate. It was real.
“Yeah, he did,” Finn said. “He was awesome, actually. For a guy who’d never really done anything like it before, he was great.”
“Wow,” Ezra said. “You really like this guy, huh?”
The back of Finn’s neck burned in response to Ezra’s question, his hand rising up to scratch it automatically. “Kinda, yeah. I mean. It’s early days, but… I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”
“I’m happy for you,” Ezra replied sincerely, a warm smile spreading across his face.
Finn opened his mouth to say thank you when the owl on the table ruffled its feathers, and then turned its head to look directly at him, blinking…
Well, owlishly.
“So, tell me about our new friend?” Finn nodded, having forgotten it was even there because it was so still. He passed Ezra the cup of coffee he’d poured for him and went to the fridge for cream.
“His name is Hooters,” Ezra said.
Finn turned back to the table, eyebrow raised. “No,” he said, horror at the thought of having totellpeople that welling up in the pit of his stomach.
“Yep,” Ezra confirmed. “Don’t look atmelike that, May named him. She brought him in early this morning after he had a run-in with a power line. He actually seems to be recovering just fine, but I wanna watch for a few days in case he’s in shock. Owls are… hard.”
“I’ll believe anything you tell me,” Finn said. “Hooters,” he repeated, shaking his head as he handed the cream over to Ezra.
“I think it’s cute.” Ezra shrugged as he poured as much cream into the mug as there was coffee.
Some things never changed.
“Youwould.” Finn sighed. “Okay, fine. Hooters it is.”
Ezra’s face broke into a broad grin. At leastoneof them was enjoying this.
It was good to see him happy, though. He’d been in a bad place when he left, and Finn had thought at the time that he would have been better off here, surrounded by people who loved him.
But he’d pulled through okay, and it was good to have him home, where he belonged.
Hooters ruffled his feathers again.
