25
“You’ve been quiet,” Finn said, breaking what had been an almost total silence between them since they got in the car twenty minutes ago. Maybe Nolan was just tired—he’d have every right to be, since the evening had stretchedFinn’sreserves of social energy, and Nolan’s seemed a lot smaller.
He’d told Finn in the beginning that he wasn’t great with crowds.
“Gavin said something to me tonight that I can’t stop thinking about.” Nolan shifted his weight in his seat. He didn’t look away from the road, but Finn could see the way his face had changed.
“You have to stop listening to him,” Finn said. “All he ever does is make you miserable.”
“So I shouldn’t believe anything he says?” Nolan asked.
There was an edge to it, though. Something in his voice that made Finn uneasy.
Shit, whathadGavin said?
“Probably not. Dude, if he said the Earth revolved around the Sun I’d worry about whether or not it still did.”
“You really don’t want me to listen to him, huh?”
Finn didn’t like the tone of Nolan’s voice atall. He could feel the tension in the car like a physical force.
“What did he say?” Finn asked softly, fully expecting to want to turn around and strangle Gavin over whatever it was. Nolan was clearly upset, and Finn hated to see him that way.
Nolan was silent as he pulled into his parking space, shutting the car off and then sighing. “Did you know he was making a substantial weekly donation to the sanctuary?”
“What?” Finn asked, his heart speeding up instantly. All the things that implied spun around in his brain at a thousand miles an hour.
“Five hundred dollars a week,” Nolan continued. “The exact amount you said you’d date me for.”
“That was a joke!” Finn defended. He’d been sure Nolan knew that.
“Then why say five hundred?” Nolan asked, looking at Finn with desperation in his eyes.
Rain started to fall on the windshield.
“Because it starts with a five and it’s less than five thousand, I guess. I dunno. I swear to you, it was just the first number that popped into my head. I didn’t know.”
Nolan opened his mouth and then closed it again, still gripping the steering wheel.
“You didn’t really think I was doing this for the money, did you?” Finn asked, hurt now that he’d processed what this conversation was really about.
“I…” Nolan looked at him again, his grip tightening reflexively. “I didn’tknow.”
“But you thought I might’ve been,” Finn said. “You thought…” he tried to continue, but his voice failed him.
Nolan thought he was capable of that. That everything he’d said and done, everything they’d sharedmighthave been fake.
Did that mean he didn’t feel the same way about all this as Finn did? That it didn’t mean as much to him?
It had to, right?
If Nolan though it could have been anything other than completely sincere, then itcouldn’thave meant as much to him. Finn had been pouring his heart out to the guy and finally opening up, and he thought maybe he’d been doing it for the sake of a few donations?
“I had to know,” Nolan said, his voice breaking as well. “You never really said why you liked me. I could never figure out whymewhen you could have had anyone.”
“Because you’re like me!” Finn said, louder than he meant to. The thought of shouting at Nolan—at anyone—made him sick, but with panic rising in his chest it was hard to control the volume of his voice.
Nolan looked at him like he didn’t believe that, and Finn wasusedto that look, and he’d accepted that Nolan would need time to build his self-confidence, but it seemed different now.
