“Oh, I never pretend.” Finn handed me a new mug once the tea was ready, and this time it tasted like tea instead of a spa experience gone wrong. “Life's too short to drink terrible tea and lie about it.”
“Words to live by.”
We fell into easy conversation after that, trading stories about the weirdest events we’ve ever done — and in my case, played at. I told him about the time Luca had accidentally set his guitar strap on fire with a stage light and kept playing anyway because he thought it looked cool.
“That's insane,” Finn said, grinning. “Did it actually look cool?”
“For about five seconds, and then it just looked like he was an idiot who was about to burn down the venue.”
Finn snorted into his tea. “I feel like every band has that one guy who's a walking disaster but somehow makes it work.”
“Luca in a nutshell. The man's a mess, but he's our mess.” I took another sip and realized I was actually relaxing, which was weird considering I'd walked into this house fully prepared to spiral about the Finn-Rook connection. “You play anything, or are you strictly a hockey guy?”
“Strictly hockey. I tried guitar once when I was like fourteen and gave up after a week because my fingers hurt.” He held up his hands like they were evidence. “Turns out I'm better at hitting people with my body than I am at creating art.”
“That's one way to describe hockey.”
“It's an accurate way.” Finn grinned. “What about you? You always do the drumming thing, or did you have some other tragic career path before this?”
I hesitated, because talking about hockey felt like walking into dangerous territory when I was sitting across from one of Rook's teammates. But Finn seemed genuinely curious, and it wasn't like the information was classified.
“I played hockey in high school,” I said carefully. “Was pretty serious about it, actually. But life got complicated and I ended up going the music route instead.”
“Huh. Small world.” Finn didn't push for details, which I appreciated. “You any good?”
“I was decent. Not NHL-level or anything, but good enough that people thought I had a shot at playing in college.”
“What position?”
“Right wing.”
“Nice. I'm a center, but I basically just cause chaos and hope for the best.” He said it like it was a point of pride. “Coach says I play like a gremlin who discovered caffeine.”
I couldn't help laughing at that. “That's probably the best description of a playing style I've ever heard.”
“I contain multitudes.” Finn took another drink of his tea and then looked at me with this expression that was half curious, half something else. “Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Sure.”
“Why'd you seem so freaked out when you first got here? Like, before you started working with Jamie. You looked like you were about to bolt.”
“Just wasn't expecting the house to be this nice,” I said, which wasn't technically a lie. “Sometimes the fancy gigs make me nervous.”
“Fair enough. Gramps goes a little overboard with the whole 'wealthy grandfather' aesthetic.” Finn gestured around the kitchen like he was including the marble countertops in the conversation. “But he's good people. And he loves Jamie more than anything, so I can forgive the excessive tea collection.”
We sat there for a minute in comfortable silence, both of us drinking our significantly improved tea, and I realized with some surprise that I actually liked Finn. He was easy to talk to in that way people who used humor as a defense mechanism usually were — we recognized the same tricks in each other and let them slide without comment.
“I feel like I should mention,” Finn said suddenly, “that I've been talking about my life and my feelings to a guy I literally met an hour ago. This is not normal behavior for me.”
“Really? Because you seem like the type who makes friends with random strangers all the time.”
“I make friends, sure. But I don't usually get into the deep stuff this fast.” He looked genuinely baffled by his own behavior. “You're just really good at getting people to open up, or I'm having some kind of emotional crisis I wasn't aware of.”
“Could be both.”
“Deeply unsettling possibility.” Finn shook his head but he was grinning. “Anyway, before I start telling you about my childhood traumas and my complicated relationship with my parents, I should probably stop myself.”
“Too late. You already mentioned the parents thing. I'm officially curious now.”
