Page 29
“You’re staring,” he says eventually.
“I’m just listening. I like the way you tell stories.”
He pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Fox, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I like…talking to you. Being in a room with you when there’s nothing else happening. It shouldn’t surprise me, but I think I’ve spent so long compartmentalizing us that I forgot we started out as friends.”
He’s quiet for a second. Then: “Are we still friends?”
“We’re definitely friends.”
“Who have very good sex.”
“Very, very good sex…”
He smiles at me across the candles, and then he picks his fork back up. I do the same.
“Do you think we would have ever hooked up if I hadn’t knocked on your hotel door that night all those years ago?”
The question catches me by surprise. We’ve never really talked about it. That night in the Chicago hotel when Finn had traveled to watch the band and crashed with Bastian at our hotel. Or at least that’s what was supposed to happen. After that night, if Finn came to one of our gigs, he’d always book his own room in the same hotel, even if he ended up spending most of the time in mine.
“I honestly don’t know. It’s not like you were giving me all the signs you were interested.” I hide behind a slow sip of my wine. I don’t think I can ever admit that I’d noticed Finn for quite some time before he stumbled into my hotel room, pretending to be drunk.
“Are you serious? I practically sat on your lap every time we were in the same room.”
“I thought you were being friendly. Or, at the very least, trying to annoy your brother.”
He snorts. “He never noticed how late I got back to the room after I supposedly went out to explore the city.” He raises his hands and curls his fingers into mocking little brackets.
“If I remember correctly, you did explore a fair bit that night.”
He gives me a look.
“And you are the worst fake drunk in the world.”
He throws a piece of garlic stick at me, but I catch it and stuff it in my mouth.
“You were very adorable though. In a sexy way.”
“Shut up, Fox.”
We finish eating and then clean up. The way Finn’s gaze is on me makes me think our conversation is still on his mind. It was a sexy-as-fuck night that I will never forget. But he doesn’t start anything, so I follow his lead.
We take the wine to the couch. I put my arm around his shoulders. He curls into my side, his body going limp and sated from dinner.
I reach for one of the paperbacks on the side table and open it to a random page.
“Alex had never seen a man look at him like that. Like he was a mystery to be solved. Like he was—”
Finn is already laughing.
“Fox—”
“—like he was worth solving—”
“Fox, stop—”
