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Taylen appears from around the side of the house, coming up from the direction of the chicken coop. He’s got his work gloves in one hand and a coil of fencing wire slung over his shoulder. He stops short when he sees me.
“Finn?”
He looks like hell.
His clothes are streaked with something dark, there’s blood dried on his knuckles, and a cut on his cheek. His hair is stuck to his forehead, and he walks like every step hurts.
I stand up.
“You look like hell,” I say because it’s true.
He drops the coil of wire onto the porch step and slowly pulls off his gloves. His mouth quirks in an almost-smile.
“Yeah, well.”
He walks up the steps and drops onto the bench next to me. He’s slouching against the back of the bench, exhaustion pouring out of him.
“About this morning—” he starts.
“No.” I turn to face him properly. “Let me go first.”
He blinks at me, and I take a breath to force myself to actually get through this without stumbling.
“I’ve been a terrible friend lately. You’re right. I haven’t been there when you needed me. I’ve canceled our usual drinks. I haven’t answered my phone. And this morning, I stood there in the bakery and let you leave without going after you, like you aren’t the most important person in my life. I’m sorry, Tay.”
He’s watching me quietly.
“I’ve been dealing with…stuff,” I say. “Things I’m not ready to talk about yet. But I let it affect our friendship, and that’s not okay.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“I know. And I will when I’m ready. But right now, I miss my best friend. Miss knowing what’s going on in your life.”
The tension in his shoulders eases and then, quietly, without looking at me, he says, “I hooked up with someone.”
I smile because that isn’t what I expected to hear.
“And?”
He’s quiet for a beat.
“And I should regret it,” he says. “But I don’t. Even though it’s complicated everything, even though it’s probably a huge mistake, I can’t make myself be sorry it happened.”
My heart is beating a little too hard because the mirror he’s holding up is way too familiar.
Taylen isn’t the kind of guy who does hookups. Even his shorter relationships lasted at least a few months, and looking at him tonight, he isn’t sitting on this bench because he had a good time with somebody random.
I think about how he was at Thanksgiving. I’d been worried about the festival, but I was also working overtime to make sure my eyes stayed away from Fox in case anyone noticed.
But the way Bastian’s eyes kept finding Taylen’s. The way Taylen kept aggressively not looking back and then looking anyway. The way they were both a little too silent at the site inspection after Bastian was all in his face as I arrived.
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh, actually maybe yes, but oh no.
I keep my face very neutral. “Why would you want to regret good sex?”
