Chapter Nine
Aaron
I couldn’t stop touching him, making sure that he was really here. I was so scared that I was going to wake up and realize that this was just a cruel dream. I didn’t think I could handle that. I mean, I’d dreamt of Finn a trillion times over the years. Of course I had. He was the one that got away. The one that I’d missed with every inch of my soul.
And I couldn’t have been more grateful that he was sitting across the table from me. We’d decided to just stop at the diner so we could get some breakfast food, and because neither of us was dressed for a fancy restaurant. I’d have to take him on a real date later. Maybe tomorrow. Though I wasn’t planning on letting him out of my sight anytime soon. In fact, I was planning on kidnapping him for the day.
“I’m taking you back to my place after we eat,” I blurted out, then immediately cringed.
His eyebrows rose so high on his forehead, they practically disappeared. “Why yes, Aaron, I’d love to go back to your place,” he said sarcastically with an eye roll.
I smiled at that. Finn never was one to put up with my bullshit. And I loved that about him. “Finn, would you like to come over after breakfast?”
He eyed me, then said, “Fine.”
I chuckled, since he was clearly trying, and failing, to hold back a grin. But then a thought occurred to me. “Do you have to work today?”
“The bakery is closed on Mondays. What about you? Do you have to go in later?”
I shook my head. “I have off on Mondays too. Or I’m supposed to. More than half the time I get called in, anyway.”
“Tad told me that you work a lot of overtime. Do you always go in when they call you?”
I wasn’t so sure how I felt about Tad and Finn exchanging dating-Aaron horror stories. I knew I wasn’t very good to Tad at all, though I hoped Finn had better memories of me.
“Hey,” Finn said softly as he grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything about him. I was only curious… and honestly wanted to know what my chances were of having you to myself all day.”
I met his eyes, not even realizing that I’d looked down until then. “There’s no way in hell I’d go in if they called me today.” He smiled at me and used his other hand to start tracing shapes on the back of my hand. I’d forgotten that he used to do that. It was funny, the little things you forget. And the things you take for granted. He used to draw pictures or write words on my hand and make me guess what it was. “It’s an owl.” He froze and looked at me with wide eyes, but I continued, “With a heart-shaped face. That one’s easy because you used to draw it all the time.”
“Sorry,” he muttered and let go of my hand.
But I snatched one of his before he could pull away completely and whispered, “Don’t stop.”
He swallowed, drawing my attention to his Adam’s apple again, then he nodded and grabbed my hand again, continuing his little drawing.
“To answer your earlier question, yes, I always go in when they call. I think there’s only been one or two times that I haven’t, and only because I was seriously sick,” I told him, making him freeze again. But I powered on. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll continue. If we’re… on a date or something, it’s not like I’ll just leave.”
He looked up at me and grinned, then said in a really bad British accent, “Why, Mr. Havenport, are you saying you want to date me?”
“Not if you keep talking in that weird accent,” I replied with a grin of my own.
He chuckled and went back to tracing shapes on my hand.
I cleared my throat, then asked the question that’d been burning on my tongue all morning. “Why did you name your bakery after me?”
I half-expected him to freeze, but he didn’t. He just blew out a breath and kept staring at my hand as he answered, “You were always the most important thing in my life… even when you weren’t around, you still were.” He shrugged. “Layla, Griffin, and I were having trouble agreeing on a name, and Griff said something along the lines of ‘this is the most important name of our lives’ and I automatically said ‘Aaron’s’ without even thinking. They had already heard about you a million times before, so it wasn’t really a hard sell after that.” He shrugged again, but still didn’t look up.
I reached across the table and tilted his chin so he’d look at me. His blue eyes looked haunted. Like he was remembering some terrible past that I wasn’t privy to.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you away, Aaron. I’m so sorry I did that to you… to us. We should have tried the long-distance thing or something. I… I…” He looked like he was about to cry.
So I got up and sat beside him in the booth, placing my arm over his shoulders. Then I whispered into his ear, “Shh… hey… no… we did the right thing. We would’ve resented each other after a while. You were right, I know you were.”
He shook his head. “No, Aaron, you don’t understand. I tr—”
“Here you go, gentlemen,” the waitress said as she placed our plates in front of us.
“Thank you,” we said in unison to her. She smiled and nodded before checking on the next table.
I decided to stay where I was. Now that I was sitting beside him, I saw no reason to move away.
“Okay, Romeo, scoot over a little, I don’t have enough room to eat,” Finn said with a laugh.
“Only if you let me try a bite of your omelet, Muffin,” I replied with a shit-eating grin.
Finn groaned. “Seriously, dude, do not start calling me that again.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. It made me remember when we’d started calling each other the ridiculous names.
Finn and I had been sleeping together for over six months, and even though we called each other boyfriends, it didn’t really feel like we were since we had to keep it a secret. So I decided to do something nice for him. I couldn’t take him out on a real date, so I made a picnic for us to have at our spot by the lake. Though, with the way Finn was staring at me, I was really starting to second-guess my decision.
“Did you seriously just hand me a rose?” Finn asked as he stared at the flower in question with a weird look on his face.
“Uh… yes?”
He eyed me, but didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to keep it. I couldn’t take you out on a date, and I wanted it to feel like a real one. I mean, I know we go out all the time together, but we can’t kiss or hold hands or anything, and I wanted to have a ni—oomph.” I fell on my back when Finn launched himself at me.
He landed on top of me, straddling my hips, so his face was hovering right above mine. “That’s why you did all this? To take me on a date?”
I nodded.
He smiled. “Okay, Romeo, what else do you have up your sleeve?”
I leaned up onto my elbows. “I guess you’ll have to wait to find out, Muffin.”
Finn glared at me.
I feigned innocence. “What? I thought we were giving each other adorable pet names.”
He glared even further. “Muffin is not adorable.”
I stuck my bottom lip out and pouted. “Ohh, but Muffin, I like it.”
“I forbid you from using it.”
“You don’t get to choose your own pet name, Muffin.” When he glared again, I held up one hand and shrugged. “I’m not the one that makes up these rules… Muffin.”
I saw his intentions a split second before he moved, but he was still sitting on top of me, so I had no chance of escape. He started tickling the shit out of me, even though he knew I hated it. And of course I laughed, because it fucking tickled, but I still hated it.
After a minute, I yelled, “Okay, okay, truce!” When he stopped tickling me, I added, “Muffin.”
He pinned me to the ground even more. I could tell he was trying not to laugh as he said, “I’m gonna throw you in the lake.”
“You know I like it when you’re rough, Muffin,” I replied.
He dropped his forehead on my chest as he laughed. “I hate you so much right now.”
I wiggled my hands so he’d release me, then I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his hair. “You ready to eat, Muffin?”
He groaned. “Seriously, Aaron, I’m going to murder you if you keep saying that with every single sentence.”
“I think I can agree to those terms,” I said, then pulled his head off my chest so he’d look at me. “We might have to,” I wiggled around under him so he’d feel the hardness in my pants, “take care of a little problem before we eat, Muffin.”
He started laughing as he leaned down to kiss me, but right before our lips touched, he said, “You’ll be lucky if I let you come after that, Romeo.”
I smiled against his mouth as he finally closed the distance.
Finn elbowed me. “You alright, there?”
“Yep. I was just thinking about the day I started calling you Muffin.”
He chuckled and rolled his eyes. “I can only assume your taste in nicknames hasn’t improved in the past twelve years.”
“You will always be my little Muffin to me,” I replied as I poured some syrup on my pancakes.
He snorted. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Oh, whatever, you know you love me,” I said automatically.
Both of us froze.
Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that. It was just so easy to fall back into the lighthearted teasing we’d always done that it just slipped out.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only ten seconds, Finn shoulder bumped me and started eating. Apparently we weren’t going to talk about it. We were just going to pretend that it never happened. It was too early to be throwing out the L word, anyway. I mean, obviously. We could be completely different people now.
“When did you get your eyebrow pierced?” I asked him between bites.
“Uh… I think it was sophomore year of college,” he answered with a shrug.
“I like it.”
He grinned at me. “Thanks. I almost took it out a few years ago, but now I’m glad I didn’t.”
“It suits you,” I said quietly, earning another smile from him.
Finn’s phone started ringing, so he pulled it out of his pocket, then muttered, “Shit. It’s Layla. I’m sorry, do you mind if I take this? It’s an unspoken rule that we only call each other on Mondays if it’s a real emergency.”
I waved him away. “Do you need me to move so you can get up?”
“Hello?” he answered and at the same time, he grabbed my arm, stopping me from moving out of the booth seat. I didn’t even think he noticed that he wrapped his hand around my arm and leaned against me. And I sure as hell wasn’t about to point it out to him, either. He was right where he belonged, pressed up against me.