9
“Nolan!” Finn stopped dead on the way to his car, grinning broadly. “I wasn’t sure if you were planning on showing up today.”
“Fridays.” Nolan shrugged. “I promised. But I was held back at work a little, which is why I’m so late.”
“Well…” Finn jiggled his keys in his hand, glancing between Nolan and the car. “I uh… I just got a call about an otter tangled in a fishing net, so I might send you around back to help Oscar? Or I guess you could come with, but it might keep us out a while. I just finished packing the car.”
“I’d like to come with you, if that’s okay? I mean, I get it if you wanna be the hero all by yourself…” Nolan offered him a shy, teasing grin.
“Company would be amazing, actually. It’s a long drive back with only an otter to talk to.”
“Then I’m all yours,” Nolan beamed.
Damn it was good to see him happy. In just a few weeks of coming here, Finn could see the difference in Nolan. He’d gone from tired and sad to…
Well, he still seemed a little tired, but he always seemed excited to be here. Even at his company Halloween party, he hadn’t seemed miserable.
That was nice. It was nice to feel like he’d made a difference, even if it was mostly the magic of spending time with wildlife that was making the difference.
If Nolan had been one of their rescues, Finn would have been thrilled with his progress.
“Great. Uh. I think we oughta take my car.” Finn scratched the back of his neck. “I just wanna apologize in advance for it.”
“Have you seen my car?” Nolan asked. “There’s nothing more embarrassing.”
“It’s environmentally friendly.” Finn shrugged. Honestly, Nolan’s car was the kind of thing he would have driven himself if he didn’t frequently need something bigger for work—and if he was willing to give up the car he did own. “I didn’t think it was embarrassing at all.”
Nolan snorted, but followed Finn to the battered station wagon he drove. It was old enough to vote and it’d been on more than a few misadventures that’d left a mark, but it was his.
It was the car he’d driven away from home in, never to look back. It was the car he’d slept in when he’d been between apartments.
He’d been through a lot with this car, and he got a little touchy when people judged it.
Ryan had suggested once that there might have been room in the sanctuary budget to lease something more reliable. Finn’s reaction had stopped him from ever offering again.
Finn had apologized for it later, with cheesecake. Ryan was anyone’s for a slice of cheesecake.
“Looks like you love her,” Nolan said as they approached. “You wouldn’t have kept her otherwise.”
Finn chuckled. The way Nolan said it wasn’t an insult, it was just a statement of fact. Hell, it was almost fond.
“Yeah,” Finn agreed. “Yeah, I’ve been through a lot with this car. And she’s… obviously been through a lot with me.”
“I bet she loves you, too,” Nolan said, heading for the passenger-side door and stroking the dented, chipped body along the way.
A soft, satisfied sigh escaped Finn as he watched that, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.
Probably, he was just relieved that Nolan didn’t hate his car. That would’ve hurt.
He climbed into the car as well, turning the engine over and flicking on the heating, knowing it’d take a while to warm up and wanting to head off the chill in the air. Winter was starting to creep up on them, and there were only another couple of hours of sunlight left. They’d probably end up driving back in the dark.
“Last chance to back out,” Finn said, wanting to be sure that Nolan was okay with coming along for the ride.
“Nope,” Nolan responded brightly. “You’re stuck with me.”
“I’ve been stuck with worse,” Finn teased, pulling out of the sanctuary parking lot and heading for the road.
“So you wanna tell me about work?” he asked as they passed under the newly-painted sign.
“Not much to tell,” Nolan said. “Gavin made me write a few extra reports as payback for showing up with you last week. Could’ve been worse.”
Finn sighed. “Sorry, man. I didn’t wanna get you in trouble.”
“I’m not in trouble,” Nolan said. “And if I wanted to leave, I could. I just know that the company would collapse without me keeping the I.T. systems running, and I’m not pissed enough at him yet to be responsible for that.”
“He could hire someone else,” Finn pointed out. “I mean… I’m sure you’re irreplaceable, but…”
“No, I’m totally replaceable skill-wise,” Nolan said. “But no one else would put up with him. He likes me because I’m a doormat.”
“Gavin’s lack of people skills aren’t actually your problem.” Finn glanced at the map he’d set up on his phone, checking for his next turn. “You don’t have to lie down and take it.”
“You know what I hate most in the world?” Nolan asked.
Finn shook his head.
“Confrontation. The status quo is easy, and life’s hard enough as it is.”
“I get that,” Finn said. He’d stayed at home much longer than he should have because it was easier. Because it saved an argument. Because moving out was hard and scary.
So he wasn’t exactly in a position to throw stones. And he didn’t want to, anyway. He just wanted Nolan to be happy.
“So did anything exciting happen at the sanctuary this week?” Nolan asked, and it wasn’t exactly the smoothest subject change ever, but he didn’t plan on pushing. If Nolan wanted to talk, he’d talk.
And Finn would listen.
Because Nolan was his friend. His adorable friend who made his stomach flutter sometimes.
Okay, so, that crush he’d started forming last Friday wasn’t going anywhere. No big deal. Nolan never had to know.
“We got a squirrel in!” Finn enthused. “I was excited for you to meet her, actually. I guess you can do that when we get back.”
“You really do love squirrels, huh?”
Finn shrugged, a blush creeping up his neck. He was a huge dork when it came to small fluffy animals, and he knew it. “They’re cute. And they’re an important part of the ecosystem.”
“You’re adora—,” Nolan said, and then shut his mouth with a click.
A broad grin spread across Finn’s face. “You were gonna call me adorable,” he said, glancing over at Nolan as he made the next turn his phone told him to.
“Maybe,” Nolan mumbled. Finn didn’t even have to look at him to know he was blushing.
“I am adorable,” Finn continued. “It’s okay to acknowledge it. I’m a grown man, I’m six feet tall and I weigh in at one-eighty, and I’m cute as a goddamn button.”
“Six feet?” Nolan asked.
“Five-eleven and a half. I’m rounding up,” Finn defended.
“No, I mean… I guess I believe that, I just… I dunno, I feel like I would normally have been afraid of a guy who had six inches on me.”
Unable to stop himself, Finn giggled. “I can do a little better than six inches,” he said.
“Are you still rounding up?” Nolan responded before Finn could even begin to regret saying it.
Maybe flirting was something they did now. Maybe Nolan was catching on.
Although, it was kinda hard to tell.
Finn hadn’t had the chance to flirt in a long time, so he was a little on the rusty side.
“It’s not about how big it is,” Finn said, forcing himself not to laugh. “It’s about what you can do with it.”
“I mean, the length is by definition about how big it is,” Nolan said. “Personally, I have a huge dick.”
Finn raised an eyebrow, glancing over at Nolan.
“I keep it in a shoebox under my bed,” he continued, smirking.
The smirk went straight to the pit of Finn’s stomach, a little coil of arousal tightening there. When Nolan relaxed, he was fun.
And exactly the kind of playful and sarcastic Finn looked for in guys. A sense of humor was the hottest thing about anyone, in his opinion.
He also now knew that Nolan’s virgin status didn’t mean he didn’t know what he liked. He just hadn’t gotten around to exploring that with another person.
That… could have been fun. Even more fun than teaching him from scratch.
“I have no idea how to respond to that,” Finn said, floored by how perfectly Nolan had delivered the line.
“Too much?” Nolan asked, a hint of uncertainty creeping into his voice.
“No, it’s fine. I started it. I’m just amazed by the way you got me to walk right into that one,” Finn responded, chuckling. “I’m gonna be laughing about that for a week.”
“I think I owe you at least that much,” Nolan said, turning to look out the window. “You’ve been ridiculously good to me.”
“Nah.” Finn flicked his headlights on as they passed through a shadowed patch of road. It wasn’t quite dark enough to need them yet, but it wouldn’t hurt to have them on.
“I’ve just been doing what anyone would do,” he added.
“You believe that, don’t you?” Nolan asked. “Like you sincerely think that everyone is as good and kind as you are.”
“Maybe not everyone,” Finn said. “But most people. People are generally good, I think.”
“I hope you never have to think differently,” Nolan said with a note of sadness in his voice.
Finn’s heart hurt for him. It was obvious that he’d been kicked around a lot. By people he trusted, too.
He was hanging out with better people now. Maybe if he did that long enough, he’d be able to leave the bad ones behind.
Silence fell between them as Finn wound his way down barely-marked backroads to where the trapped otter had been reported. It was more contemplative than uncomfortable. The shared silence of two tired people who were happy to just be in each other’s company and think their own thoughts.
Most of Finn’s thoughts were about Nolan. And whether or not he should think about making a move.
He was starting to think one of them would have to, and it seemed unlikely to be Nolan. Whether that was because he wasn’t interested or because he was just as afraid as Finn was of breaking their friendship was up for debate.
They could have been amazing together, though. The more Finn thought about it, the more convinced he was.
“Just up here, I think,” Finn said as he got to the place where the report had been called in, pulling over onto a wide lookout that was obviously well-used.
By the time he’d gotten out of the car, Nolan was already peering down at the creek below—more of a river at this time of year, on account of the storms they’d had last week.
“There,” he pointed as soon as Finn got close, and Finn followed the line of his finger to a small, dark shape on the riverbend. For a moment he wasn’t sure if it was moving, but then he noticed the steady rise and fall of its chest.
And the net tangled around one of its legs, extended at an odd angle away from the rest of its tiny body. Broken, maybe? Definitely hurt.
“What now?” Nolan asked.
“Now we get to be superheroes,” Finn said, smiling. They’d found it, and it was still alive. The little guy had a better than even chance of pulling through.
He liked these moments. This was why he did this. Why he didn’t mind living paycheck-to-paycheck and driving out to the middle of nowhere and turning up on weekends more often than not.
Sharing it with someone new was going to be amazing.
“From an otter perspective, anyway. Imagine two benevolent giants coming to help you when you were in trouble.”
“I’d probably scream a lot, not gonna lie.” Nolan shrugged. “But I see your point.”
“He’ll freak out, too,” Finn said. “So be careful, okay?”
“I did listen to the safety briefing the second time,” Nolan said. “Every word is etched onto my heart. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a scout for two weeks,” Finn responded, remembering when Nolan had told him about that.
“Long enough to get kicked out for kissing one of the other boys,” Nolan said. “Neither of our parents were happy. His parents were so unhappy that they demanded I leave.”
Finn turned to look at him, devastated.
How old could Nolan even have been? Thirteen or fourteen? That was a terrible thing to do to a kid.
And his parents had just… let it happen. Which might have explained why he was clinging to Gavin.
“I didn’t even know I was doing the wrong thing.”
“You weren’t,” Finn said firmly. “Jesus. Remind me that I owe you a hug when we’re done with this, okay?”
Nolan obviously had a few demons hanging around. The urge to shoo them away was already welling up in Finn’s chest, his protective instincts whirring into overdrive. It was too late to protect Nolan from the crap that had happened to him, but maybe he could work on undoing some of the damage.
Starting with convincing Nolan that kissing was fun and they should do it again. Often, even.
Which he’d completely forgotten how to do. Once upon a time, he’d had no trouble getting people to want to date him, but he’d let those skills slip a little. Hopefully, Nolan would give him some leeway while he figured it out again.
“Let’s go be superheroes,” Nolan said with a tremble in his voice, clearly ending the conversation.
“Yeah, okay,” Finn agreed. “Lemme grab my kit. You’re in charge of the cage.”
“Works for me,” Nolan said, following Finn over to the back of the car.
Finn got out his homemade portable vet kit, double-checking everything before rolling it up and shoving it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He handed the cage to Nolan, and then closed the car up and locked it. Not that anyone seemed likely to steal it out here.
Hell, not that anyone would steal it if he left the keys in the ignition in the middle of a suburban supermarket parking lot, but old habits died hard.
“C’mon,” Finn headed for the low fence that separated the lookout from the wilderness, stepping over it easily and picking his way over slippery banks, keeping an eye on Nolan as they both inched their way down sideways.
The last thing he needed was to lose Nolan into the river. It wasn’t exactly white water rapids and he was unlikely to get swept away or drown—assuming he had the first idea about how to swim—but all the same, he’d end up wet and miserable and Finn would still have to fish him out.
One small, helpless mammal was enough to deal with at a time.
“So do you do this a lot?” Nolan asked, grabbing a nearby tree for balance as a rock gave way under his foot. He was doing a lot better than Finn had expected.
“Once or twice a week. Plus house calls where people have done the rescuing themselves,” Finn said, crouching by the bank and getting out his kit. “You wanna pass me the sack out of the cage?”
Nolan stopped beside him, setting the hessian sack down next to the rest of Finn’s things. “Okay, so, quick rundown. I’m gonna lean over the edge here and check out our little buddy’s condition. Then I’ll either tranquilize him—which I’d rather not do—or just cut him loose and scoop him up into that sack. Following so far?”
“Following,” Nolan agreed. “Why don’t you wanna tranquilize him?”
“Because I’d be taking a guess at his weight and that’s harder than you’d think,” Finn said. “Call it a quirk, but I don’t wanna give him an overdose after coming all the way out here to rescue him.”
“Makes sense,” Nolan said. “So what do I do?”
“Hold the cage open for me,” Finn said. “And don’t freak out if he’s wriggling when I shove him in, I guess. You’ll be fine. You were cool with Buttercup.”
“Okay. Ready when you are.”
Finn nodded, grabbing his pocket knife and leaning over the edge of the bank to where the otter was still lying, breathing steadily but too fast, and with a little whine at the end of each breath that told Finn it was in pain. “You’re okay, buddy,” he said in his most soothing voice. He had no idea whether a calm tone was the kind of thing otters could recognize, but he figured it couldn’t hurt.
Unfortunately, when he reached out to cut the net the otter was tangled in, he noticed a problem.
“Dammit.”
“What?” Nolan asked, immediately alert.
“I can’t reach.” Finn sighed, then pushed himself to stretch just a little further. He was still a good hands-width away from even nicking the net, though. And if he leaned over any further, he’d end up in the river, which wouldn’t help anyone.
Crap.
“I have an idea,” Nolan offered. “If you’re feeling confident.”
Finn backed off from the edge, giving the otter a sympathetic look. He wasn’t about to leave it there.
“I’m all ears.”
“I’m thinking if you held my ankles so I didn’t fall in, I could lean further over the edge. I doubt I could hold your weight, but I bet you could manage mine.”
Finn looked between Nolan and the otter, unsure about this plan. “Kinda risky,” he said, though he wasn’t ready to dismiss it outright.
“You got a better idea?”
Finn sighed again. He didn’t have any other idea, let alone a better one. Nolan was right, too—it had to be him, because he was a whole lot lighter than Finn was.
“Nope,” he admitted. “I just don’t wanna have to fill out the paperwork if you drown.”
“I can swim,” Nolan said. “More or less.”
“You’re really inspiring a lot of confidence here.” Finn moved out of the way, giving Nolan space to lean over the edge instead.
“It’ll be fine.” Nolan got into position, laying flat on his stomach with just his head hanging over the edge of the bank. Now was not the time to appreciate what a cute butt he had, but Finn filed the image away for later consideration all the same.
“You’re a superhero, remember?” Nolan said. “You’ll protect me.”
The way Nolan said it, like he was a hundred percent sure it was true, hit Finn right in the center of his chest. He didn’t feel like he’d really earned Nolan’s quiet faith in him, but he knew he had to prove himself worthy.
“I will,” Finn promised. “You’ll be safe.”
Even if he had to dive right into the river after him. Which he would have done anyway. Nolan was the first new friend he’d made in a while, and definitely the first he could call his.
He’d look after Nolan. Whatever that meant he had to do.
“Gimme your pocket knife,” Nolan said, holding his hand out.
“We’ve gotta get you one of your own,” Finn replied as he handed it over, already planning to do so for next time.
“Just… don’t let go, okay?” Nolan said as he scooted further over the edge, barely giving Finn enough time to grab his ankles.
Once Finn had a solid grip on him, he squirmed even further forward until he was hanging over from the waist up, sack in one hand and knife in the other.
“I’m really gonna need you to cooperate, here,” he said, and it took a moment to realize he was talking to the otter.
“Sing it a lullaby,” Finn suggested.
“Will that help?” Nolan asked, as though he was seriously considering it.
“Probably not, but it’d be funny.”
Nolan snorted, grunting with effort as he shuffled just a little further forward. Finn heard the sound of the net being cut, then an otter squeaking and a sack rustling.
“Holy shit, did that work?” he asked, shocked that it was over so quickly.
“He cooperated,” Nolan said. “Because I’m a strong leader with great management skills. Also, he’s passed out.”
“Ah.”
“Pull me up?” Nolan asked, trying to scoot back on his own but not getting far.
Finn tightened his grip on Nolan’s ankles and then pulled, hauling him back up the edge of the bank with a grunt of effort. It was lucky Nolan was as light as he was, or this could’ve gone either way.
Nolan rolled onto his back, panting harshly to catch his breath, sack clasped tightly in his hand. Finn took it from him, enjoying the warmth of his skin as their fingers brushed together.
“You’re covered in mud,” he said, nodding to Nolan’s t-shirt. There was more mud and leaves on it than actual fabric right now.
“Happens when someone drags you through it,” Nolan said. “I don’t care. I’m a superhero.” He grinned up at Finn.
Warmth bloomed in the middle of Finn’s chest, a little bubble of happiness welling up at the look on Nolan’s face.
It was hard to believe Nolan had done that, but giddy excitement was building in the pit of Finn’s stomach as he thought about it. Nolan had been awesome.
It was kind of hot?
Really hot, actually. At first, Finn had thought Nolan was just looking for an escape from his boring life. He’d expected him to hang out at the sanctuary and cuddle the occasional fluffy animal, but no.
No, he’d jumped right in when one needed saving.
He really was a superhero, and Finn’s little crush on him had just surged into full-blown admiration. And a sudden desire to get into his pants. Well, a stronger desire. Nolan had been cute from the beginning, but this had been hot.
One thing at a time. They had an otter to get back to the sanctuary first.
“Well, you get naming rights, since you’re the one who rescued him,” he said, taking the sack from Nolan and closing it safely in the cage. He offered Nolan a hand up.
“Are you sure it’s a boy?” Nolan asked, peering over at the cage as he let Finn lever him off the ground, still trusting him completely not to let him fall.
That felt really good. Nolan’s trust felt like it was usually a hard thing to earn, but there was something between them. Right now, Finn wanted to reach out and grab whatever it was, flushed with the joy of a successful rescue.
If he thought Nolan would have been cool with being pulled in for a desperate, needy kiss, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But Finn still couldn’t quite figure out whether or not Nolan was interested, and he didn’t want to risk upsetting him right when he’d just had a great moment.
“I have no idea,” Finn said, realizing Nolan had asked a question. “But I don’t think we need to impose human gender norms on otters. The otter has no idea what it is.”
“Would it be too cutesy to call it Ollie?” Nolan asked, seriously considering the lump in the cage.
“You’ve met a snake called Buttercup. Cutesy is kind of our thing,” Finn pointed out.
“Ollie, then,” Nolan said, more confident this time.
“I like it.” Finn grabbed the cage. “Come on. I’ve got a clean shirt in the car you can change into.”
“See? Superhero.” Nolan beamed at him, following as Finn began to climb back up to the lookout.