Chapter Nineteen
Aaron
Finn had been back in my life for eight weeks, and I still had trouble believing it. But it had been the best damn eight weeks of my life. Somehow I’d convinced Finn to spend the night with me, or I with him, every single night, too. He’d been a little reluctant and iffy about it, but after the first two weeks, he was more at ease. We hadn’t talked about his past relationships yet, but I had a feeling that had something to do with his hesitancy to be with me on such an intimate level. Sex was no problem, no hesitancy. But sleeping together—actual sleeping—was a different story. Sometimes he even seemed hesitant to cuddle. As if he was afraid to let himself get comfortable with having me around. Like he was afraid that I was going to disappear again. I’d told him I wasn’t going anywhere, but that didn’t seem to matter. We were still building that trust. I’d just have to prove myself to him over time.
Last week, since I typically didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving, Finn, Layla, and Griffin—who was beginning to warm up to me—had invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner. It’d been a really long time since I’d been anywhere but the hospital for the holiday, so it’d turned out to be a fun time. I was even looking forward to Christmas this year. Normally, it was a day spent feeling sorry for myself. But this year I’d have people to share it with. And not just people. I’d have Finn.
I’d just showered and changed at work before heading over to the bakery. Finn was back on his later schedule, so he usually went in around ten in the morning and stayed until eight or so at night, depending on whether or not he was caught up in his latest project. Layla and Griffin went in early in the morning and left in the early evening.
When the bell on the door rang overhead, I called out, “It’s just me.” Knowing that Finn was there by himself, I didn’t want him to get up from what he was doing.
“Hey,” Finn called back.
As I made my way to the back, I took in my boyfriend. He was concentrating so hard that his lips were puckered and his eyebrows were scrunched up, his green eyebrow ring catching the light. He looked adorable and I couldn’t help but smile at him. When I reached him, I kissed his temple and his piercing, then sat at the table beside his workbench so I wouldn’t bump him.
“What is this for?” I asked.
“A wedding topper. I’m actually shipping it to Baltimore when I finish it,” he said while maintaining his puckered concentration-lips.
“I didn’t know you shipped them,” I said. He was making the head of a man and using different tools to make the details of its face. I was still fascinated by how easily he did it.
“I typically don’t, but this is for an old friend from college,” he replied without looking away from his little sculpture-guy.
I looked at the name on the slip that was on the table. “Levi Maher,” I read aloud.
“Yeah. He went to my school’s sister college, but we ended up working on a project together. He’s a photographer, so he had to take pictures of my baking and decorating process. I don’t know, the schools were trying to bring us together or something… I think we were testing out how it’d work or whatever.” He glanced at me for a moment before looking back at his work. “He’s a nice guy, a little younger than us. He found me and asked if I could ship it. Hopefully it’ll make it there in one piece.”
I nodded. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” I picked up a little crumb of fondant and started rolling it between my fingers. “So your friend’s getting married?”
He grinned at me. “Yep. And this is kind of a rush order for some reason.”
I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me. I looked around and saw the beginnings of a baby elephant, a couple of trees, and another groom. “You’re doing two wedding toppers this week?”
“Huh?”
I pointed at the other groom.
“Oh, no. That’s for Levi too. It’s two grooms.”
“Uh… cool.” My voice cracked.
Finn glanced at me. “Why do you suddenly look pale? Are you sick?”
I shook my head and pulled on my collar. “No, I’m fine.” My voice rose an octave.
He eyed me for a long moment as I sat there panicking a little. Then he suddenly snorted and said, “Are you seriously freaking out because I’m making a wedding topper for a gay couple? What? You afraid I’m gonna want to get married now? Is that it?”
“No,” I squeaked.
He chuckled. “You’re a terrible liar.” He rolled his eyes. “And for your information, this isn’t the first same-sex marriage topper I’ve made. Plus, we’ve only been dating for like two months. I’m not ready to marry you.” He reached over with his foot and pushed my leg. “I mean, I would like to get married one day… in the future.”
My eyes widened. Finn knew how I felt about marriage, why the hell was he saying that?
He shook his head. “Wow, you are seriously spazzing out right now. What the hell, Aar? We used to talk about this when we were kids. I know you think it’s kind of a sham, but you always said you were open to it.”
That was true, but a lot had changed since then, too. “I know,” I said when I finally found my voice. “That’s just… a big commitment.” I in no way wanted to go into my reasons for being freaked out. It wasn’t something I was ready to discuss with him… probably wouldn’t be ready for a long time, honestly.
He sighed. “You’ll have to get over it eventually… but not for a few years, spaz. Getting married isn’t even on my radar. I seriously work on wedding cakes every day, Aar, this is nothing new.”
I knew I wanted to spend forever with Finn, but marriage… well, I just didn’t have a good image of marriage, or what a married couple looked like. I never had as a kid, and my image had only worsened as an adult.
Finn’s softened voice brought my attention back to him. “You know it wouldn’t be like that, right? It would still be us, Finn and Aaron, same as always. We’d just be linked together even further. But… we wouldn’t be like them. You know that, don’t you?”
I took a deep breath to clear my thoughts. Finn was right. Our relationship was nothing like my parents’ relationship. Not at all. But Finn didn’t know that I had other causes to be worried. Things I didn’t want him to know about. I nodded my head. “You’re right…” I wiped my sweaty brow. “Sorry.”
Finn set his stuff on the table, then walked over and stood between my legs. He leaned in and kissed my lips. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I shouldn’t have said anything when I know how you feel about it. I’m sorry I freaked you out.”
I shook my head. “No, you were right. I’m—”
Finn cut me off with a finger to my lips. “Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen, okay?” After I nodded, he changed the subject. “You said in your text that you had something you wanted to ask me?”
I cleared my throat and shook away the weirdness. I had nothing to worry about any time soon. “Uh, yeah. The hospital is having its annual holiday party in two weeks. It’s a Saturday night, and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me?”
He looked surprised. “Really? Like as your date?”
I furrowed my brow. “Of course as my date. What else would you be? Why would you even ask that?”
“Um…” He licked his lips and looked away from me. “Because I haven’t met any of your friends, so I thought that maybe you didn’t want them to know about me.”
I gasped. “Finn.” Was he being serious right now? “You thought I was hiding you?” My voice rose an octave for the second time in the past twenty minutes.
He shrugged. “I didn’t know.”
“Why in the world didn’t you ask me about it?”
He shrugged and wouldn’t look at me.
I told him, “The only reason you haven’t met anyone is because I don’t ever see these people outside of work. I think the last time I went out with Evelyn was maybe last spring sometime? I’m not even sure.”
“Really?”
He still wasn’t looking at me, so I grabbed his chin. “Yes, really. I’m so sorry you thought I was hiding you. I swear that Evelyn and all the nurses I work with know about you. They’ve been bugging me to bring you around so they can meet you.”
He searched my eyes, then seemed to melt a little. He sorta fell into me, wrapping his arms around my waist and tucking his head under my chin. I embraced him back, holding him tight and wishing I could erase all his insecurities.
This side of Finn was new. He hadn’t been so unsure of himself or his place in my life when we were in high school, so I was still learning how to navigate it. Obviously I was doing a shit job of it, but I was trying. It probably didn’t help that neither of us had said the L word since that first night when Finn had told me about his suicide attempts. It had been easy then, reassuring him when he’d needed it. But for some reason saying it a second time was a lot harder, even though there was no doubt in my mind that I loved him. Still loved him. Loved him more than I had before, which I hadn’t even thought was possible.
I ran my hand over his hair, then reached down, grabbed the back of his thighs and pulled him onto my lap. He grunted in surprise, but then sat up farther and rested his forehead against mine. I gently pushed his back until our chests were flush against one another, then I tilted my head to kiss him slowly. I couldn’t get enough of his lips and tongue. I was constantly kissing him, not that he seemed to mind.
After we made out for a good fifteen minutes, I broke the kiss and breathlessly asked, “So I take that as a yes?”
He huffed out a laugh. “Yes. Definitely yes.”
I smiled at that before devouring his mouth again and sliding my hand up the back of his shirt.
He broke the kiss and breathlessly said, “Let me finish this so we can get home and I can get you naked.”
I chuckled. “Only if you promise to get naked too.”
He rolled his eyes. “Obviously.” He pecked my lips, then looked me in the eyes. “You’re okay now? Not spazzing anymore?”
I blew out a breath. “I’m okay.” I opened my mouth to tell him why I’d been so freaked out, but then I slammed my mouth shut. I didn’t want to ruin tonight, and if I told him, he wouldn’t be looking at me the way he was now. He’d be upset and hurt. I didn’t want to hurt him. I whispered, “I’m okay, promise.”
He eyed me, looking like he didn’t really believe me, but then he nodded and slid off my lap, cleaning up his work station.
Instead I decided to ask him something that had been plaguing my mind for months. I cleared my throat. “I want to ask you something, but you have to promise not to get upset at me.”
He eyed me, then sighed. “Okay, go for it.”
I took a moment to gather my thoughts before saying, “When we were kids, you were always so happy and carefree. I guess… I guess I was just wondering how you went from that to… being depressed.” I almost said to trying to kill yourself, but I figured that would be pretty assholey of me.
He didn’t look up from the figure he was working on. “It was always easy being happy when I was around you, probably because I was always happy to be spending time with you. You were my… one happy place growing up. Outside of that… my life was pretty shitty. You know my parents were assholes and didn’t give a shit about me, and at school, I got picked on all the time.” He shrugged. “I mean, I guess I was just never comfortable being myself around anyone else. So when I moved to Baltimore and was cut off from you completely… well,” he shrugged again, “I was cut off from my support system, and I was too shy and scared to reach out to anyone new.” He finally looked over at me. “I just let all of the shitty things that had happened to me, that were happening to me, take over until that was all I could see. I couldn’t bring myself out of it.” He took a deep breath. “That’s the best way I can describe it, I think.”
I grabbed onto his knee and looked down. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there for you.”
“Aar,” he said as he tilted my chin up, “there’s nothing you could’ve done. The depression wouldn’t have just magically gone away. Nothing about this was your fault, in any way. Please stop worrying about it and feeling guilty. It’s done and over with. I’m okay now, my meds work, and I’m healthy. That’s all that matters.”
I stepped between his legs and wrapped my arms around him, holding him as tight as I dared. I whispered against his hair, “Please promise me that you’ll talk to me if you ever start to feel off. Promise me that we’ll get help if we need it.”
He nodded against me. “I promise.” He leaned back and pushed his sleeve up, showing the arrow tattoo he had on his forearm, running the length of one of his scars. “I got this one right here to remind me of where I’ve been and where I’m going. The scars remind me of my past, but the reason I got the arrow was because an arrow can only be shot forward, it can’t go backwards. It’s a reminder to keep pushing forward. There’s nothing I can do to change the past, I can only choose to change my future.”
I grabbed his hand so I could kiss his scar, then kiss his arrow. “That’s beautiful.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really tell people the reasons I got my tattoos because it’s always something really personal, ya know? Each one has a special meaning to me that’s just mine… but I don’t mind telling you.”
I held his chin and placed a gentle kiss on his lips as I murmured, “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
He grinned against me. “You’re welcome, Romeo.”
I smiled and kissed him again. After a minute, I asked, “Are you mad that I brought it up?”
He shook his head. “No, I understand why you’d want to talk about it. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it, so I don’t mind talking about it. You can ask me whatever you want.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
He leaned back and kissed the tip of my nose. “You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” I released him.
“Okay, I need like fifteen minutes to finish this before we can go, okay?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Sounds good.” I blew out another breath, beyond relieved that Finn hadn’t responded badly to my questions and forced promises. I’d been worried that he’d shut me out, that he wouldn’t want to talk about it. But as usual, he fucking amazed me. His calm demeanor about the whole thing blew me away. He was gorgeous and so fucking remarkable.
I needed to tell him how much I loved him… and I needed to tell him about my past, but I wasn’t ready yet. I didn’t want to scare him away when we were just getting started again.