Chapter Four
Finn
“I can’t believe you’re that Finn,” Tad said for the zillionth time as I helped him settle in his bed.
“I can’t believe that you dated Aaron,” I said back. The thought of Aaron with another man, any other man, not just Tad, made me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that he’d dated and—shudder—had sex with other men—and women—for the past twelve years. I wasn’t a moron. It’s just that I never in a billion years expected to run into one of them. Or date one of his exes, for that matter.
There’d been so many times over the years that I’d thought about looking him up. Truth be told, I’d thought about it way more times than could be counted as healthy. It was just that I hadn’t been sure if I’d like what I’d find. What if he had a family? What if he’d married someone? Someone other than me?
There was no way I’d be able to handle that. So I simply didn’t look.
And I’d had no idea that he’d moved here, to this random city in Nevada. I mean, what were the chances we’d both end up here in Sunberry?
“Do you want me to stay?” I asked Tad as he sat on the edge of his bed.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said dejectedly.
“I could sleep on the couch. At least I could help if you start feeling sick or dizzy or whatever.”
He looked up at me with a sad smile. “You seriously don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind. I don’t have to work tomorrow, since the bakery’s closed on Mondays. It’s not like I have anything going on,” I told him truthfully. I didn’t have much of a social life. My two friends worked with me every day, so a lot of the time, we were too sick of each other to want to hang out outside of work.
“If you want to stay, you can sleep in the bed,” he said with a small shrug as he took his socks off. I hesitated and he caught it, sighing loudly. “Dude, we already went over the whole friends thing,” he pointed between us, “so no worries about me, like, attacking you in your sleep or whatever.” He smirked at me. “I promise I’ll be good. It’s a king-sized bed, so there’s plenty of room.”
I thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t like I’d never slept in the same bed as one of my friends. Of course I had. In fact, I’d somehow ended up sleeping in the same bed as Layla on many occasions… Layla and Griffin, that is. I didn’t even know how that happened, and no, gross, we didn’t do anything. Blech. But we’d had a few sleepovers over the years. Mostly when I’d gone through a bad breakup and they didn’t want to leave me alone to wallow in my sorrows. They were good people.
I smiled at the thought, realizing that Tad was good people too. So I nodded and said, “As long as you don’t think I’ll hurt you.”
“Unless you were planning on sleeping on top of me, I think I’ll be fine.”
I snorted at that, then asked, “Do you have any sweatpants I could borrow or anything?”
“Sure thing. Bottom drawer,” he said, pointing to one of the two dressers in his room. “Can you grab me a pair too?” He was already taking his jeans off, so he was standing there in his undershirt and boxer briefs.
I averted my gaze, but not before I saw just how gorgeous he was underneath his clothes. Damn. He was a sexy guy with all of that hard muscle and mocha-colored skin… and he was covered in tattoos, not like all over, but when his shirt had risen up, I’d seen them sporadically on his ribs, shoulders, and back. He was seriously drop-dead gorgeous. I had no idea—okay, I had some idea, but I wasn’t thinking about it—why I only wanted to be friends with him. But even if Aaron hadn’t popped back into my life tonight, deep down, I knew that Tad and I would be better as friends.
When we finally settled into bed, there was a huge space between us. Apparently king beds were huge, even with two grown men in one. It took me a long time to start to fall asleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about Aaron. It was kinda ironic that I was lying in bed with another man, but he was all I could think about. Just as I started to drift to sleep, I heard Tad sniffling.
“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned that he needed more medicine or something.
He sniffed loudly, then croaked, “Yes.”
“Do you need something? I can go get the Tylenol or whatever? You still have water over there, right?” I started to push the blanket off so I could get up, but Tad suddenly turned onto his back to look at me and grabbed my arm to stop me.
His eyes were red, like he’d been crying. He whispered, “It’s not that…” He looked down and muttered, “Seeing him was… hard.”
I blew out a breath. “I can’t argue with you there.” I opened up my arms. “Come here.”
He eyed me for a moment, but then scooted close enough to rest his head on my shoulder. I squeezed him with one arm, resting the other on my stomach.
After a moment, I told him, “It was hard for me too. I had no idea he lived here… do you… do you know how long he’s lived here?”
“Since med school,” he said quietly.
I blew out another breath. A fresh bout of tears wanting to escape. He’d been here the entire time. We’d been living in the same city for eight years and had never crossed paths. How was that even possible? Why hadn’t I just sucked it up and looked him up? All this time we could’ve… no, I didn’t even know if he’d want to try again. I had no idea what his life was like anymore… what he was like.
“I’m sorry,” Tad whispered. I didn’t know exactly what he was sorry for, but I guessed it was because he knew I was filled with regret.
“Me too,” I whispered back, knowing he was filled with regret too. I kissed the top of his hair, trying to stay away from his stitches, and he relaxed into me a little.
He placed his hand lightly on my chest. “Thank you for staying, Finn… I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
“I didn’t either,” I told him honestly.
We both lay there for a long time, both thinking about the past, but comforting one another the best we could. I didn’t know how we’d suddenly become friends like that, but in that moment, I was very glad I’d met him. Eventually, my mind calmed enough to fall asleep.