Page 28 of Never Too Late

“Baggage,” I chided him. “You know what isn’t baggage? Dancing. We’ve never done that before.” I waggled my fingers at Finn. “Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“I could trip over and fall flat on my face and people will laugh. And it’ll somehow get back to my workplace. And then they’ll laugh. I have to live here. You don’t.”

“I’ll buy you a milkshake,” I said with a wink.

“Oh well, in that case.” He took hold of my hand and let me tug him to his feet. “If we get homophobic abuse aimed at us and end up in a fight, I’m letting you know now that I’ll be informing the police that it’s one hundred percent your fault.”

“Only if they speak English,” I pointed out as I pulled him onto the floor and into my arms. Neither of us really knew how to dance, but it didn’t take us long to figure out that being plastered together and moving semi-rhythmically was enough. There were no homophobic insults thrown our way. In fact, I was pretty sure that at one point someone said “aww” as I gained enough courage to spin Finn around.

“This isn’t so bad,” he finally admitted once we’d been there for about ten minutes and neither of us had tripped over the other’s feet.

“We should take dance classes,” I said. “I think we’ve got a natural aptitude for it.”

“You do, do you?” Finn was laughing, the green eyes alight with mirth making something clench in my chest. “I’m not sure I’d go that far.”

“We could learn to…” I cast about for the name of a dance. “I don’t know, do the tango or something.”

“The tango!” Finn tipped his head back. “U-huh. What else?”

“The waltz.” He arched an eyebrow, challenging me to come up with more. “The… fandango.”

“Not a dance.”

“Not yet. But we could invent it. It’ll become the world’s biggest dance with both old and young desperate to learn how to do it. A dance craze like no other.”

“There’s the ad exec we know and love,” Finn said with a slight eye-roll. “Always looking to sell something as the greatest thing. Even if it doesn’t exist yet.”

There was no arguing with him, so I kissed him instead, more kissing than dancing happening from that point onwards. There were moments where we almost forgot we needed to keep it PG13, both of us laughing when we had to cool things. As ideas went, it was the cherry on top of what had already been a perfect weekend.

I waited until the last possible moment to spoil it, the twinkling lights of Paris our companion, as we walked hand in hand toward Finn’s building. “I have to go back to London soon,” I said.

Chapter Eleven

Finn’s fingers tightened around mine momentarily before he let go altogether. The silence that followed was deafening while I wished with all my might that I’d waited. I could have called him the next day and we could have discussed it over the phone. At least then, I wouldn’t have had to suffer the absence of his touch. And any hope of being able to retrieve what I’d lost shattered as he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Finn?”

“When?”

He delivered the single word as sharp as a whip crack. So sharp that it was all I could do not to reel back from it. “I don’t know. Soon. I’ve been here five days already.”

“Five whole days,” Finn drawled. “Someone give the man a prize for his stamina.”

“Don’t be like that. You knew I had to go back eventually.”

“Yeah,” he said, the lack of emotion in his voice worse than if he’d carried on being angry.

“It’s not like I could just stay here forever. I have people relying on me. An entire workforce.”

“You do indeed.”

I carried on walking, the realization that Finn had come to a grinding halt and I was alone taking a few seconds. I turned to find him studying his watch. “What are you doing?”

“With my watch? Would you believe checking the time? People originally invented watches for that purpose. I understand your confusion, though, in this age of tracking everything from step count to sleep quality with them. But I thought I’d stick to the traditional. I was just thinking about how late you can get a flight. I reckon if you head straight for the airport, you might be in luck.”

Yeah, I’d definitely played this all wrong. It seemed I was just fated to keep fucking up with Finn. “I don’t want to get a flight tonight.”

“Early tomorrow morning, then. You could sleep at the airport.”

I retraced my steps to close the space between us. I ached to reach out and touch him, but knowing he would rebuff any attempt at contact, I curled my fingers into my palms instead. “I don’twantto go. I’d rather stay here.”With you.I didn’t say the last two words out loud. It would have been overkill, and Finn wouldn’t have been receptive to them.

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