Page 110 of Chaos

The question of the fucking night.“I asked you first.”

“Because I’m trying, Charlotte.”

It strikes some part of me, some weak, malleable part, that this is the first time someone has said my name, my actual name, like that.Tenderly. Not in anger or reprimand or to get some point across, but just to say it. And that little, susceptible part likes it. It wants to hear it again.

The rest of me, it hits like a brick shattering glass.

“Baby,” I drawl, and Finn winces because it doesn’t sound anything like the endearment he occasionally tosses—tossed—at me. It sounds mean and mocking and I hate it even though I’m the one who made it that way. “I am not in the mood for cryptics.”

It hardens him, that word. More that it hurts him. Shifts him from irritated to furious—not at me though, I don’t think, but then I don’t know where else it would be aimed. “How can you be so fucking sharp, but so clueless about this? Do you really not get it?Fuck,” he curses, he backs up, he drags his hands down his face before levelling me with a look I can only describe as devastated, beforeguttingme with it. “You break my heart, you know that? The fact you can’t tell breaks my fucking heart.”

All of a sudden, mine doesn’t feel so whole either. “Is this a riddle? Because I’m not in the mood for those either.”

“I’d spell it out for you if I didn’t think there'd be a Lottie-shaped hole in the wall after.”

“We’re outside.” I gesture wildly,brattily, at all the empty space around us. “No walls.”

Finn groans. Bleeds pure exasperation, hands on his hips, eyes boring through my face to my fucking brain. “Do you know why I’m out here?”

“Star-gazing?”

He huffs, those long legs eating up the space between us until we’re not apart at all. Until I see every ounce of truth when he lowly admits, “To make sure you didn’t bring home some useless fuck who doesn’t deserve you.”

My lips part with a quiet gasp. Dark eyes drop to them, narrowing at the words they form. “That’s a little hypocritical.”

“No, it’s not,baby. It’s different. Because I was never gonna bring her home.”

I tense at the mere thought, and Finn notices.

And he croons, “Do you even know that you’re jealous? Can you admit it? Or are you that fucking scared of feeling anything other than anger?”

I flinch. “Fuck you, Finn.”

A single step away—that’s all I manage before he stops me. With a hand on my waist. With a mouth against my temple. With sombre, honest words. “I can’t remember a single thing she said. I don’t know what she was wearing. I don’t remember what drink she ordered. I do rememberallshe ordered was a drink, one drink, because that’s all I lasted before I told her I couldn’t do this.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snap without realizing what I’m snapping, what I’m admitting, what causes the corner of Finn’s mouth to curl.

“A denim mini skirt. The hem was all frayed and you kept pulling on the loose threads. Your shirt was red and lacy, one of those ones you tie together in the front, and I still imagine tugging that bow free. You had these little hot pink butterfly clips in your hair and Eliza teased you, said they clashed, and you smirked and said, ‘well, they match something else,’ and I spent the entire drive home wondering if you meant what I thought you meant. If you were sitting in my passenger seat wearing a skirt the size of a fucking belt, and wearing a bright pink thong underneath it.”

Whether to tease him or to torture him, I’m not sure, but I snidely admit, “I was.”

“I know. You fucking flashed me when you got out of my truck.”

His grip shifts. Coasts around to the small of my back, to the skin just above the waistband of a different skirt, no less mini. “I remember exactly what you wore that day. I remember everything you said. I remember everything yousay, and I don’t even try. It just sticks. And that’s the difference, Lottie.I know. I know what I want and who I want it from. You haven't figured it out yet. You think you’re still looking.”

“And you think you’re what I’m looking for?”

“I think you're terrified I might be.”

I open my mouth—to scoff, to swear, to deny, I’m not sure, but I don’t get a chance to do any of it. Because Finn is suddenly turning me towards him, cupping my face, stealing any words from my throat, any thoughts from my brain, the air from my fucking lungs. “I wanted to kiss you in that closet. I wanted to never stop kissing you. I want to kiss you pretty fucking often. I want to touch you. I want to tease you until you fix that pretty scowl on me. I want to do a lot of things that are not friendly. Things that you don’t want. I’m only trying to respect that. I’monlybeing your friend. I’m keeping my distance even though itkills me because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and because I need a fucking break from all this wanting. Because that kills me too and it’sworse.”

I’m frozen. Stuck in place, and in thought too. Held by hands and shock and utter disbelief.

“So, what?” I mouth slowly, Iscoff. “You… like me? That’s what you’re saying?”

“There you go.”

There you go, he says. Proud. Relieved as if he’s been waiting for me to catch up for a while.

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