Page 111 of Chaos

Except I don’t think I have caught up. I’m still so lost. I repeat, “You like me.”

Finn hums.

My eyes narrow. “Say it then.”

He makes me wait. Dips closer. Sweeps calloused thumbs across my cheekbones, tucks my hair behind my ears, brackets my neck so his thumb hovers directly over my fluttering pulse—so he can feel it become even more erratic. “I like you.”

“You were just on a date with someone else.”

“I had half a drink and came home, and you told me to go.”

“If I told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?”

“Yes, Lottie,” he snaps without hesitation. “I would. I would do literally anything you asked me to do. I wouldn’t even question it.”

I go so very still. “That doesn’t sound very healthy.”

“Doesn’t feel it either.”

“You should probably stop then.”

“Can’t. Wouldn’t even if I could. Don’t want to.”

I don’t have a name for the emotion that sweeps over me. It’s not one I’ve ever felt before. It’s entirely unfamiliar, it’s utterly unnerving, and it’s… warm. Light. All-encompassing, calm comfort.

Terrifying.

It grips me by the throat, an unyielding noose beneath a soft embrace. I can’t breath, I try to, I manage the tiniest wheeze and—

I recoil at the whiff of alcohol that invades my fragile senses. “I thought you said you only had half a drink.”

“I did.”

It doesn’t smell like he did.Fuck, now that I look at him,reallylook at him, it doesn’t look like he did either. His eyes are a little red, a little too heavy-lidded, and his face is a touch too expressive, as if he can’t control what crosses it. Like he maybe can’t control his tongue either. “Quite the lightweight then, huh?”

“I had a few beers with the guys when I got home.”

Disappointment knocks me back another step. Has me curling my fingers around thick wrists and yanking them down, pushing him away.

Finn frowns. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know that this, a drunken confession, is my own personal circle of hell. Inebriated words that won’t mean shit tomorrow.

“I’m gonna do you a favor,” I croak, the words cutting my throat. “And forget this ever happened.”

Unknowingly proving my point, it takes more than a couple of seconds for Finn to catch up. “What?”

“I’m giving you an out. You don’t have to wake up tomorrow with beer fear, okay? I’ll pretend you never said anything.”

“Lottie, no—”

“Finn.” My voice shakes. I shake. My fuckingsoulshakes, ittrembles. “You’re drunk. You’re confused. You’re gonna regret this in the morning.”

“I won’t,” he insists, but I don’t believe him. I can’t believe it.

How can he expect me to?

“Go to bed, Finn.” Keeping as much distance between him as possible, I dart around him and up the porch steps,relief deadening my nerves when he doesn’t try to stop me, devastation ravaging the rest of me. “And don’t bring this up again.”

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