Page 129 of Chaos

I back up a step. “Finn.”

It’s a plea. He’s a nice guy. He’ll take mercy on me, I think.

Wrong.

Finn advances, and I retreat. Retreat and retreat and retreat until my back hits the wall, until I’m so flat against it, I’m practically one with the paint. And he advances and advances and advances, but he stops just short of crowding me. Of suffocating me. Of making sure I can’t see, smell, touch anything but him.

There’shis mercy, I recognize.

That’s all I get, I realize.

Two fingers crooking beneath the neckline of my dress, Finn drags me to him. He keeps his grip light, easily swatted away, yet I don’t. Just like I don’t rear back when he stoops, even though he gives me every chance to. The same way he gives me everychance to evade the words I swear I don’t want to hear yet I stand stock-still, braced to receive them. “I like you, Lottie.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck,fuck.

“I like you,” he repeats for good measure. “And I really wanna kiss you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Finn cocks his head. “Why not?”

Though my mouth opens, nothing comes out.

“Thought so.” Near-black eyes sparkle. “You wanna know why I think it’s agreatidea?”

No. Yes. I don’t know.

It doesn’t matter, I soon learn, because it was a rhetorical question. Finn barely waits the breath it would take me to respond before providing an answer of his own. “Because I want to.”

“That’s a little selfish.”

The corner of his mouth quirks. Gets closer as Finn stoops even more. “Becauseyouwant to.”

“Presumptuous.”

“Because I like you.”

“No, you don’t, Finn.” He can’t. He… he just can’t.

Yet he insists, “I do. You said it yourself—I’ve got a giant crush on you.”

“I was joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Finn…” I sigh, weary. “Finn.”

“Yeah, baby?”

I just stare at him, struggling to come up with the right words.

Turns out, I don’t need to. Either he reads my mind or I’m more of an open-book than I thought I was or he just knows me really fucking well, because Finn knows.Ibarely know, yet he does.

His face softens. His grip slackens. It shifts, dropping to find the curve of my waist. His head dips and I hold my breath, my lips fucking parting of their volition as he draws close.

His mouth brushes my cheek. Tracks dry, light kisses down to my jawline, down the slope of my neck until he finds my pounding pulse. Against it, he whispers, “It’s okay. I’m scared too.”

A vehement denial lingers on the tip of my tongue only to be slain by a wet lash of his. “You scare the shit out of me, Lottie. Have since the first day I met you.”

---