Page 149 of Chaos

Finn, I groggily recognize.Finn in my bed. Finn holding me in my bed.

“Five more minutes,” he promises as if I’m putting up any kind of a fight. As if I’m not slumped half on top of him like dead, boneless weight. Like I don’t have one hand pressed flat over histhumping heart, the other fisting the waistband of his sweats like I’m afraid he might roll away.

He apologizes again, and this time, I get why. He thinks I’m stiff in his arms because I’m uncomfortable. That I woke up and went rigid because, by my own admission, I don’t like being touched.

Not because I’m so completely confused by his presence.

Even though he already told me, I ask, “What’re you doing here?”

“Worried,” comes out as a drowsy sigh. The bicep beneath my cheek tenses as the fingers curled around my hip coast upwards to tangle in my hair. “Wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

I stiffen even more. “I’m not hungover, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Finn sighs again—tired in a different sense of the word. “It’s not.”

“I wasn’t out drinking all day yesterday.”

“I know that.”

I roll out of his arms. Sit up. Shiver again as I throw off the duvet and cold morning air replaces a much warmer embrace. “You don’t have to babysit me or whatever this is.”

A sleepy frown creasing his forehead, Finn watches me scuttle to the other side of the room through squinted eyes. Covering a yawn with the back of one hand, he props himself up on the other. “What?”

My back against the window, I cross my arms over my chest, palming the ball of discomfort hovering over my thumping heart. “I told you. I knew you would regret it, I knew I’d disappoint you, but you wouldn’t listen, and now I’m the one—”

A goddamnscoffcuts me off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m fine. I don’t need your pity or whatever this is. You changed your mind and that’s—”

Again, he doesn’t let me finish. It’s the soft snap of fabric being flung through the air that cuts me off this time. Hurried, determined footsteps. Hands on my cheeks—lips close behind.

They touch my forehead.

The furrow between my brows.

The freckled slope of my nose.

And I just stand there. Unmoving. Silent. Stunned. Stomach hurting at the butter-soft, crumpled expression an inch from my face.

Two calloused thumbs stroke my cheekbones. “Oh, honey.”

Oh, honey,he says.

Oh, your poor, pathetic thing, I hear. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He doesn’t stop—if anything, it gets worse. More intense. Dizzying. “Like what?”

“Like you feel bad for me.”

“I feel a lot of things for you, Lottie. None of them arebad.”

That can’t be true. He… “I’m really confused.”

“Why, baby?”

Baby. My eyes close. Itch. Ache like my chest does. “You kicked me out. You weren’t there when I woke up. You… You said I was cruel.”

“I was upset.” The freckles on my jawline earn his attention. “A little mad.” His lips find the corner of my mouth. “Jealous.”

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