Page 63 of Chaos

“Did you get arrested?”

I nod.

“Having a really hard time picturing you in an orange jumpsuit, princess.”

A choked laugh razes my throat. “I had to, uh,” my tongue darts out to wet my bottom lip, a lie falling from it a second later, “do community service.”

Blatant curiosity flares in those dark eyes, but he keeps it on a leash—he tables it in favor delivering a far more devastating blow. “Are you telling me this to try convince me you did deserve it?”

“So,” I continue before Finn can do anything about the blatant curiosity I watch flare in those dark eyes. “I did deserve it. Maybe Lux was shitty today, but I am infinitely shittier a lot more often.”

“I don’t think that.”

“Give it time. You will.”

There goes that frown again. There goes thatmouthagain, asking things the owner has no business wanting to know, things I don’t understand why he wants to know, why he cares. “Do you not have friends because you don't want friends or because you're so convinced no one could possibly like you?”

“Jesus.” I laugh hoarsely, the noise coming out as flustered as I feel. “When did this become a therapy session?

The water laps at his collarbones as he dips further beneath it, bringing himself almost eye-level with me, only a handful of inches away. “You don't want me to like you.”

“I don't really care, Finn.”

“I think you do.”

“Fuck off.”

He hums, something unsurprised about the bob of his head. “Right on cue.”

“What?”

“That little defense mechanism of yours.”

“Let me guess,” I muse with no real interest, with resentment because I hate how much he thinks he knows me, how much hedoesknow me. “Psychology major?”

“I didn’t go to college.” His expression turns sly. “They didn’t have a course in ranch bitchin’.”

Yet another laugh tickles my throat, but it’s quiet, short-lived. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Even closer he drifts, so close that his breath scalds the lower half of my face where the water has kissed my skin and left it cool. “Wanna know a secret?”

My eyes flit between both of his, trying and failing to gauge the meaning behind their gleam.

“Kinda liked it.”

I choke on another laugh, then on a lungful of water as I dip too low and accidentally inhale more than just air. I scowl as I splutter, splashing Finn for doing this to me, for grinning and splashing me back.

With ease, he catches both of my flailing hands in one of his, putting an end to my watery attack and holding me still as he decimates another one of the messy inches between us. “You know what else I like?”

Eyeing his grip pointedly, I wiggle my hands. “If it’s something kinky, you can keep it to yourself.”

It’s his turn to choke now. To splutter. To laugh, once he collects himself, hearty and real and loud. “Jesus, Lottie, how can anyone not like you?”

Like a punch to the gut, it strikes me that while this isn’t the first time I’ve heard those words, it is the first time they’ve sounded like that. Like he’s genuinely asking, like he actually doesn’t know. He’s smiling, but it’s not sarcastic, he isn’t teasing me.

He knows that, I think. He didn’t know it when he said it, but with whatever instinctive outward reaction I fail to stifle, he comes to a quick realization.

Relenting his grip on my wrists, he drops below the waterline again. Like a damn predator, all knowing eyes and a sharp gaze, as he just watches for a long moment. When he rises enough to reveal his mouth, its smiling again. Still not sarcastic. Still not teasing. “You failed, y’know.”

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