Page 103 of Best Friends, Tennessee

I wanted to try with Finn.

To try with Tennessee, now.

To try to live in a way that felt right, not just in the way I’d been so dead set on when I was a powerless teenager.

“All right,” Finn finally said. “Full honesty: I support you trying. And even if you decide you hate me and hate Tennessee all over again, it’ll be worth it.”

“I could never fucking hate you,” I said, closing the gap between us and squeezing him as tight as I could. “Not possible. And as far as Tennessee goes, I’m going to give it my all, for once. Not with one foot out the door.”

When I pulled back to kiss Finn, I was shocked when I saw a stray tear falling down his cheek.

“I’m fine,” Finn said, wiping it away and taking a shaky breath in. “I just never thought I’d hear you say that.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he told me.

I swallowed. “So. Want to come check out this art museum with me?”

18

FINN

Old flames can’t hold a candle to you.

At first the small museum seemed like something Ori would have hated. The front rooms were old and so country western themed that I half expected him to high tail it out of there the moment we walked in.

There were many paintings and photographs of horses. Cowboys. Tennessee mountains and even hay bales.

But then the tour went on toward the new, renovated portion of the museum, where Ori had said a rich alum had donated to make the place something special.

And I’dneverseen a look on Ori’s face like the one he made when he saw their modern paintings room. It was big, beautiful, and seemingly endless, and we were shown around corner after corner, each one having better paintings than the last. I didn’t know shit about art compared to Ori, but I could tell the place was impressive, and when Ori got into conversations about the artists with the tour guide, his face lit up.

My heart soared inside me.

He likes it.

He actually fuckin’ likes it here.

I was a simple man, and if someone I loved was happy, that was going to make me fucking ecstatic. I knew Ori felt like a failure after leaving LA, but if he could work in a place this nice… maybe he could really be happy, too.

There were three levels, and the photography portion and the prints and sculptures area were my personal favorites. The tour guide told us that they rotate their collections frequently, and there would always be new art making its way in.

When we stepped out of the place an hour later, Ori looked like he’d just been on a roller coaster. We got in my truck and he sat in the passenger seat, looking out the front window, dazed.

“Honesty time,” I said. “What did you think?”

He shook his head. “It was incredible,” he said.

But there was a look on his face that… wasn’t exactly happiness.

“So what’s got you lookin’ like you just got bad news?”

A flare of worry sprung up in my chest for the first time all day.

Shit.

What if it wasn’t good enough for him? What if he was already regretting everything, thinking of how much better the places were in LA?

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