Page 18 of Pumpkin
Finlay
“Inever asked you to give up your life for me,” Claire yells, trudging along the snow-covered sidewalk. “Just because you did, doesn’t mean I owe you my best friend’s virginity, or some sick fucked up kink like that.”
“That’s not how it is, Claire,” I say, out of breath from chasing her through thick fucking snow. I grab her arm to make her stop walking. “I love her.”
“You what?”
“I love her.” I shrug. It shouldn’t need more explaining than that.
“Since when?”
“Junior prom.”
“We were like, seventeen then.”
“I know. It’s when I realized.”
“Is that why we left Florida?”
I run my teeth over my bottom lip. “Partly. I had hoped the feeling would go away.”
“So you’ve been skeezing on her all this time?”
“No. Kind of.”
“How long have you been sneaking around behind my back? I thought you hated each other.”
“Tonight is the beginning. We were alone together, and… I couldn’t say no to myself anymore. She’s mine, Claire. And if you don’t like it, well, too bad for you. I gave up football without a second thought, but I won’t give up Petra. She’s everything to me.”
“So, what? You want to marry her or something?”
“Yes,” I say without a moment of hesitation. “I want everything with her.”
She lets out a cloud of breath as she studies my face. “OK,” she says finally.
“OK?”
“Yeah,” she says with a slight roll of her eyes. “You can date my best friend.Butonly if you treat her like a queen, and only if I never have to walk in and witness…thatagain.” She points to the apartment building and shudders. “This is still super icky, but I get it, Fin. If you love her, I’m not going to get in your way.”
“Well, I wasn’t asking your permission, but thank you. She will be worshipped for all eternity. And if we could get out of this freezing cold, I’d like to go back up there and watch her finish baking that pumpkin pie she started.”
“I smelled really good,” she says as I slip my arm around her shoulders and we trudge back to the apartment.
“It did, didn’t it? I told her the pie was going to be her contribution every year.”
“You’re planning that far ahead already?”
“I told you I’m planning to marry her.”
“I guess you’ll be popping out kids too?”
“Of course. Give us a few years and Thanksgiving will be absolute chaos.”
She leans into me and smiles. “You know, Fin. I think that sounds pretty wonderful.”
I squeeze her shoulders. “Yeah. I do too.”
