Page 73 of Business or Pleasure

Finn must be able to tell I’m nervous, because after he pulls on a painfully soft-looking sweater, he kneels at my armchair, laying a hand on mine.

“Hey,” he says, and I take it back—his voice is the warmest of all. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll make it.”

But my body refuses to believe him. It’s not just the flight delay or the chapters—it’s all of it, all at once. My lungs are tight, throat thick, mouth dry, limbs heavy—

No. Not now. Not here.

I try to nod, but that doesn’t seem to work, either. The panic is set deep in my muscles, racing through my veins and pinning me in place.

“Chandler?” he says. I can barely hear him over my labored inhales, rushed exhales. Fuck. I can’t control the sounds spilling out of me.

This hasn’t happened in a long time, and the last thing I want is to break down in front of him, with our deadline so close...

“Every—everything’s going wrong,” I manage between guttural breaths. My sentence ends in a hiccup, and Finn catches my laptop before it falls to the floor.

His brows draw together in concern as he gently places the laptop on the rug next to him. “I know it’s been a weird day. A rough day. But we’re going to figure it out. You don’t have to do this alone, sweetheart. I’m here.”

Sweetheart.

The unexpectedness of that word only pulls my pulse into a more frantic rhythm. He doesn’t even seem to realize what he’s said.

A vigorous shake of my head. “I don’t want to fuck this up for you. It’s important. And I just—I want to do it justice.”

“You’re not fucking anything up.” His voice is firm but kind, and now he’s stroking up my arms, this soothing motion that helps anchor me to the room. Up, and I can feel the chair beneath me. Down, and I can hear the flickering of the fireplace. “Listen to me. There is no one I’d trust to do this justice more than you. I’ve probably told you that a few dozen times at this point, so I’m a little worried that you’re going to get a big head about it.”

A laugh slips out.

“Is there anything I can do for you right now? Anything you need?”

His questions are too earnest. Because what I’m not sure I can tell him is that it’s not just right now, this deadline. It’s all the things I can’t say yet, the questions I packed in my suitcase next to my favorite jeans and electric toothbrush. I’ve been running for so long that I’m no longer sure where the finish line is, or if there’s a finish line at all. And sometimes that terrifies the shit out of me.

My whole life, I’ve been working myself to the bone, chasing something that’s always just out of reach.

“Just this,” I say, my voice coming out a little scratchy. But my breathing slows, shoulders starting to relax.

His thumb brushes my knuckles before he drops his hands, and I stare down at the space he touched for longer than I probably should. In the firelight, his hair is the richest gold, strands of gray turning silver. The lovely angles of his face, half cast in shadow. He has never once doubted me, not even during that first meeting with his manager.

“Okay. I—I think I’m okay. Let’s do this.” I make a move to reach for my laptop. “And—thank you.”

Finn’s gaze doesn’t leave mine for a few more seconds. With the fire crackling next to us and the storm raging outside, there’s something almost... romantic about this moment, an adjective I regret as soon as it enters my mind.

If we were two other people, it would be so easy to abandon my laptop, crawl onto his lap, and turn this into some idyllic winter escape.

But we’re Chandler and Finn, and we’re here to work.

It’s as though Finn blinks out of a daze at the same time I do. I force my eyes back to my laptop screen while he takes the other chair, clearing his throat and stretching out his legs.

We work through the evening as quickly as we can, with Finn reading sections as soon as I finish drafting them, offering notes and corrections.

Around seven thirty, Maude from the front desk knocks on the door with a tray of food. “Dinner,” she says sweetly. “Thought you two could use a hot meal.”

We thank her profusely.

“How about this?” I ask an hour later, stomach full of mushroom risotto, turning the laptop to him. It’s a section about his first day on set for Dad in Training. The show was seemingly made solely to enforce gender roles, plotlines revolving around questions like, How on earth will this blue-collar father watch his own kids for a full weekend while his wife’s away? Can he really handle making brownies for his daughter’s bake sale while helping his son with his science fair project? Not to mention the baby—and we all know he can barely change a diaper! Cue laugh track.

Finn reads what I’ve written, about how he was so nervous, he read the stage directions, not just his lines, and how his character, who was initially supposed to skateboard on and off set, much to the annoyance of his TV parents, couldn’t manage to stay upright, so they changed it to a scooter. “This is perfect. You manage to perfectly capture what the show was about without insulting anyone too much. Although I’m not sure I’d mind—Bob Gaffney was an asshole.”

“I watched a couple episodes and I was frankly appalled, if I’m being honest.”

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