Page 41 of Finn

I laugh and ball up a paper napkin.

Tossing it at him, I say, “Shut up.”

He laughs right along with me, and the rest of the night is a blast. We enjoy our pizza and conversation.

When we leave, we make our way to the parking lot, where our vehicles are parked. We drove separately tonight and just met here earlier.

That was my suggestion, as it seemed less date-like.

Funny thing is, we arrived at the same time, so we’re parked right next to each other.

We reach our cars, and, standing at the back between the two, it suddenly starts feeling like we just had a date.

A really great one.

And here comes the awkward goodbye.

“So,” Finn says, hands in his jeans pockets. “That was fun.”

“It was,” I agree.

He rocks back on his heels, then forward. “Um, yeah, so, anyway, we have a couple of away games coming up.”

“I saw that on the schedule,” I reply.

“That means I won’t be home till next Monday. Then we have a game here on Tuesday.”

I nod. “Saw that too.”

Lord, this is as awkward as I expected it to be.

And we were doing so well up to this point.

“Anyway.” He blows out a breath. “Would you be up for doing something next week? After our home game, that is.”

I grimace. “Ah, I think I’m working next Tuesday evening. Plus, Ellie didn’t mention that she’s going to that game, so I won’t be there either. As you know, she’s my ticket connection.”

“Oh.” His brows shoot up. “I didn’t mean that we should do something directly after the game. I meant, like, later in the week. Maybe Wednesday night? That way we’d have more time. We could even catch a movie.”

“Ahh, got it.” I think about my schedule and don’t recall a shift at either of my jobs on Wednesday evening, so I tell him, “Wednesday should be good. And a movie sounds like fun.”

“Great, cool. We’ll go see one, then.” He sighs. “Do you just want to work out the details when it gets closer?”

“Yeah, let’s do that. I’m not even sure what’s playing. Not to mention, it’s getting late.”

“It is,” he agrees. He then kind of shuffles his feet and says, “There is one more thing I want to say before we go.”

Uh-oh.

I murmur a tentative “Yeah?”

Chuckling and clearly picking up on my trepidation, he assures me, “It’s nothing bad. It’s just that if you ever want to go to a game and Ellie isn’t going, just let me know. I can always get you a ticket.”

“Oh, okay.” I let out a relieved breath. “That would be fantastic. Thank you, Finn.”

Thank God what he wanted to say wasn’t anything bad. I don’t know what I thought it could be. Maybe that he’s done trying to be just friends, and if we can’t date, then there’s no sense in continuing this.

Although that’s probably more of my own feelings talking.

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