I’m such an idiot.
A cute idiot though. Did you guys have a good time?
Yes. Fuck. And please do not tell me to hook up with him again.
Finn sent the zipper-mouth emoji
How was your night?Luka asked, with the sly emoji.
Finn tapped the edges of his phone with his thumbs. He didn’t want to lie to Luka, but he also didn’t want to tell him he spent the night wandering the streets of his neighborhood while Rory abandoned him. Another zipper-mouth emoji would have to do it.
Luka sent a winky face.Gotcha. See you at work.
Work. Fuck. He thought about calling in sick to avoid seeing Rory for a hot second, but his inbox was also busting with things he had to do for Sartini and Thrill Island, and taking a day off to feel sorry for himself at home was not really an option. Besides, it was Rory. He shouldn’t have to hide from them.
Right?
His heart was not convinced, and by the time he got to work, it was threatening to punch through his ribcage. Despite the nerves, his feet took him straight to Rory’s office, because he couldn’t imagine sitting in his office working while Rory sat in theirs.
And there they were…typing. Finn knocked on the doorframe.
Rory’s face crumpled when they saw Finn. “Hi.”
“Hey. Can we talk?” Finn asked.
Rory pushed back from their keyboard. “Of course.”
Finn shut the door behind him. “So…you left.”
“No…” Rory frowned. “Youleft.”
Well…Finn hadn’t considered that. “I—I guess I did. I came back though.”
Rory shrugged and ran their fingers along the edge of their desk. “I thought you didn’t want me there anymore.”
“Of course I want you there.” Finn resisted the urge to scoop Rory into his arms.
Rory looked up, lower lip trembling. “But you won’t go to Bailey’s birthday with me?”
And here we are again.“What about Jackson?”
“Things are not done with Jackson, trust me, but I can’t punish Bailey for that. She’s already been through so much.”
“Of course, and I want to support her, too. But I can’t go to her party, Rory. I’m not wanted there.”
“But—” Rory was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door. “Come in?” they said, blinking rapidly.
The door opened and Ilona’s raven head popped into the room. “Finn, Rory, just who I wanted to talk to. I saw the latest email from Markos and the park is looking amazing!”
“Yeah,” Finn said, doing his best to ignore the two deep black pools of emotion on Rory’s face and flip his brain into work mode. “We’re a little behind now since we added the VR ride, but I think the rest of the remodel is about done. Just a few finishing touches.”
“Excellent. How about the app, Rory?”
“It’s great. I’m scheduling our testing now. I think we should have the user experience team go through the registration flow one more time, and get a group from QA to start some bug testing. I’m still waiting to hear back about API integration with their POS but they gave me a data dump of available fields to put in staging.”
Damn, it’s hot when they talk like that,Finn’s groin observed, despite the turmoil that his heart was in.
The two of them answered a few more of Ilona’s questions, then she requested an update in a few days and clacked off down the hall.