Page 58 of Brad & Finn
“For our twenty-year reunion!” Chloe said, bouncing up onto one foot, her beautiful purple dress flowing around her feet.
“And what are we going to do?”
Thankfully, he could recite this cheer by memory. What it said that he’d memorized all of Finn’s cheers, he didn’t want to think about.
“We’re going to go to—” Chloe rolled the pom poms in front of her before throwing one arm up in the air. “Give me a P,” she said, in a volume below a shout, but loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
Brad had planned for this to be a call-and-response between just him and Chloe on the football field, and it would have been cute and funny, and maybe even would have made Finn laugh. Instead, Brad replied with the required “P,” and when Chloe asked for an “R” he said it a bit louder, and some of the folks in the room joined in. By the “O” the whole room responded, and the “M” actually echoed around the old walls of the hotel lobby.
At least he could give Finn a public promposal experience. Folks were standing up, and someone even had their phone out.
“What’s that spell?” Chloe asked, and she turned to look at Brad expectantly.
He made sure Chloe was looking directly into his eyes before he blinked twice.
Chloe’s smile froze, and her hands lowered ever so slightly.
Brad somehow managed to avoid Finn’s gaze, even though it felt like a physical weight around his shoulders. He could see Finn’s bemused smile, and he prayed it didn’t disappear as he said, “It spells, Finn, will you go to prom with Chloe?”
Brad had seen plenty of off-Broadway productions while living in Chicago, so he knew exactly what it looked like when a curtain closed. As he glanced at Chloe out of the corner of his eye, he saw the moment her face shuttered, and she pasted a cheerleader-worthy smile on her face.
Finn chewed on the bottom of his lip, his arms winding their way around his chest.
“What do you say, hon?” Chloe asked, her smile turning tender as she lowered the pom poms down to her sides. “I know you’ve always wanted a promposal, so I asked Brad to help.”
“Uhm…yeah, of course, I…” Finn glanced around at all the people, and then a painfully fake smile seemed to claw its way out of him. “Yes, I will go to prom with you.”
The room broke out into applause, and someone even wolf-whistled. The two former cheerleaders walked towards each other, meeting for a production-worthy hug, and the onlookers gave a few more hoots and hollers before dispersing back to whatever they were doing.
When Chloe pulled back from the hug, she gestured for Brad to come forward, and he did, feeling like a man approaching his execution.
“Well…you nailed the promposal,” Finn said, gazing skeptically at the pompoms. “Where did you even get these from?”
“Kendall gave them to me as a joke,” Brad said softly, keeping his eyes on Finn’s hands and the way he was wringing them in front of his chest. “I think she told your coach she lost them and she got new ones.”
“That sounds like Kendall,” Finn said absently.
Brad’s fingers tightened, and he remembered he was holding the flowers. When he handed them to Finn, their fingers brushed in a way that sent icy hot tingles down his arm.
“I kind of thought we weren’t doing the whole fake dating thing anymore, but…regardless, I really appreciate it.” He pressed the flowers to his face, and his lips turned up into the tiniest of smiles. “These are gorgeous, Chlo. You shouldn’t have.”
The look Chloe gave Brad could have stripped the paint off the wall behind him. “I wish I could take all the credit,” she said, “but while it was my initial idea, Brad did all the execution.”
Heat seared along Brad’s neck and prickled in his armpits. His eyes were prickling, too, but he ignored all of that, realizing with sinking dread that there was no way he was going to be able to go to dinner and the dance. Chloe would want an explanation, and she looked pissed enough that she might demand it in front of Finn, and that could ruin everything. He needed to fix things for work and take the rest of the evening to figure things out in his stupid head.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said slowly, looking at Chloe, before turning his entire attention on Finn. “For not being able to join you tonight. I missed a few important emails from work, one of them about the promotion and job change, and it's become urgent. I need to track down some documents, possibly go back to my mom’s place, and then I might try and get some actual sleep tonight.”
Finn ducked his head, but not before Brad saw a look of raw hurt on his face. Sweat ran down Brad’s sides, and he rushed to clarify.
“Not that I haven’t enjoyed the past two nights!” he exclaimed. “Honestly, they’ve been some of the best I’ve had in…well, in a very long time. I just haven’t gotten a good night's sleep in weeks, and it’s starting to take a toll.”
Finn kept his eyes on the floor but slowly nodded. “That…makes sense. I’m sorry you have so much work on a weekend and…that we won’t get to see you tonight. Chloe and I will be in town until Monday evening, if…”
Part of him wondered if he should cut the cord now and not drag Finn through more of his floundering and uncertainty. But then Finn looked up at him through his soft brown lashes, and Brad’s resolve crumbled.
“I’m also catching a late flight on Monday,” he told Finn. “It made the flight almost half the price, so I thought I’d stick around for a bit.”
“Good, then we’ll both see you tomorrow,” Chloe said, and there was no doubt in Brad’s mind it was a threat. It hung between them until Brad nodded.
