Page 68 of Brad & Finn
“I’m not leaving you,” he repeated, and Brad squinted at him. “Even though we’re both going to ‘leave’ tomorrow to go back up north, I’m not leaving you…or ‘us.’”
Brad’s smile felt a hundred years old, like his lips had to break through a layer of dust and calcification to turn up at the sides. He managed to do it, though, because of the sweet way Finn did air quotes with both his free hand and the hand still holding Brad’s.
“You have a job in Chicago, and I have my life in Indianapolis,” Finn said. Brad appreciated the differentiation,and he squeezed Finn’s hand in affirmation as he took another bite of his sandwich. “And I know that this has been a job you wanted—or, at least, thought you wanted—for a really long time. If you decide to keep it and stay in Chicago, I need you to know that we’re going to figure it out. I’m not going to leave you or be disappointed in you, and you won’t be letting me down.”
Brad swallowed his bite, and because there wasn’t much left, he shoved the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and used it as an excuse to gather his thoughts. “My mom—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, taking a quick sip of the blessedly smooth coffee before trying again. “My mom said something similar, except about whether I quit my job. That we would figure it out, and she wouldn’t be disappointed…and I wouldn’t be letting her down.”
Finn’s eyes were round and a little sad. Brad wondered if Finn and his mom had talked about this the night before. “Okay, good,” Finn said. “So, you know that no one is going to leave you or be upset with you for anything to do with your job.”
He felt a little like he was a child, and Finn was having a “big talk” with him. But he also felt like he needed it and like that little voice in his head was listening intently to every word.
“With all that being said, I also want you to know that we have time to figure this all out,” Finn continued. “You don’t need to have all the answers now, and I know what Chloe said to you, and she had the best intentions when saying it, but youdon’thave to be sure about us. You just have to…to want to figure it out together.”
“But shewasright. You deserve to be chosen and to have someone fight for you.”
A cloud passed over the sun, and while Finn’s face was thrown into shadow, his eyes stayed a vivid green. “I do. But you deciding not to prompose when you weren’t ready and then agreeing to sit down and talk today, even though I can see howtired and stressed you are? I’m pretty sure thatisyou choosing me. Or at least, you're choosing to try and fight for me.”
Brad let out a shaky breath, and his next inhale was more like a gasp as his vision wavered. He held onto Finn’s hand like a lifeline.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted. For someone to try to keep showing up every day, even when it’s hard. I feel like you’re pretty much the king of trying and the–the president of doing hard things,” Finn stammered.
It was like a dam broke, and Brad’s next breath was a little easier, and the one after that was almost simple because Finn was right. He knew how to fight for things; he just needed to apply that same determination to himself. He needed to fight for Finn, even if it felt terrifying, scary, and new.
“Idowant to try,” Brad said, his voice still a little breathless. “That’s what I wanted yesterday, for us to talk first, but then I talked to my mom and got that stressful email, and I needed my college transcript and almost broke a vase at the florists, and I was running so late, and then you were in the lobby and–”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Finn said, and Brad realized he had a death grip on Finn’s hand as well as the edge of the table. “It really is okay. Your mom told me about your conversation, and I put two and two together from what I know about you. Hearing Chloe’s side of things made it pretty obvious what happened.”
Brad bounced his knee up and down under the table. “It was all…so much, so fast, and I…I almost went for it. I thought maybe I could figure it all out later. I even told my mom, I was going to try to get through onboarding and orientation, and then find a place to live somewhere in the middle, or more one way or another, and I know I’m going to be gone a lot and long distance is hard, but I thought I could probably figure it out because?—”
Finn’s laugh caught him off guard, and he didn’t get the chance to say, “because I want to be with you, no matter what,”even though he was finally gearing up to say it. Finn’s smile was a welcome distraction, though. It was soft and, maybe a bit pitying, but it still lit up his entire face.
“You don’t have to figure that all out yourself, though!” Finn said. “That’s the whole point I’m trying to make. I mean, a lot of it is going to be decisions you have to make, but I want us to try to figure out the big things together. And if that means that, in the meantime, we can only be friends?—”
“Best friends,” Brad interrupted, even though that wasn’t really what he wanted.
Finn blinked and then slowly nodded. “Best friends.”
“With benefits,” Brad added because, okay, that was a bit closer, though still not right. This “fighting for what he wanted” thing was harder than he’d expected.
Finn’s blink was much slower this time, like he needed to keep his eyes closed for an extra second to process what Brad had just said.
“We can still be best friends—with benefits—while you figure that all out,” Finn said. “Because I don’t want us to rush this. I don’t want you to try and speed run your onboarding or scramble to find a place to live?—”
“With a guest bedroom and a king-sized bed for Chloe,” Brad interrupted again.
He was so close to saying it, so close to saying what he was finally realizing, which was that he didn’t just wantFinn. He wanted alifewith Finn. He wanted to meet Christian and spend time with Chloe; he wanted to keep hanging out with Chloe’s mom and eating her cookies and finding coffee shops they liked—and even ones they didn’t.
Finn stared at him, and even though he didn’t say it, Brad could read it in his eyes. “You’re absurd.” Which he was, but he was also practically bursting at the seams.
“Alright, babe. I don’t want you to scramble to find a place to live, with a guest room and a king-sized bed for Chloe, because no matter where you are, you have an open invitation to my place and my bed, and…”
Finn trailed off, biting into the corner of his lip. Brad hadn’t meant to disrupt Finn’s flow, but it was clear he had. However, it seemed like this was it. This was his chance to fight for Finn before he was able to talk them into something nice and neat and not messy. If they had talked yesterday, or even earlier that morning, before Brad had his heart-to-heart with his mom, Brad probably would have let him. But not anymore.
“And you have an open invitation to mine, wherever my place or my bed might be,” Brad said as he brought his other hand below the table to squeeze Finn’s hand.
Finn pulled his entire bottom lip between his teeth, revealing that tiny gap, and Brad forced himself to take a leap of faith.
“There are a few things I want you to know, too,” he said, and Finn’s eyes glittered with something that looked a lot like hope. “I want to be with you as more than childhood besties or best friends—with or without benefits. I don’t know what that’s going to look like or where it’s going to happen or anything like that, but…I want to be with you because I love you, and I want the chance to fight for more. I want to be your lover and your boyfriend, and hell, someday, maybe your very disgruntled husband who’s tired of posing for five hundred pictures at our wedding.”
