Page 115 of Hound Dog
I gave her an exhausted smile. “No, Finn. I’ve never seen Finn’s apartment before. Is that weird?”
Maisie shrugged. “Didn’t you two just start sleeping together like a couple days ago?”
I nodded, my stomach sinking. Another reason why I didn’t feel all that great about myself. I’d practically launched myself at Finn the second Ben and I broke up.
“And you were with Ben before then,” she added. “It probably would have been inappropriate for him to invite you here when you had a boyfriend. It sounds to me like Finn was respecting your boundaries. And you didn’t even have to point them out to him.”
I picked at a bit of lint on my shirt. “Why doyouthink he passed out back there?”
Her jet-black eyebrows disappeared beneath her bangs. “Truth? I think I would have passed out, too, if a person I’d been seeing for two days told me they were moving to my hometown. Especially when they’d been so adamant prior to sleeping with me that they didn’t want to leave their childhood home.”
“Yeah, but you’re completely against relationships. You’ve said you never want to get married. Ever.”
It was silent between us as the unspoken words dangled there like low-hanging fruit. Hadn’t Finn said he wasn’t a relationship guy?
“I bet he was just caught off guard,” Maisie said.
But I think we both knew she was just trying to make me feel better.
Maisie shrugged and, with her index finger, traced a design in sweat of her glass. “And let’s not forget, he showed up to your party just in time to witness a face-off between you and your ex. That’s a lot to walk in on.”
I felt both betterandworse all at once.
After a couple minutes of silence, Maisie reached over and placed her hand on my bouncing knee… that I hadn’t even realized had been bouncing. “It’s going to be okay.”
I hopped up from where I was sitting and ripped off a few squares from the paper towel roll. After opening a few cabinets, I found Finn’s multi-purpose cleaner next to the garbage can and sprayed down the counter.
“Haylee,” Maisie said.
“Don’t start.” I looked up from where I was wiping down his already very clean stovetop. “I can’t just sit here and donothing.”
Finn’s chuckle from the doorway snapped my attention away. “You know,” he said, “if I hadn’t just cleaned this morning—and if I didn’t know you better—I’d be insulted by this.”
I dropped the towels and bottle onto the counter and rushed over to Finn. “Are you okay?”
I inspected him closely. He still looked a little pale but not nearly as gray as he did back at Bombshell’s.
“I’m okay,” he said and slid a look to Enzo who was standing beside him. “Apparently with all the craziness today, I forgot to eat anything other than breakfast.”
Enzo cleared her throat and looked over at Maisie. “Hey, I was going to head out. Do you want a ride somewhere?”
Maisie smiled at me and hopped out of her seat. “Yeah. I’ll take a ride back to Meryl’s.”
“I can take you,” I said, reaching for my purse on the island.
Maisie stopped me. “Nah. You stay here. Happy birthday, bestie.” She hugged me, quick and hard.
From the hallway, Enzo smiled at me over her shoulder. “Happy birthday, Haylee.”
Finn walked them both to the front door as I rummaged around his cabinets for something to cook. If he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, he needed more than just the Kind bar Enzo had given him.
I found a box of mac and cheese and some vegan hotdogs in the fridge and started boiling the water for both.
“You don’t have to do that,” Finn’s deep voice behind me startled me.
“You said it yourself, you need to eat.”
“Haylee.”
