Page 15 of A Dragon's Miracle (Fires of Fate)
Finn
“Have you called him, yet?” Lowen asked me while we were lazing around during what should have been band practice. We'd only played two or three songs, though, until Zed had put the mic down and gone out to get some air. Something frustrated him, though I couldn't say exactly what. And now Lowen was asking me about Ryan.
Didn't he get that I was trying to distract myself from exactly that topic by coming to band practice?
“No, I haven't,” I huffed, putting my guitar away because what was the point?
“You should,” Lowen said. “Maybe then you'd stop screwing up so much.”
“What are you talking about?” I wasn't screwing up.
“Don't tell me you don't even notice.”
“What?”
“Did my drums make you deaf? You haven't played one song right all day. Why do you think Zed stormed out?”
“I... haven't?” I glanced at my guitar and then at my hands. Was that true? I'd been so distracted by trying not to think of certain things that I hadn't noticed at all. Hell, I couldn't even say which songs we'd played so far.
Damn it! I couldn't let the band down on top of everything! The guys were working so hard.
I wandered over to a couch in the back of our practice room and let myself fall on it. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't take it too hard.”
“I don't know how to get over him,” I admitted. “The more I try not to think of him, the more I do.”
Lowen shot me a sort of helpless look. “I really have no experience with that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, I guess.” As far as I knew, not too many dragons did. I was just especially lucky. “I thought it might get easier if I told him everything. Like, I thought that even if he rejected me I could move on, because it meant that I'd tried, you know? But it's not like that.”
“Maybe you haven't tried hard enough, yet.”
“He's right,” Zed said. I hadn't seen him come back into the room, but he must have, because he was approaching me now. “Remember when you told me you'd do anything to get the one you wanted? What happened to that?”
“I don't know,” I said. “I think I made him really uncomfortable last time. I don't want to do that again.”
“He kissed you back, though,” Zed insisted. “You told me that. He must like you.”
I sat up straight and ran my hands through my hair, remembering the moment I'd felt Ryan give in. If only briefly. What if the guys were right and I was giving up too soon? But they didn’t know what it was like to see Ryan so upset because I’d kissed him. “This is hard!” I complained.
“But is it worth it?” Zed asked.
I sighed because I knew the answer. I couldn’t give up yet. Even if it was only as friends, I still wanted to be around Ryan.
* * *
That night, I lay back on my bed, gathered all my courage, and dialed Ryan's number on my cell phone. My heart beat faster with every beep of the phone. It was as if I was about to do something dangerous, even though calling Ryan was something I'd done million times before.
Just not since I'd told him how I felt.
“Finn?” he finally answered the phone.
“Yeah, uh, it's me.” I sat up, all tense now.
“What's up?” He sounded so casual that I felt stupid for being nervous. We were still friends, right? This was the still the guy I'd chugged beers with last winter while he'd taught me silly human Christmas songs.
I had no reason to be nervous.
