Page 79 of Finn Rhodes Forever

In the passenger seat, Finn sat back and closed his eyes while I drove through town and merged onto the highway. A few minutes in, he reached out and gripped the door handle.

“Liv?” He rubbed a hand over his face.

“Yeah?” My gaze whipped between him and the road. “What’s going on?”

“Pull over.”

The second I pulled onto the shoulder, Finn threw the door open and threw up on the pavement. I winced as he heaved, digging out a water bottle and some napkins.

“You’re sick,” I told him when he sat up again, breathing hard. His forehead was damp with sweat and his skin had a gray tinge.

“I’m fine. I think there’s something going around at the fire hall. Let’s keep going.”

“No.”

It zapped his energy just to turn his head. “We have to keep searching for the flower. I promised you.”

“You’resick. We’re not going today,” I snapped, putting the car in drive and doing a U-turn on the empty highway.

“Liv.”

“Shut up.” I frowned at the road. My chest felt weird and unhappy every time I glanced at him looking all shitty like that. “We’re going home and you’re going straight to bed.”

He closed his eyes but the corner of his mouth kicked up. “Worried about me?”

“No. I just don’t want to haul you down the mountain when you keel over.”

“We both know you’d leave me there.”

I snorted. “Shut up.”

We arrived back at the bar and even though I forced him to leave his pack in the car, he was still winded at the top of the stairs. Inside his apartment, I waited for him to kick his boots off before I guided him to his bedroom and pulled back the covers.

“Get in.” My voice sounded more authoritative than I felt. “You’re going to sleep this off.”

“Worried about nothing,” he mumbled, settling against the pillows.

I walked over to the window and pulled the blinds closed. His room had a wooden bed frame in a dark stain, a bedside table, and a lamp, and that was it. His clothes were neatly hung in the closet. My lip curled.

“Dude, your room bums me out.”

“What do you mean?” His eyes were still closed.

“You need some art or something on the walls.”

He sighed. “I won’t be staying long,” he mumbled.

I blinked like I’d been slapped. “Oh. Right.” My stomach knotted.

Of course. I studied his face. Did he realize he had said that? My stomach sank. He was leaving, and that stuff in the shower the other night had just been us messing around.

It hadn’t meant anything.

Ugh. I felt so stupid and embarrassed. I knew this about Finn, and yet I couldn’t help myself around him.

I set a glass of water on his bedside table before I returned to my apartment and pulled out my laptop to work on my thesis. Except for finding the flower, my research was done, and now I just had to finish writing the thesis itself, organizing the data to explain my work. I opened the document and stared at it, mind wandering to Finn’s apartment.

A minute later, I went back across the hall and sat down athiskitchen table, an old table from my parents’ house when I was a kid that my dad stored here. From my spot in the kitchen, I had a view into Finn’s room so I could see if he needed anything.

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