Page 81 of Finn Rhodes Forever

“You bought soup?” His smile lifted again.

I rolled my eyes. Seeing Finn like this was making me grumpy. “Go back to sleep.”

Finn slept the entire day. I sat on the bed beside him working on my thesis until I couldn’t stare at it anymore. When he opened his eyes in the late afternoon, I was watching an old season of a reality show on Netflix.

“You’re still here.” He squinted, adjusting to the light from the lamp beside him.

“You want some food? You should have something to drink.”

“Sure.” His eyes only opened halfway.

That nagging sense of wrongness stayed lodged in my ribs. Finn was supposed to be bulletproof, so healthy and strong and full of life, and he was a tired, weak mess. In the kitchen, I microwaved the soup with some toast the way my dad had made for me when I was sick as a kid.

Finn sat up against the pillows and ate his dinner. “Thank you, baby.”

I nodded, ignoring the pulse of warmth in my chest when he called me that. He finished his food and I took the bowl away before returning to the bed beside him. His eyes were closed again but he was still sitting.

“Hey. Lie down,” I whispered, and he moved back to his back. “What do you need?”

“Blowjob,” he mumbled.

I snorted. “Unbelievable.”

With his eyes closed, his grin hitched and I sat there watching his perfect smile, studying the way his hair fell into his eyes. I grabbed the thermometer from the bedside table. He groaned when I stuck it in his mouth again.

I waited for the beep. Still one hundred and one. Shit. Without thinking, I reached out and pushed his hair off his forehead, chewing my lip. He made a rumbly noise of appreciation, eyes still closed, as I stroked down the back of his head all the way to his shoulder. His shirt was damp with sweat.

“Finn, I’m going to change your shirt.”

“I’m cold.”

“I know, I’ll put a long-sleeve t-shirt on you. Where are they?”

“Closet.”

I dug around in the closet for the t-shirts, lifting one out of the built-in drawer. Papers fluttered to the floor, and I bent down to pick them up.

My heart stopped.Relocation of the Pacific Trail fern—a study in plant movement due to environmental changes. It was the first paper I had published in my program, when I was trying to prove that plants could thrive in new environments as the forest changed. There was my name on the byline,Morgan, O., as well as my advisor and the other students involved. I glanced through the papers. All four of my published papers were here.

Why were my research papers sitting in his closet? There were handwritten notes in the margins, phrases underlined with the definitions scribbled near them, and stars next to the findings. My lungs felt tight like I couldn’t catch my breath, and I shot a glance over my shoulder at Finn, already fast asleep again.

He had read my papers. My stomach did a slow roll forward and I felt a weird pressure behind my eyes, like I was going to cry or something, which was stupid, because this was nothing.

Right?

This was nothing.

In his flu haze, he admitted earlier that he was leaving. Maybe he didn’t even realize he was leaving, but he said it. What the fuck was I doing, getting attached to someone who couldn’t bear to stick around this boring town for longer than a summer?

His words from the shower popped into my head, about how he wanted to be all my firsts. How many times had I pictured those things with him over the past few days? As soon as he said that, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Us buying our first place. Us having kids together.

The papers rustled as I shoved them back where I found them.

After eating my own dinner, watching more TV on the bed beside Finn, and stepping over into my own apartment to brush my teeth and wash my face, I settled onto the bed next to him.

This wasn’t weird. We weren’t sleeping together, it was because he was sick. What if he got sick again in the middle of the night? What if he had trouble breathing, like Beck said?

Beck had texted me while I was brushing my teeth.Everything okay?

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