I wanted to tell Finn he hadn’t done anything wrong, but I didn’t know him. Maybe he had. I was in Portland; Daniel had been the one here. Daniel was the one who knew him, who’d apparently been through some part of this with him.
“And I was in the middle of that?” Daniel guessed.
“It was wrong of me to use you.”
“You didn’t use?—”
Finn cut him off, “I did. Maybe not in a harmful way, but I certainly was seeking something from you that I wasn’t getting from them.”
Daniel sucked his tongue across the front of his teeth and shrugged one shoulder up toward his ear. “I disagree with the definition, but I won’t tell you how to feel about your own actions.”
“I would be happy for another chance with you,” Finn said, almost under his breath. He made a quiet sound with his mouth before looking at me. “But I need to understand what the two of you want…what you’re offering.”
Finn picked his words with so much thought and care, it was impossible to not see why Daniel had tried to start something up with him before. Seeing the two of them together, feeling how badly they both wanted to touch each other even with whatever hurt had grown between them, it made me wish Daniel and had talked about our other relationships more often…or more plainly.
“I told you we’re not new to this,” I said, stepping in. I covered Daniel’s hand with my own, taking as much strength and fortitude from him as I could manage. “But we are new to doing it when we live under the same roof. I do expect there to be some trial and error, and if that’s too much?—”
“It’s not,” Finn interrupted, not meeting my stare. “I just need to be clear on the rules.”
“We’ve never done this together for anything more than sex,” I told him.
“Is that what you’re asking from me? Because I’ll be honest?—”
“No,” Daniel said quickly.
Finn scratched his throat and looked up, stare darting from side to side as he took in every inch of Daniel’s expression.
“I don’t want to just be sex for you,” Daniel said, quieter.
“For what it’s worth, with you, it wasn’t just sex before either.”
A loaded silence settled over the three of us, and I took a healthy swallow of my wine. We were going to need another bottle at least to get through this conversation. The night had already gone so far off the rails, though I didn’t know what I expected when I’d asked Finn to come over. I’d planned to introduce him to Daniel. We’d have some wine; we’d sit on the couch together. I’d at least thought we’d get to some kissing or some foreplay, but the more we talked, the further away that last part felt for us.
“It’s okay if I was,” Daniel said.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think you were, at least. I didn’t want…never mind.”
“What?” Daniel prompted.
“I didn’t know how to let you be more,” Finn said. “I didn’t have anything else to give you.”
“And now?” I asked.
Finn finished his second glass of wine and stared longingly at the empty bottle.
“I’m trying to get back to myself,” Finn answered. “I think I have a better understanding now of what I want, but that doesn’t mean I trust it.”
“And what do you want?”
He groaned, rolling his eyes in a way that took ten years off his face. I wanted to crawl over the table and take his face into my hands and kiss him for how attractive it made him to not worry so much about everything besides himself. He was so much like Daniel, no wonder they’d found each other.
No wonder I’d wanted him for myself.
“I don’t think I’ve had enough wine for that truth,” Finn grumbled.
“You can’t hide in a bottle forever,” I said.
“I haven’t tried forever. Only the last six or eight months.”