AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Coffee, black, please.”
“Coming right up.” Finn placed a mug before him and lifted the coffee off the hotplate. “How’s Tyler?”
“He’s okay. Got his leg back on today.”
He saw the genuine happiness on Finn’s face at that. “That’s really great.”
“Yeah.”
“He said he might help you with the house.”
Holden sipped and nodded. “He painted the living room today.”
Finn grinned. “How does it look?”
“Good.”
Finn nodded. “Can I get you some homemade cake?”
“No, thanks.”
Finn took a glass from the steaming dishwasher and started to polish. “Are you writing a book at the moment?”
Holden looked away. “Trying to. It’s not going so well or I wouldn’t be here.”
Finn bit his lip. “I heard about what happened to you. I’m sorry.”
Holden regarded him. It was common knowledge of course, and Finn only had to google him but…had Tyler told him? It seemed Tyler had a big fucking mouth and suddenly Holden didn’t want to keep him out of trouble with Finn.
“I was thinking I might write a non-fiction,” he said. “Something uplifting that’s testament to the survival of the human spirit. A fight back from the brink. That sort of thing.”
Finn had paled. He watched him steadily. “Is that right?”
“Yeah. I heard you were once in a difficult situation.”
Finn’s face became closed. His eyes were full of indescribable pain, like Tyler’s, and Holden wished suddenly with his whole heart that he had not said anything. “Did Tyler tell you this?”
Holden swallowed. Shit. “Don’t be mad at him. Me and him, we were having a heart to heart, about his leg, and he mentioned how people look at him and how it might be the same for you…” Holden gestured to the scar that peeked from the sleeve of Finn’s T-shirt and wished he hadn’t. Finn’s dark blue eyes filled with tears. “Sorry, sorry,” he said quickly. “We weren’t gossiping, I swear. He said you were such a good guy and…” he dried up, mentally shriveling in the face of Finn’s distress.
“And you thought you’d come ask to write a book about what my ex-boyfriend used to do to me?”
“No. No. Not exactly.” Yes, exactly. Oh fuck, Holden, what have you done? “I thought it might be…”
“Cathartic?”
“Yes, cathartic.”
“And worth a few bucks?”
“To both of us, Finn.”
“Sure. To both of us.” Finn looked at him hard for a moment with those tears still standing in his eyes, then he turned and walked through the door into the kitchen.
Fuck it. Fucking fuck it.
The skinny guy with the lip ring whom he’d signed the book for on his first day and whom Holden had just imagined balls deep in him, was staring at him with a frown. The bell rang on the door and Holden heard booted heels ring out on the floor as someone approached the counter.
“Hey, Brandon,” Jordan said and Holden wished he could sink through the floor. Because if the sheriff found out about the conversation he’d just had with Finn, he would most likely wipe the fucking floor with him. “Finn around?”
