"Then what do you want, Fin?"
His fingers fanned out under my collar, against my skin, warm. "Ye want to ken what I want?"
"Yes."
"Right." He took a breath. "I want to wake up in yer bed. I want to make ye coffee the way I make it, no' the way ye make it, because the way ye make it is shite and ye know it. I want to fight with ye about Niko leaving his stinky cheese on the counter. I want to have ye carry me up to bed. I want to be old with ye, Aleksi. I want to be tired with ye. I want to argue about the heating and the dishes and whose turn it is to take out the bins. I dinnae want caviar on a fucking river, ye Russian eejit. I want a kitchen. I want a Sunday. I want yer ugly bifold wallet sitting on the counter when I come out in the morning, and I want to ken without asking that yer in the next room, waitin' for me to come in and argue with ye so we can make up again."
I couldn't say anything. He didn't seem to need me to.
"That's love, Aleksi. That's what it is. It's no' the fancy word and it's no' the soft thing ye think it is. It's the bins. It's thecoffee. It's a man fucking ye on the hood of his car because ye drove it like a hooligan and he loves ye too much to be properly cross about it." His lips turned up in a small, mean smile. "Ye've been doing it for weeks, ye great daft bastard. Ye've been loving me. Ye just didnae know the word for what ye were doing."
I closed my eyes. "Fin."
"Aye?"
"Stop talking."
"Make—"
I cut him off with a kiss before he could finish and kissed him until we were both breathless and panting. Then I let my forehead fall against his. "I'm going to find this Mr. K, and I'm going to put a bullet in his head like I should've last time. And then we can argue about the trash bins until they bury us in matching fucking coffins."
Fin smiled and let out a low chuckle. "Ye have such a way with words, Aleksi."
"Yeah, well."
I pulled him in against my chest and the rain started to pick up, but I didn't want to move an inch.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket.
"Leave it," Fin murmured into my collar.
It buzzed again.
"Fin—"
"Leave it, Aleksi. Whatever it is can wait five fucking minutes."
It buzzed a third time and I couldn't resist.
I reached around him and got it out of my pocket one-handed. I didn't want to look at it, but three meant it was the boss.
Boss: Tonight. Wheels down in two hours. Get here.
Everything went still around me.
Fin lifted his head off my chest and looked up at me. "What is it?"
"K. He moved his plane up. He'll be on the ground in two hours."
He pushed back from me. "But ye said Thursday—"
"Yeah. It's not Thursday anymore."
The pink had gone out of his cheeks and the laugh was gone. The man who'd been folded against my chest thirty seconds ago was somewhere else now. His face had hardened again.
"Take me with ye."
"Fin."
