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“Why do you always smell so good?” he grumbled, his train of thought so tightly aligned with mine I had to grin.
“Because she bakes all the damn time,” Jen retorted, her eyes on her books. Not because she was embarrassed by the PDA—she was getting used to them. Finn did this shit all the time at home. Hugging me, kissing me, fuck, he’d have done it in public too but he’d told me that he wouldn’t because then his enemies would know I was a weakness.
It was both touching and terrifying to know that.
“It’s because you smell like mine,” he whispered in my ear so Jenny couldn’t hear.
I grinned as I tipped back to stare at him, but my grin slowly died and I asked, “Are you okay?”
He closed his eyes. “Rough meeting with Aidan.”
Nodding my understanding, I told him, “I have cookies.”
“You have a great cookie,” he replied, and I laughed.
“I have two different kinds. The one down below which is not for public consumption, then I have quadruple chocolate chip.”
“Quadruple?” He cocked a brow at me. “How’s that even possible?”
“Because she’s a demon,” Jen retorted, again, without looking up.
Finn rolled his eyes, but he urged us toward the counter where my concoctions were cooling. “You doing okay?” he asked quietly, and I knew he’d remembered that today was when I should have been meeting Alan.
“No. Not really. It sucks.”
“Hesucks,” he countered.
“This is true.” My lips curved. “It will be okay. He didn’t deserve me.”
“No, he damn well didn’t.”
I reached up and kissed him for that.
“I don’t deserve you, either,” he admitted on a sigh, and there was a sadness in his eyes that upset me.
“What’s going on?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just wish there was more I could do.”
“You did enough. I-I asked something of you that—”
He hushed me. “I wish I could give you more answers about your mom.”
“I think I was crazy to think he was involved in that.”
“No. Nothing’s crazy in this world.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you, Aoife. It will never be enough, but I do.”
When he said shit like that, it made me fucking melt like my gooey quadruple chocolate cookies that I intended on making me Insta-famous. I knew something was weighing on him, but then, something would always be weighing on him. I just had to accept that I wouldn’t always be able to alleviate the strain, but I could ease the burden by being his haven.
Jen grumbled, “You two have a guest, you know? Jeez, if you can’t keep your hands off her, then—”
“Shut up, Jenny,” Finn grumbled, shooting her a glower over his shoulder.
I couldn’t say my husband and my best friend actually liked one another, but that was because Jen was brassy and crass—exactly how I liked her.
She gasped. “Aoife, are you going to let him talk to me like that?”
I snickered. “Yup.” My eyes were sparkling as I peered around Finn’s arm. “After all the PDAs I’ve endured from you, you can deal with me hugging my husband.”
A scoff escaped her. “He looks like he wants to devour you. There’s a difference,” she informed us with a sniff.
“Ah, but you see, that’s exactly how I like him to look at me,” I told her, winking up at said husband, and meaning every goddamn word.
