Page 46 of Always Him

FINN

The music pumpsthrough the speakers in the school gym and my eyes strain from trying to see through the darkness and pulsing lights.

But I can’t see him.

My date is with her friends, probably tired of me ignoring her, but I can’t focus when he’s here.

With someone else.

It’s my junior year in high school and the feelings that consumed me when I first laid eyes on Landon haven’t disappeared. No, they’ve only grown, twisting up within me. I’m sixteen and totally and utterly wrecked for my best friend.

My eyes snag on a familiar figure in the corner, pressed up against the bleachers and I move toward him. Drawn in.

Always fucking pulled toward him. He’s the sun, warm and impossibly bright, and I just orbit around him, enraptured.

As I edge closer, my steps falter because there he is, his lips on someone else’s. His head slanted, his tongue pressing into her mouth, his hands on her hips.

My chest aches, my heart thundering in my ears.

Of course. Of fucking course this is happening. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. That he’d be my first? That I’d be his.

Insanity.

My breath falters and I turn my head away, unable to look a moment more and then I stride away. Pushing out of the gym doors and out into the cool night.

I’ll let this go. I can let this go.

But I can’t lethimgo.

No, I’ll hold on just a little longer.

twelve

LANDON

“This is a circus!”I shout into Finn’s ear as we stand in the living room of the crowded house party. God, if I would have known Paulina’s party would be this nuts, I probably wouldn’t have come. I mean, I like a good party, but this is like next-level shit. “I’m waiting for the clowns! And those dudes on stilts!”

“I’m waiting for the bears,” Finn says and I snort.

Him and bears. Ridiculous. It’s a little bit of an obsession.

“We don’t have to stay long,” he says, his lips brushing against my ear.

“Let’s hang for a bit, for Theo,” I say, eyeing my brother’s boyfriend who is looking completely overwhelmed. “He looks scared.”

“To be fair, this is scary,” Finn grumbles, his hand tightening on my waist, his fingers slipping against my bare skin.

I rest my head against his shoulder. But there is still something frustratingly lodged between us, something microscopic, but it’s there. I can feel it.

I think he has more secrets, things about him that he’s tucked away and kept from me. My cracked heart isn’t mending as fast as I’d like it to. I still ache from earlier.

His finger tucks itself under the waistband of my jeans and I sigh.

At least he’s still touching me. I couldn’t stand it if he stopped.

Does he touch his other friends the way he touches me?

We move forward through the throng of people, Logan and Theo moving out from beside us and toward the drink table.

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