Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“Guest room’s over here on the left. I think I got rid of most of the cobwebs.”
“Like a luxury hotel,” I said as he led me inside. The scent of old wood filled the room, and it had two small windows that looked out over the front lawn. My blue Beetle was right out there, like a reminder of the life I used to have.
“Bestens’ finest,” Finn said. Dust motes floated in the sunlight coming through the windows, and for a moment, all I could do was stand there.
Best Friends, Tennessee had been our nickname for Bestens, back when we were ten years old and had nothing better to think about.
Back when we actually were best friends.
By the time we were teenagers, we’d already wanted to strangle each other almost every time we were in the same room.
We used to fight, but I’d always been able to pull him back again.
To make him use his words, and talk to me about his feelings.
Things had gotten really bad in senior year of high school. Finn had to stay with me and my family, living with us for a few months when his mom went to rehab. We clashed in every corner of the house.
The moment I’d turned 18, I’d high-tailed it out of this place to California. Finn stayed here, where he belonged.
Each year when I visited at Christmas, Finn seemed to get more and more… Tennessee. He listened to country music all the time now. He rode horses on the weekends. His wardrobe had slowly morphed from graphic T-shirts and ball caps to workman’s blue jeans, white tees, flannel, and that stupid cowboy hat. Now we were both 24, and I’d never felt more different from him.
He was single-minded: he wanted to buy a house and marry a nice woman, all before age 30.
He’d already done one of those things.
I’d always dreamed of a different life, and by late high school, it drove a wedge between us.
He stopped talking to me about his feelings. Stopped sleeping over. Stopped spending relaxing weekends with me on the couch, playing video games and watching shitty movies. In school, I’d always felt so close to him, until all he wanted to do was be like everybody else.
The one person I was close to in Tennessee seemed destined and determined to live a life that had nothing to do with me.
Last week on the phone, he swore this place was different than it had been back then. That the people who’d treated me cruelly were gone, and I’d fit right in, now.
But so what?
Even if that were true, there was still no real place for me in Finn's life.
A hollow feeling used to well up in my chest every time I thought of him, during the years I’d been in Los Angeles. Then after a while, I'd just gone numb.
“Anyway,” Finn said now from across the guest room, jarring me from my memory and breaking the silence between us. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thank you.”
I was craving alone time even though I’d been alone on the road all day. I waited, watching Finn turn toward the door but then turn back again, glancing over my whole body again.
Got a problem already?
Did he hate the fact that my button-down sweater was light pink? Or did that long look mean something else?
“You’re all good in here?” he asked.
I blinked at him. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“Right. You’ll be able to find everything.”
I cocked my head at him. “The guest room isn’t exactly rocket science. Bed. Lamp. Table. Oh, shit, is that a pile of books about landscaping? What am I going to do with those?”
He cracked a smile, looking down at the hardwood for a moment. “Oh, shut it, Ori.”
“I’ll be good, Finn, I promise,” I said. “You’re being a good host, so don’t question yourself.”
I’d always told him he was too nice. To everyone.
With me, he’d let his true feelings out slightly more sometimes. And a lot more, when we got in fights.
Today, he was in too-nice mode with me, though, giving me big doe eyes as he stood planted in the guest room, clearly worried he hadn’t done enough for me as a host.
“All right,” he told me with a nod.
“Thanks again,” I said, trying to assure him.
Everything is fine.
Really, really fine.
Other than the fact that it’s so painfully obvious I’m out of place here.
“Oh,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Grabbing some drinks with Danielle at the Hard Spot tonight, if you want to join.”
Something bitter dug into my chest.
Was he trying to kick me down a peg? Finn had become better friends with my sister than me, since I’d left town, and it was a particular sore spot for me. I still got along well with Danielle, and we talked on the phone every so often, but Finn had been the one who was here. He’d gotten more involved in Dani’s life since she’d had a baby a couple of years ago, becoming a single mom when her ex moved up to Montana.