“Hey,” Finn calls from behind me.
Shit. Fuck.
“Hey,” I call, smiling as I turn around while hopefully hiding my surprise at him being here. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I was in ninja mode.” Finn grins.
“Clearly.” I laugh as I lift the soda can awkwardly. “I was just grabbing a drink. So I’ll… I guess… just go back to my room.”
He starts to say something, but he changes his mind and nods.
I scuttle out of there as fast as I can without actually running and I don’t stop moving until I’m back in my room. I close the door and lean against it for a moment, sighing loudly.
I stupidly hoped that when Finn and I did see each other again, that I would feel differently about him. Not see him as being hot anymore. Go back to seeing him as the arrogant douchebag I thought he was when we first met. But the thing is, I can’t see him like that anymore. Now don’t get me wrong, he is still arrogant. In fact, he’s one of the most arrogant men I’ve ever met, but there’s more to him than that.
Beneath the arrogant exterior, there’s a genuinely nice guy. When he forgets to be a dick, he really isn’t one. Like the other night when he could see I was stressed out, so he gave me a drink and a shoulder rub. And I don’t think for a second he was trying to seduce me. In fact, when he realized the effect the massage was having on him, he tried to leave and it was me who stopped him.
It was me... who seduced him.
Or like the afternoon we spent in the soup kitchen. I really saw a different side to him there. He tried to play it cool, to act like he was only doing it because he had something to prove, but I saw the way he was with the kids, the way their stories moved him. He’d acted compassionate and sweet then afterwards, when he caught himself showing his softer side, he started talking about buying a new shirt, I knew what he was doing. He acted like a dick again because for a moment, he’d been stripped bare and allowed me to see who he really was.
So yeah, my plan to see Finn and not feel anything anymore is well and truly dead so to speak. I move away from the door and go to perch on the end of my bed.
So here’s the deal, I tell myself. You like Finn. You let yourself go there. And you can let yourself not go there just as easily. You can’t help liking him, but you can help acting on it. Acting on it is only going to get you hurt. Finn might not be who you thought he was, but he isn’t really into you and if you give yourself on a platter to any man, he is going to take it. Then if you keep on letting him fuck you, he’s going to break your heart.
It really isn’t fair to either of us if I let anything happen between us again. It isn’t fair to me because I will get hurt. It isn’t fair to Finn because inevitably, it will paint him as the bad guy when I get my heart broken. It won’t be his fault, as far as he is concerned, I still hate him, but as much as I know he’s not into me, I don’t think he would like to think he was hurting me.
I am just going to do what I had already planned to do this evening. Relax with my book for a bit and then have an early night. I tell myself I can ignore the fact that Finn is in his office, just a few doors down from me.
I grab my book and move to the armchair, taking my soda with me. I open the can and take a long drink. It is sweeter than I expected it to be and I pull a face, but it is kind of refreshing in its own way, and when I take another drink, I realize I quite like it. I nod to myself, set it on the top of the chest of drawers beside me and open my book. I have read all of two lines when there is a knock on my door.
My heart stops beating. I sigh quietly and remind myself this isn’t Finn’s fault. He doesn’t know why I am avoiding him. He probably just thinks I feel awkward about what happened the other night. I do a little bit, but that’s being totally overshadowed by this stupid crush I seem to have developed. Am I really so pathetic that a guy only has to make me come and I’m putty in his hands?