“You think he won’t hurt you, but what if you’re wrong?” Finn’s hand grabbed her arm, sending familiar tingles down her spine. “Please don’t take chances with him. I have two empty bedrooms besides the one Cole is sleeping in. You can stay at my place as long as you like.”
She almost choked on her chips. Coughing, she grabbed her water and gulped it down.
“Are you okay?”
Of course I’m not okay. Your hand is still touching my arm, and you just asked me to move in with you.
“I’m fine. My potato chip just got stuck.”
“We should get your things tonight and move you in. I’d feel a lot better.” His hand squeezed. “This is what friends do, Laurie. Like you were there for me at dinner the other night.”
“You’re out of your mind. Asking me to move in is not equal to me spouting off at dinner Wednesday night.”
“It is to me.” He took his hand away to push his fingers through his hair. “I want to help. Why won’t you let me?”
“I’m perfectly safe in my apartment.”
“Oh…” His nostrils flared, and he looked away. “If it helps, my bedroom is soundproofed.”
“Why on earth would you tell me that?” Her voice trembled from shock.
He answered with stiff lips and a challenging glare. “I thought it might make a difference if you knew you wouldn’t hear me coughing for an hour every morning. It’s an awful sound.”
She burst out laughing. “Thank goodness! I thought you were into some kind of kinky stuff, telling me your bedroom was soundproof.”
“I didn’t… I never…” His face turned redder by the second. “Of course not.”
His mortified expression made her laugh even harder. When she finally gained control, she declared, “I could care less about hearing you cough in the morning. I lived with Steph and Ellie for four years. I helped Ellie with her morning treatments during the week, and on the weekends, I could hear her anyway.”
“Surely it got on your nerves, though.” He had this odd expression—half disbelieving, half hopeful—as if her answer really mattered to him.
“It took me two weeks to get to the point where I could sleep through it,” she confessed. “But when I learned more about CF, that awful coughing sound was music to my ears. It meant the treatment was working. I loved Ellie, and the only thing that mattered was keeping her healthy.”
“My sisters said the same thing.” His eyes blinked rapidly as he traced the design on his cup. “I know my family can be nosy and pushy, but they’re also really supportive.”
“Of course they are. They love you. That’s how it’s supposed to be in a healthy family.” Though I wouldn’t know from experience.
“Then you’ll move in? Tonight?”
If only he knew how it hurts to have him prove his friendship, when I’m wishing for something more.
“Thanks for asking, but I can’t move in with you. I don’t need to. I promise he can’t find me. Even if he did, he’s not dangerous. He’d probably just try to make me like him by giving me a bunch of money.”
Finn frowned. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“It’s not bad or good, really. It’s nothing. Money is nothing to him, so the gesture is meaningless. Money’s the one thing he was always willing to give up. It shows he doesn’t really care about me at all.”
His mouth twisted to one side, his shoulders lifting. “Or maybe it’s all he knows to do.”
“Now you’re defending him?”
“I had to.” Finn scowled as he put his trash in the paper sack and wadded it into a ball. “The dude sounds like me. And I think this may be why you haven’t been talking to me.”
“I talked to you,” she retorted, though she knew what he meant. She’d avoided any conversations, except those needed to get her work done.
Finn stood and tossed his sack in the trash, then sat down directly across from her, elbows on the table, head in his hands, and peered at her with sad sapphire eyes.
Now that’s cheating.