Learning Curve

Scottie

Julia sits on Ace’s bed while he sits on the floor in front of her, her calves draped over his shoulders as though they’re a footstool. Blake is splayed across their futon in the corner, while Finn shoves in behind me on his bed with a bag of popcorn.

His face is clean after his shower, and his wet hair curls around the top of his neck. I toss the crust from my last piece of the pizza we ordered down into the box on the floor and flop back onto Finn’s pillow, my stomach freaking tap-dancing from the highs and lows of the night.

“That motherfucker didn’t even know what hit him,” Ace regales again, pretending to be dazed by an imaginary punch and passing out. Julia laughs as her legs twist around his corpse, and Finn chuckles lightly behind me. I can feel the warm air of his breath in my hair, and it takes everything inside me not to turn around.

Blake pulls a photo album out from the shelf below Ace’s bed and flips through it, pausing to hold it up with a guffaw as soon as Ace is done with his little show. “Hold up. You know Snoop Dogg?”

Ace shrugs like it’s no big deal. “My dad helped him with some financials, and my mom did some photos for the inside of his last album.”

“That’s insane,” Blake says with a shake of his head and a laugh.

Ace rolls his eyes. “Julia’s dad is the reason half the celebrities in Hollywood are together, with his discreet version of the TapNext dating app.”

Finn and I are both silent. I know he thinks my family life is different from his, but I think he’d be surprised by the fact that I feel like I can relate more to him right now than anyone else in the room.

Julia blushes before shoving Ace in the shoulder. “All our parents know famous people. What’s it matter?”

“Well, fuck me,” Blake cries, shoving to standing. “That’s it. I have to go back to my apartment and cry over how uncool my parents are.” He clasps his hands and looks to the white textured ceiling. “I hear you, Lord. I’m a nobody.”

We all laugh—even Finn—at the thought of Blake Boden being a nobody.

Blake gives Finn, Julia, and me a fist bump before ruffling Ace’s hair and leaving with a flick of his hand. I sit up and shuffle my back toward the headboard as Julia removes her legs from Ace’s shoulders. “I need to go too,” Julia remarks. “I’m exhausted.”

Ace climbs to his feet, a yawn making his long limbs stretch nearly across the room. “I’m fucking wiped too. Just sleep here so I don’t have to walk you back to Delaney.”

“Scottie and I can walk together,” Julia suggests, to which Finn pipes up.

“You can both sleep here. Scottie can sleep in my bed, and I’ll take the futon.”

I start to protest the idea, but Finn scoots up on the bed so my legs are crunched into him and his eyes are on mine. “People saw you with me tonight. People who lost a lot of money because I beat Donnie. I don’t want you walking out there by yourself.”

My head jerks back. The thought of someone being mad enough at Finn to hurt me never even occurred to me. He looks at Julia. “Same for you. I’ll feel better if you guys just sleep here and wait for daylight.”

Julia shrugs. “Fine by me.” She turns to Ace. “Do you have a T-shirt I can sleep in?”

Ace digs in his closet and tosses out a shirt, and Julia smiles at me as she trots into the bathroom to get changed.

Finn looks at me as I shift awkwardly to take my shoes off. “Do you want a T-shirt?” he whispers gently, seeming to sense that I’m absolutely losing my shit inside. It took a year of dating Dane before I slept in his bed for the first time, and I wasn’t feeling nearly the things I am now.

My whole body aches with the tease of arousal.

My nod is shaky, but it’s a yes, nonetheless.

Finn climbs off the bed and reaches into a drawer on the side of the bed, pulling out a neatly folded black T-shirt and tossing it to me. I pull it to myself gratefully, a small smile curving the corner of my lips upward.

It smells clean, but it has a hint of him too. Like maybe he’s worn it enough that the wash cycle never quite gets rid of his scent.

The bathroom door clicks open, and Julia emerges, the bottoms of her bare legs the only thing left in the dwarf of Ace’s huge shirt. Her own clothes are in her arms, and she drops them at the foot of Ace’s bed before climbing under the covers.

Ace is about to go into the bathroom to change himself, when Finn jumps up and grabs him by the back of his shirt between his shoulder blades. He looks over his shoulder back at me. “We’ll go use the hall bathroom. Scottie, you can use ours.”

Julia giggles as Finn drags Ace out the door and then smiles at me as I climb off Finn’s bed on nervous legs. I close the bathroom door behind me and lock it, and then I pause to stare at myself in the mirror.

My lips are flushed, a slight lingering tinge of Finn’s blood collected at the edges. I run the faucet to clean myself up, brushing my teeth with my finger and using the toilet, and then change into Finn’s shirt, leaving only my underwear underneath.

My heart races, and my fingertips tingle with adrenaline.

At this rate, it’s going to be daylight by the time I’m able to fall asleep.

Carefully, I open the door to the bathroom and walk over to Finn’s bed, dropping my clothes at the foot of it just like Julia did. Ace is back from the bathroom and in bed with her, and I swear, the two of them look like they’re already passed out.

Finn isn’t back yet, so I climb quietly into his bed and pull the covers up to wait for him. The door creaks open gently, and he steps inside in a pair of lounge pants and a clean T-shirt. Unlike the one on me, it fits snugly across his muscles.

He smiles gently as he flips off the overhead light and tosses his clothes in his hamper at the head of the bed and then turns, his destination of the futon clear. Impulsively, I reach out and grab his wrist, stopping his momentum.

“You can sleep in the bed with me,” I whisper. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

I’m a liar. It’s a huge deal, but I want him to anyway.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

I nod. “Yes, it’s fine.”

He lifts the covers, and I scoot all the way toward the wall to give him some space as he climbs in. It’s a small bed—twin-size, at most—and Finn is a big guy.

Nerves and excitement and a million other things flit around inside my belly. I never imagined I’d be ending the night in bed with Finn. It’s like my body doesn’t know what to do with itself.

I roll to my side with my back to the wall, and Finn rolls to his, facing me. Just enough moonlight shines through their window that I can make out his face in its entirety. It’s beautiful, as always, but undoubtedly marred by the fight.

“That looks…bad.” I wince as I gently touch my index finger to the broken skin on Finn’s cheek, a spot that showcases one of many blows he took tonight. “Does it hurt?”

“Trust me, I’ve had worse,” he whispers back, his eyes gentle on mine.

“You’ve had worse?” I frown. “What does that mean?”

He considers me carefully. “You have a good relationship with your dad?”

“My dad is awesome. Super supportive.” Now, my mom, on the other hand, she’s not even worth talking about.

His smile is soft, but mostly sad. “I’m glad to hear that, Scottie.”

“What about you? What is—” I start to ask him about his family life, but when he reaches around my head and gently pulls the ponytail holder out of my hair, I lose my train of thought.

“There,” he whispers softly. “That had to hurt to lie on.”

With a tenderness I didn’t even know was possible for a guy who just beat the shit out of an ex-UFC fighter, Finn pulls my body closer to his, adjusting us on the mattress so that our heads rest on his pillow. His brown eyes search mine for a beat before he presses his lips to mine.

The kiss is soft and sweet and everything I wish my first kiss as a thirteen-year-old girl would’ve been. But when he moves his hands into the strands of my hair, the urge to press my body tight against his becomes undeniable.

Chest to chest, I kiss him back. A complex warmth becomes rooted in my belly before it starts to spread to the rest of my body, and a delicious throbbing between my thighs makes a small moan escape my throat.

“Scottie,” he whispers against my mouth, and my hips push into his until I can feel the growing hardness beneath his lounge pants. An intense, powerful feeling I’ve never experienced in my life overwhelms me.

If he asked right now, I think I’d let him put himself inside me. Which is fucking nuts, considering Ace and Julia are asleep ten feet away.

His hands move through my now-loose hair as he pushes his lips to mine again, so softly this time I barely feel them. Just like our voices, they’re a whisper.

“Get some rest,” he orders. “It’s okay to sleep. I promise.”

He punctuates that statement by turning me on my opposite side and pulling my back flush against his chest.

He’s still hard and I can feel his arousal on my ass, but his big arms cocoon my body in a way that’s not overtly sexual. It’s gentle and caring and makes me feel safe and protected.

I thought it would take me ages to fall asleep—to let go enough to pass out. But there, in the warmth of Finn’s arms, one second, I’m aware, and the next, I’m gone.

Fast asleep in Finn Hayes’s bed.

Maybe I tugged hard enough on the rope of our hot and cold tug-of-war that the bad stuff is behind us.