to make things awkward | fillie

10 | flat next door

Finn had walked Millie all the way back to the door of her penthouse apartment after the meeting. He considered asking her if they could talk more because he was afraid of being alone with his thoughts, but after several years of running from himself, he was starting to realize he really needed time alone to process things clearly.

Plus, he could have sworn he heard Jake behind the door when she closed it and he was probably the absolute last person that Finn wanted to talk to in this moment. And he was sure that he was probably the last person Jake would want to talk to after Millie told him everything that she had to.

To be a fly on the wall though. . .

Turning around to leave, Finn noticed a door across the hall. Millie hadn't mentioned any neighbors, so he walked up and, after hesitating a moment, he knocked on the door to see if anyone lived there. As he waited, he started thinking about how crazy it would seem for him to rent the apartment directly across from them, but he wanted to be close to Lucy. Millie knew that. And this was certainly as close as it got. It would be as if they were sharing a house, which despite how different they were as people, actually worked pretty well for the two of them during the pregnancy.

No answer didn't inherently mean no one lived there, but it was a good sign, so he stopped by the leasing office and sure enough, they said it had been vacant since the building was built. And better yet, it was fully furnished.

Finn wasted no time in signing a lease. Yes, it was only a three month lease, but that was only because he knew it wouldn't raise suspicions. No one needed to know that he was considering moving to Atlanta full time, if that was where Lucy would be. Maybe he could buy a house in the suburbs. Maybe Lucy could stay with him a good amount of the time. Maybe Millie would move out there too and buy a house near him so they didn't have to argue over custody and placement and all of the things that made them put Lucy up for adoption in the first place. They were both older now, more ready to be stagnant in their living situations. More willing to be in one place and plant roots.

The more he thought about it, the more guilty he felt about not just doing so in his early twenties in order to keep Lucy. Yes, his life had gone mostly according to plan professionally and he had flourishing successes attributed to his name. But after meeting Lucy, he knew he'd have felt the same joy had he been working on smaller things and raising Lucy too. And really, he probably still could have done the big things. He loved being on sets as a kid, wouldn't his own child have felt the same? After all, she was remarkably like him, despite not having been raised by him.

Her quick wit and sharp tongue had him rolling in his mind during their meeting. She was funny. She was smart. She was probably the cutest kid he'd ever laid his eyes on and she was half him. How could he not love her instantly?

How could he have abandoned her?

He swallowed the remorse and tried to not let it rile up his stomach that cramped with the weight of his guilt, but then his phone rang and he immediately jumped at the distraction since the distraction of signing lease papers hadn't begun yet due the complex manager having to print them all fresh.

"Hello?" he said, not having looked at the caller I.D.

"Dude, I didn't want to bug you, but where the hell have you been, man? I've been in the studio since nine this morning."

Shit. Malcolm.

Finn let out a long sigh then whispered, "Fuck" under his breath, "Uh, sorry I. . ."

"Oh, this better be good, Wolfhard. We've been planning this for months, if not years, what could possibly be so important that you've blown me off for nearly twenty-four hours?"