Eternal Longing ✓

51. Brotherly Love

JAYA

"You want to drive?"

The question is whispered against my ear, gentle and coaxing as if he knows that I need the distraction as if he can tell that I need to clear my head as if he can feel my feelings without experiencing them. And because this is Finley, perhaps he can.

"Yeah?" I don't move away from the embrace, but I do tilt my head up to look at him.

"Drive around for a bit, see where you end up."

A smile pulls at my lips. "I almost crashed your car last time you let me drive. Are you sure?"

"It's just a car. If it'll help you clear your head and feel better, you can crash it to your heart's content."

"You're sweet, Fin."

His hands slide up to hold the back of my head, slowly, as though he wants to savor the movement and remember it for later. I shiver when he lays a tender kiss against my forehead, my eyes closing involuntarily.

"Am I? I've never been accused of being sweet." Gravelly words spoke against my ear, and I shiver once more.

"Well, you are."

"Or maybe . . ." He nips at my ear, making me shiver for the third time in ten seconds. "Maybe you just bring it out of me. Maybe you make me better. Sweeter."

The notion that I could inspire anything out of Fin is a funny, or rather, untrue, statement. He's not a man that needs someone else to mold him, stir him in any particular direction and change him. He's perfectly established on who he is.

But still, it's nice that he'd say something like this. It's so nice that it makes my pulse quicken and my brain think about things that I rarely let myself think about with Fin-like consistency, weekly date nights, and something more permanent than sleepovers.

"We should probably go." I lean back away from him, ignoring my body's protest and shooing away the infiltrating thoughts. "Before my mom and Charles come out here or something."

He nods and grabs my hand. "Yeah, let's go."

We just have to cross a street where his car is parked, and after helping me fix the seat and wheel to my liking, I'm slowly easing onto the road.

I feel him staring at me as I carefully drive, my eyes never leaving the road even though I want to cut him a look to let him know that, truly, I'm fine. Sure, it's not every day that a girl gets to sit down with her biological father whom she hasn't seen in over a decade and, if things were not already weighty enough, her mother also makes a surprise appearance.

It's not an everyday occurrence, but hey, life is full of left curves so you either learn how to take it all in a stride or you fall off the cliff.

"Music?"

He's not asking me what happened with the two people responsible for my birth. He's not asking and he won't, not until I start talking about it on my own and essentially permit him to breach the topic. In some ways, Fin is pushy and demanding, but in others, when he knows that it'll only hurt me, he's softer.

I shake my head. "No, thank you."

He doesn't say anything else, understanding that I need the quiet to think, to debrief internally, or simply not have to think for a few moments, and we drive for the next ten minutes in comfortable silence.

Initially, I'm not driving anywhere specific, just taking left and right turns at my leisure, not driven by an internal GPS or a real one. Driving for the sake of driving is weirdly therapeutic and calming, something I discovered years ago after a particularly tasking piece was not coming how I wanted it to.