I smile to myself. Every time I’m with him, I become more confident that he knows me. And he’s asking for more. “No,” I say, looking up into his eyes. “I’m on antidepressants.”
He scans my face. “Okay. That’s not so rare these days. Kendra, my ex, went through that phase.”
“It’s not a phase.”
“No, I didn’t mean to imply it was. I just meant lots of people take them.”
“About a week ago, I decided to stop. I’ve been weaning myself off them. Rich noticed because my mood’s been a little erratic, and he and my dad don’t approve.”
Finn nods slowly. A strand of his hair falls over his forehead. I have to stop myself from pushing it back into place, from running my hands through his butterscotch-colored locks. “It’s not really their decision, is it?” he asks. “It’s between you and your psychiatrist.”
I wasn’t involved in the decision to start treatment. I wouldn’t have any say in stopping it. Finn believes I should have that right, though. He’s a good man who would see me as a partner, not a puppet. “My psychiatrist listens to my dad. He says our sessions are private, but I don’t believe him. They decide together, and I’m supposed to go along with it because he’s a doctor.”
“Then you need to find someone else. That’s a delicate relationship. If you don’t trust your doctor, it can’t work.”
He makes it sound so simple. He almost makes me believe it is simple. For that, I want to hug him. “The thing is . . .” I can’t believe I’m saying this. It’s something I haven’t said aloud to anyone other than Doctor Lumby, a thought I’ve been trying to avoid. “They’re right. After almost ten years, I don’t even know who I am without them. I don’t know if I can control myself.”
Finn’s mouth drops open. “Did you say ten years? How old are you?”
I look away. It does sound like an alarming length of time, even to my own ears. It just shows how fucked up I am. “Twenty-five.”
Finn puts his hands on my shoulders, encompassing them. “Look at me.”
He waits until our eyes meet again.
“Taking antidepressants is nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn’t change how I feel about you. But why the fuck does a fifteen-year-old need to be medicated?”
“I’m troubled. I make bad decisions.” Am I really prepared to go back to that place without any armor on? I’ve been worried I’d lost myself somewhere in the last decade, but maybe that part of me needs to stay gone. “Without treatment, I make mistakes. I’m dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Finn asks. “Let me get this straight. You made a mistake when you were fifteen, and you’ve been on antidepressants ever since? Do you really think you’re the first teenager to make bad choices?”
“It’s not that cut and dry.”
“It’s extreme, Halston.” He runs a hand through his hair, moving it off his face. “It doesn’t sound right.”
After ten years of hearing the opposite, my instinct is to defend my dad. He didn’t know what else to do with me. I was reckless. Finn’s validation is too heady to resist, though. It was an awful mistake, but maybe I’ve changed. He’s right—I was just a kid. “I don’t want to keep taking them. I’m just afraid of what’ll happen if I don’t, and I know Rich is too.”
“This is what you fought about?” I nod, and he puts an arm around my shoulders. “Come on. It’s cold. Let’s go up and you can tell me the rest.”
I let him walk me to his building, his body heat warming me instantly like I’ve taken a pull of strong liquor. I try to inhale him, but it’s too cold to smell anything. Even without his scent drawing me in, even with him knowing I’m a head case, even though I’m biting my tongue to keep from insisting we get coffee first, I make a decision—I’m going to sleep with Finn. Rich won’t find out. And if he does? I’m not sure I’d feel whatever I’m supposed to. Maybe we really are through. It’d be strange; he’s always been reliable. Breaking up with him is like losing a safety net, but maybe that’s a good thing. Finn could be my chance at the kind of passion I’ve only dared to write about.
Finn keeps his arm around me through the lobby, up the elevator, and to his door. He unlocks the apartment, guiding me in with a hand on my middle back. The heat is on. He takes my scarf and coat, shakes off the snowflakes, and hangs my things with his jacket.
“Want something to eat?” he asks.
I unzip my boots and leave them at the door. I’m not very tall, even in heels, so I have to tilt my head back to look up at him. “I’m okay.”
“Drink?”
I thought you’d never ask. I nod hard. “Definitely.”
I follow him into the kitchen and set my handbag on the counter.
He opens the refrigerator. “I’m a little disappointed you changed out of those tights.”
He’d noticed. I’ve had them in my underwear drawer for years, but today was the first time I’d pulled them out. “You didn’t even get to see all of them,” I say.
He closes the fridge and turns slowly. “No?”
Any traces of the wintry night fade. My body warms as Finn’s eyes travel downward. “There are little bows at the tops of each leg. Right under my ass.”
His expression darkens. I’ve seen desire in his eyes before—like when our knees touched on the windowsill at Lait Noir or when he almost kissed me on the couch. But now he’s no longer trying to hide it. “That’d make a good photo.”
I haven’t stopped wanting Finn’s camera lens on me, even though he told me in the park we couldn’t do it again. “You posted,” I say.
He nods. “A couple hours ago.”
“I haven’t had a chance to look yet.”
He gets his phone from his back pocket and hands it to me. “The code is 2008.”
Getting his password to unlock the screen feels like a form of intimacy, but I try not to look too excited about it. I pull up the photo, and my mouth drops open. “You have fifty more followers.”
“Are you keeping track, Serenity?”
I blush hearing the handle I use on all my social media, @suhr.enity. In the excitement of wanting to see him, I’d forgotten that we’d never actually connected online outside of e-mail. “How’d you know the message was from me?”
He arches an eyebrow. “Lucky guess. Where does Suhr come from?”
I look at the screen. “My mom’s maiden name.”
“Did you consider any other ‘Suhr’ words?”
I glance up. “Like what?”
“Suhr-ender.”
My insides tighten. He says it like a command, or an idea he’s just had. Is he suggesting I give in to him for a night? How would that feel? “Friends and family follow me on that account.”
“And? Surrender’s inappropriate?”
Inappropriate. God. There’s that word again. This time, I’m the one acting like a prude, not Rich. I’m not exactly wild, but have I become boring? No. A boring person wouldn’t be here right now.
I return my eyes to the picture. “Nobody commented on the last two posts,” I say. “Do you think that means they didn’t like what I wrote?”
“No,” he says. “In fact, the one with your fingers in your mouth has more likes.”
He’s right. It does. I hand him back the phone. “Maybe that’s because of the photo, not the caption.”
“It doesn’t mean that,” he says. “I got a message just before yours complimenting the captions.”
“Seriously?” My face splits with a smile. “From who?”
“Just some random girl.”
“What’d you say?”
“I didn’t answer, but I updated the description to say ‘My model and her words are anonymous.’”
My model. Mine.
“Is that all right?” Finn catches my eye. “I know keeping your identity secret is important to you.”
I can see the headline in my mind now:
“George Fox’s sex-fiend daughter at it again! Poses for racy photos online.”
“It’
s good,” I say quickly. “I still want that.”
He returns to the fridge. “All right then. I’ll leave it.” He holds out a water bottle. “Want a tour?”
I don’t want to seem like a freak by insisting on the coffee he promised me, it is eleven at night after all, so I take the water. It isn’t easy. When I’m uncomfortable, I cling to my patterns, as Rich says. Being here is out of character for me. This isn’t work or home or my dad’s or Rich’s place. And Finn certainly isn’t Rich.
I follow him down a hall to one of the closed doors. He opens it, gesturing me in before him. It’s dark, the lights dimmed just enough to make the room glow. A desk by the window is topped by an enormous computer, both opposite a small couch. Photography equipment is assembled in a corner, including a camera on a tripod. I avoid looking at the prints on the wall because I’ll immediately judge them. It’s automatic, and I want to think of Finn as the man who made me sexy, not the mediocre, flat photographer I’d thought he was when I’d first looked at his work.