Not A Temporary Love | Finley & Harlyn #1

Chapter 3

Finley

Our first week is a blur of orientations, tours, and socials, all of which include a hell of a lot of new people and require hell of a lot of recuperating time. But it's good, too. Exciting. Walking down Canterbury's High Street for the first time is a major highlight. Taking in everything familiar and new and unexpected is exhilarating. There's so much to see, to explore. And this is just Canterbury. This is just the start. How on earth am I going to squeeze all of England into three months? It's a physical impossibility.

Between the socializing and my recovery from socializing, Max and I don't get to see each other's homestays until Friday. We make plans to have dinner with Amelia, and after lunch I head to his house, which, lucky him, is literally down the street from campus. He could roll out of bed five minutes before class and be on time, while I will have a twenty minute walk every day. His neighborhood is also so British I want to scream - a bunch of two level brick row houses all squished together. His host mom answers the door, a sweet smile on her face.

"You must be Finley!" she says, brushing a lock of blonde hair from her eyes. Max comes trotting down the stairs behind her.

"Yes, it's great to meet you," I say.

She waves me in. "Do you have a few minutes to sit and chat or are you just stopping in?"

Max looks at me, twitching his eyebrows just so to ask if I'm ok with talking for a bit. I nod shallowly, and Max turns back to her.

"Yeah, we can talk for a bit. I'm just going to show him my room first, and we'll be right back down."

His room is smaller than mine, but it's cozy. It has Max's personality all over it already - his many crewnecks piled over the back of the desk chair, his casually disorganized textbooks stacked on the bedside table waiting to be used on Monday.

We go back downstairs to sit at the kitchen table with Mrs. Evans - Diana, she insists, though I can't quite get that to stick comfortably in my head. She asks what feels like a million questions, but somehow, it doesn't feel like an interrogation like it often does when someone asks me every question under the sun. It's just a conversation, and by the time the front door squeaks open and soft voices fill the entryway an hour later, it feels like we've only been talking for fifteen minutes.

"Harlyn, is that you?" Mrs. Evans says, disappearing into the hallway. "Ah, it is. And Elly! Lovely! You can both meet Max's friend."

She says something else just quiet enough that Max and I can't hear, and I turn to Max. He mentioned Mrs. Evans' son as soon as he moved in and kept saying he was excited for me to meet him. He wouldn't say why, but the mischievous look in his eye now is suspicious. And then Harlyn enters the kitchen behind his mom, and I understand. And I hate him for it.

Harlyn is stunning. Tall and lean and blonde and gray eyed. His face is long and sharp, his jawline impeccable. And even in his McDonald's uniform, I find myself letting my eyes drift from the pile of curls on top of his head to where his legs disappear behind the table in front of me.

"Max," Harlyn greets, nodding. And then his eyes land on me, and I'm pulled in from my shameless checking out to smile at him. His eyebrows draw together just a bit, and he looks between Max and me. "You're...you're not a girl."

Stunned, I turn to Max. "Did you tell them I was a girl?" I ask, barely above a whisper.

"I definitely did not," Max says quickly, looking about as confused as I feel.

"No, no," Harlyn blurts. "He didn't, well, say anything, I guess. Didn't use pronouns, at least that I remember." He tilts his head to one side and furrows his eyebrows again. "I guess I just assumed. Because, you know, my best friend is a girl..."