“Yes,” Vivi agreed, though she sounded wary. “Okay.”
Finn pulled one knee loosely up to her chest. Armor, if she was misreading the situation yet again and might get metaphorically kicked in the heart. She’d asked for honesty and she wasn’t going to back out now, even if her hands would be shaking if she wasn’t using them to hold her leg in place.
She looked up at Vivi, at her beautiful exhausted face and her guarded eyes. “I’m in love with you, Vivienne. That’s been true for a long time.”
Vivi’s mouth dropped open, the same way it had when she’d recognized Finn in the hall at the clinic. When she closed it, an expression came over her face that Finn knew all too well.
Finn was about to get a lecture.
“Then why have you been doing this whole let’s be friends thing? Do you know how much that hurt?” Vivi’s eyes flashed and her hands went to her hips. “I missed you so much I cried for a month after I got fired! And you appear from out of nowhere and act like nothing ever happened?”
Technically nothing had, in the violation of ethics and correctional policy kind of way, but Finn knew what Vivi meant. Calling it nothing erased all their time working together, how they’d depended on each other, and their in-jokes nobody else understood. Gone would be Vivi’s whispered confession she was also queer, trusting Finn not to tell anyone. The fond glances would disappear, and so would the longing ones, and that one brief instinctive touch. The touch Finn had alternately tried to block out and cherish during the months after Vivi had gone and Finn had been left behind and everything, everything, had seemed so very much more hopeless.
Apparently Vivi was only getting started. “I asked you why you were at the clinic and you held your paperwork up like how could I possibly assume you were there for me. As if I hadn’t had a hundred daydreams of running into you? And you wanted to get caught up? Like oh, hey, we used to work together, so let’s swap a few funny memories from the office and I’ll show you pictures of my cat and we’ll call it a day?”
Finn didn’t remember any sign of a litterbox. “You have a cat?”
“I don’t have a cat!” Vivi threw up her hands in frustration. “I’m allergic to cats!”
Finn was never telling Hollis about this. Not ever. He’d gone through surgery and so much physical therapy and he’d destroy all his progress by laughing at her so hard he re-injured himself. Finn might have laughed too if it were happening to someone else.
“I’m so sorry,” she said desperately. “Vivi, I’m so sorry. I misunderstood what you wanted. I misunderstood literally everything. Would it help if I grovel? A lot?”
“I don’t know!”
“Would it help if I tell you I’m a terrible person?”
“But it’s not true!” Vivi yelled. “You’re a wonderful person! You’re patient and kind and level-headed and hardworking and responsible and I’m in love with you too!”
What a lot of adjectives to live up to.
Wait. That wasn’t the important part. Wow. Okay. Finn hadn’t made it up. They really had… fallen in love.
And it was still there after all this time.
“I tried so hard,” Vivi said sadly. “I tried so hard not to pressure you. I never wanted you to feel like you owed me anything, or like you wouldn’t get care at the clinic unless you said yes to something I asked. Allie told me to keep trying to leave you space to tell me.”
Instead Finn had told Vivi they were friends, that she didn’t have an agenda and the past was behind them. Finn had thought she was the worst butch ever for the migraine catastrophe, but this? This was next level. Vivi knew where Finn was in her life, what she was facing, and she’d kept holding the door open for Finn all the same. Even when Finn had charged off in the opposite direction.
“Vee, I’m so sorry. I’ve possibly set a world record here for number of signals missed.” She’d wanted Vivi so much. Why hadn’t she jumped at the hint of a chance? Thinking back now, some of the signs had been pretty dang clear. Finn just hadn’t seen them properly. With Vivi under so much pressure, Finn couldn’t add any more. “I wanted to be careful. With you.”
Vivi’s shoulders dropped, and she stared at Finn for a second, her expression changing. “Maybe with yourself too?” she asked gently.
Damn. That hit something, enough to keep Finn from from talking because of the lump in her throat. She’d lost so much when she went to prison, almost everything but Hollis. Maybe it had been safer not to ask for more.
She did want more, though, and by what felt like an impossible miracle, so did Vivi. Whatever lay underneath Finn’s misreadings until now, she wasn’t going to let it cause her to make the same mistake for a fifth or sixth time.
Finn wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and got to her feet, wishing she’d worn a nicer shirt. She walked slowly towards Vivi, giving her plenty of time to move out of the way, plenty of time to give some indication she wanted space. She didn’t. Finn paused anyway when she got close.
“Do you want this? Still?” Finn had never envisioned adding still to the end of the question, but she hadn’t expected so many wrong turns on her way to asking it. “I don’t have a lot to offer right now. Except me.”
“Yes,” Vivi insisted, maybe a touch desperate for Finn to hear her. “I want this. Do you? I mean, if… I don’t know what it would look like. If I don’t have an abortion, I mean.”
Finn had never dated somebody with a kid, but surely they could figure it out. Dates would probably involve a stroller, but that sounded just fine. “I’m pretty sure it would be me helping when you need help, and following your lead because it’s your kid. Either way, whatever you choose, it doesn’t change my feelings. I want you to be my girl.”
She made sure not to hold her breath or lock her knees while she waited for a verdict. When Vivi beamed, bright and relieved, it was like the sun coming out. Finn wanted to kiss her, but the moment, the truth in it, felt too new and too fragile. All she could do, what felt right, was to pull Vivi in, press a kiss to her temple, and hold her.
It was more than everything she’d imagined it would be. Vivi was warm, curvy and squishy in so many lovely places. She snuggled herself into Finn’s arms and made a half-pained half-relieved sound. Finn empathized. So much wasted time. So much abundance here and now.
She stroked Vivi’s hair. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I missed you,” Vivi said into Finn’s shoulder. “I missed you so much. Nobody’s ever gotten me the way you do. You listen. I mean, under normal circumstance.”
Vivi had said Finn gave the best compliments. Finn might beg to disagree.
“I missed you too,” Finn said. “No one else would get me coffee from the staff break room.”
The gorgeous brunette in her arms made an outraged noise and poked Finn right in the ribs.
Finn faux-protested and twisted away, but Vivi got her again, and then they were both laughing, tangled up and turning and mostly not stepping on each other’s feet, until Vivi stumbled and Finn caught her. They were not capping this ridiculous, wonderful evening with a trip to the emergency room, especially if Nora would find out, which of course she would.