Chapter 23: 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟐

FINN

“You need to stop ripping my dresses,” Bree says as I pull my shirt over her head.

We just finished showering together. We had another date last night and ended up staying awake the whole night making sure both of us were satisfied. We passed out in the morning.

It's been a week since Bree and I started privately dating and I couldn't ask my life to get any better.

When we don't have dates, she and I stay awake all night either talking on the phone or texting. And when we're together, we talk about everything and anything.

“I wish I could help it but I can’t,” I say to her as I pull a sweatshirt over my head and pulling on my sweats.

She chuckles, putting on a pair of shorts, “if you keep doing this, I’ll steal all your shirts,”

I shrug, “I’ll buy more,”

“I’ll steal those too.” She says, lifting her chin up.

I smile, “I have no problem with that,”

She squints her eyes at me, “at least sound a little annoyed,”

“Can’t. I’m the happiest person alive when I’m with you, amore,” I say and peck her lips, “nothing you do annoys me- except when you mention other men.”

“I haven’t mentioned any other men,”

“Exactly. And you won’t,”

She rolls her eyes at me despite having a smile on her face.

We leave my room and go downstairs. I pick up Bree and place her on the counter, handing her my laptop.

I peck her lips when she looks at me.

“Order the dresses you want. I keep my promise.”

She smiles and returns the kiss, “thank you,”

I smile as I watch the beautiful smile on Bree’s face.

If someone asks me what’s my favorite thing to do, it would be making Bree smile.

There’s a huge difference in the smiles she keeps for the people she adores and the people she meets for business or makes small talk with.

With her clients, Bree’s smile is small, soft and kind but her real smile is huge, genuine and beautiful. It brightens her whole face, making her look so much more beautiful it almost hurts to look away from her.

I kiss her forehead and leave her to shop while I cook us breakfast.

“Finn.”

“Hm?”

“Help me choose,”

I turn my head and find her holding the laptop screen towards me which has two dresses displayed, one is a black dress and the other is white.

“Both,” I say and turn back to the stove.

“Be serious.”

“I am serious. Buy both,”

“But-”

“I’m going to buy it if you don’t,”

A pause, “fine,”

“Good girl,”

After our breakfast is done, I place our breakfast on the counter and Bree closes her laptop.

“Done shopping?” I ask, looking at her.

“Yes,” she says, “thank you,”

“You need to stop saying ‘thank you’, amore,”

“How else am I supposed to tell you I’m thankful?”

I smile, “there are many other ways to show how thankful you are,”

“I see,” she puts away the laptop and puts her arms around my neck, “do these apply to everyone?”

My smile drops, “No.”

She chuckles, “your face changed so quickly,”

“Kiss me already,”

She smiles, leans in and kisses me. Her fingers thread through my hair when I kiss her back.

We get so lost in kissing that we don’t hear the elevator door open.

We break away from our kiss when we hear a loud surprised gasp.

Our head turn towards the owner of the gasp to find Farhan standing by the elevator with his jaw on the ground.

“You-”

He slaps his hand over his eyes, “Astaghfirullah! My eyes! I need to bleach my eyes! What did I just walk into? Ya Allah!”

I roll my eyes at his dramatic rant and walk towards him. I grab him by the back of his collar and start dragging his dramatic ass to the balcony.

I give a smile to Bree, “eat, amore. I will be right back,” I say between Farhan’s rant.

I close the balcony's glass door and let go of him with a shove.

“Shut up.” I grit out. “And remove your hand.”

He takes a step back, “stay away from me. I don't want to witness that again.”

“She's not even here right now,”

Slowly, Farhan peaks through his fingers and realizes we're on the balcony.

“Oh,” he says and drops his hand, “now,” he clears his throat, “what was that?”

“What you saw-”

“Please I do not want to remember.” He says, blinking multiple times as if to remove the image from his head.

After he becomes normal, he starts ranting, “what happened while I was gone?” he frowns, “I was only gone for a week and I come back to you kissing Bree on your counter, Jack has a girlfriend now. What else did I miss? Is Ryan dating someone now? Has Maham already started college?”

“The last question was a bit extreme,”

“No, it was not.”

“Whatever. Listen, keep your mouth shut about what you saw.”

“Ohhhh, I see,” he grins, “Jack and Ryan don’t know,”

“Not yet,”

“Wait, does Faizan know?- that little traitor didn’t tell me.”

“If you’re done with your rambling, see yourself out,”

He makes a tsk sound, shaking his head, “people change so quickly,”

“Yeah, yeah, get out.” I say, opening the balcony door.

Farhan makes a face at me then goes inside, I follow him, closing the door behind me.

Bree looks up from her phone, her eyes moving back and forth between me and Farhan.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say and take my seat beside her, “you didn’t eat,”

“I decided to wait for you.. And I thought Farhan would join us-”

“He’s leaving,”

“So rude, Finn.” Farhan says, making another tsk sound, “you should learn manners,”

“I wasn’t the one who barged into your penthouse without any kind of warning,”

“I wasn’t the one who gave your penthouse passcode to myself,”

A pause, “shit,” I curse and he grins.

I need to change the passcode.

“Would you like to join us, Farhan?” Bree kindly asks, giving him her smile- a fact I do not like.

“Thank you for asking Bree but I’m going to head out because one, I do not want to get killed by your boyfriend and second, I have to go and make sure Maham didn’t grow up and started going to college,”

Bree chuckles, “okay,”

After Farhan says his goodbye, he leaves and Bree and I start eating.

“He won’t tell anyone,” I say after a while.

“What?” she asks.

I look at her, “he won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“How did you know I was thinking about that?”

“Because I know you, amore,”

She smiles, “what did Farhan say?”

“He thinks that the whole world changed in a span of one week. Aside from us, he got Jack’s news that he’s in a relationship now.”

Surprisingly, Jack’s date went well and they started dating in two days. Jack has been grinning ever since and is always on his phone either texting or talking to her. And when he’s not with us, he’s most likely with Nora.

“I talked to Jack yesterday,” Bree says, smiling, “he is so happy with her. He said she is the perfect calm for his chaotic mind. She listens and helps him and love his lame jokes,”

“Does Ryan know?”

She nods, her expression changing, “I didn’t talk to him but Jack told me. He said that he’s on alert as always and is probably investigating Nora’s background in private. He won’t tell us but we know,”

I hum, “he’ll be fine once he finds out everything’s okay,”

“I hope so,”

She turns her attention to her food and starts moving the remains around the plate. I stare at her for a while then ask the question I've been holding myself back from asking.

“Are you scared of Ryan?”

Bree’s head snaps towards me, her eyes widen with surprise.

“No, of course not. Why?”

“I was just asking. You’re always on edge whenever he’s around, you don’t talk to him that much either compared to when you used to.”

“I…” she shifts in her place, “it’s not that I’m scared of him. It’s just… there’s.. There’s just this fear in my heart that makes me want to put on my guard ever since Ryan started his business,” Bree says, guilt forming on her face, “and it’s not like I’m not happy for him, I am thrilled, I just.. When dad started his business he changed.. He took a bad turn and he turned into this horrible person who only cared about his work and pushed his family away.

“I love Ryan. He is more of a parent to us than our own parents. Even when everything was fine, we always went to Ryan when we needed help. He helped us do our homework, he taught us how to ride a bike, he took us to buy snacks with his own pocket money and when our parents died, he never let us see how stressed he was, he never let us feel like we were a burden on him.”

Bree stares into the distance, her eyes filling up with unshed tears, “I know Ryan isn’t like our dad but… I can’t seem to fight this fear,” she looks at me, “I’m always on edge because I think that if I accidently made a mistake, he might get disappointed. I don’t want that.”

Bree wipes her eyes even though she’s not crying, “You know..” I start, “the fear we have inside is like our own enemy,” Bree looks at me, “it keeps us away from facing reality and.. No matter how hard it can be, we should learn how to fight it because..” I swallow the emotion stuck in my throat, “if we don’t… we might lose the people most important to us,”

I might not be able to fully understand Ryan’s and Bree’s relationship but I know one thing for a fact, if they don’t talk this out, break down this wall that has been built up because of their fears, they will lose each other unintentionally and who knows how badly it would affect them.

Ryan isn’t the best with communication, we all know that. He observes his surroundings and people’s behavior. Ever since Bree started being closed off around Ryan, he started staying away from her thinking it was for her own good.

We all know that Ryan will leave his business if Jack or Bree ask him too, nothing matters to him more than the siblings he raised.

“I am not going to force you to talk to him but I think you should let him know or show him that he’s still your brother,” I tell her.

Bree nods, “okay,”

I smile and kiss her forehead, she wraps her arms around my arm, resting her cheek on my shoulder. I thread my fingers through her hair then rest my head on hers.

“I have to run errands today and I want to hang out with Rose,” she says after a moment.

“Oh,”

“I’ll come at nine,”

I smile, “okay,”