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..."
He points to the girl behind him who I was too busy checking out Harlyn to notice. She's pretty, too. Short, probably only five foot tall, with gorgeous dark skin and a poof of tightly curled black hair.
"You're an idiot, babes," she breathes, giving Harlyn an exasperated look. And then she grins wickedly, reminding me so much of Max I groan inwardly a little. I already know they're going to get along too well. And the next words out of her mouth confirm it. "Are you disappointed he's not a girl?"
Harlyn full on face palms, smacking a hand over his eyes and almost covering the pink on his cheeks. Almost. "Elly..." he moans. Mrs. Evans giggles from where she's leaning against the kitchen counter. "Mum don't egg her on. Please."
"We just like seeing you squirm, Harley," Elly says, patting Harlyn on the arm in what is supposed to be a comforting manner and sinking into one of the chairs around the table. Harlyn and his mom follow. "I'm Elly."
"Right. Yes. Sorry. This is Elly. This is Max. And...Finley, right?" Harlyn says, squinting at me. "I remember that at least."
"Yes. Finley Bowers," I say. "And I'll forgive you for thinking I was a girl. Finley is a unisex name. And Max can leave things out, sometimes." I give him a look that I try to channel you knew he was gorgeous and didn't warn me into.
Max ignores me and scoffs. "Excuse you. Harlyn obviously wasn't listening."
"Oh yeah, blame him," I whisper, rolling my eyes. I catch Harlyn looking between us, a little smile on his face. Right. We're not alone. We're in front of total strangers. Hello anxiety. I was wondering when you'd show up.
"Finley's also a very British name. So is Bowers, actually," Elly adds, mercifully moving the conversation to a topic I can at least somewhat navigate.
"Yeah. Way back, I've got a lot of British lineage. My parents just liked Finley," I say, twisting the sleeve of my shirt around my pointer finger to have something to do with my hands.
"It means fair-haired hero," Max snickers. I touch my brown, and decidedly not fair, hair.
"I was really blonde as a baby," I explain, as I did to Max when he first learned what my name meant during a strange English project sophomore year. "And then I grew out of it and got my mom's hair. But...they'd already chosen the name."
Mrs. Evans chimes in with, "We should've named you that, Harlyn," and Harlyn touches his own extremely blonde curls. There's an indentation along the side of his head where it's buzzed close to his scalp, probably from a work hat he's no longer wearing. I'm staring too much again if I'm noticing that.
"Or Cup-o-noodles," Elly teases, ruffling his curls affectionately.
"Or that," Mrs. Evans chuckles. "But Harlyn will have to do."
"Harlyn's a cool name," I say, apparently all sense flying off with my sanity in tow. Because now Harlyn is looking at me, smiling. So, I look at Max again. "Max is the one with all the British family. His great aunt lives in Scotland."
"Yeah," Max says, and the attention moves to him. "I'm going to visit her while I'm here."
"Well, that's exciting," Mrs. Evans says. "Anywhere else the two of you are planning on traveling while you're here?"
Max starts in on the class we have to take all about famous British places that has a mandatory field trip every week and that we're trying to decide where to go over Easter break.
"Well, Harlyn has shown past students around a little. I'm sure he'd be willing to do it again," Mrs. Evans says, pointedly looking at Harlyn.
"Only if you want," Harlyn says quickly. "I know it's nice to have a native sometimes. But only if I won't get in the way."
"No, that sounds great," Max says, glancing at me to check for confirmation. I nod. "We've explored a little bit of Canterbury, but I'm sure it would be way more fun with you two."
Harlyn's face lights up in a way that I try to ignore, because it makes my insides flutter a little. "Yeah, I'd be happy to."
"We would be happy to," Elly corrects, nudging Harlyn's arm.
"Right. We."
The conversation moves on, and for once, I don't feel completely consumed by anxiety and social drain. There's something about Harlyn, so much like his mom, that makes me feel very at ease. Elly, too. She looks at me like she's already my best friend. Usually, people - especially new people - paying attention to me is threatening, like they're about to break down the very carefully built wall I have around my anxiety that holds it at bay. (It's taken me all week to say a fully formed sentence to Amelia at breakfast.) But when Mrs. Evans gets up and heads toward the stove, I realize that another hour has passed and we actually have somewhere to be tonight.
"Anyone want tea?" Mrs. Evans asks, already grabbing a kettle from a burner and filling it with water. Harlyn and Elly both nod, but I turn to Max, trying to both remind him that I don't like tea and that we really should get going. He gets the first part, probably remembering my now embarrassing tiny freak out when I realized I would have to tell British people I don't like tea.
"Oh, Finley's not really a tea guy, but I'll take some," he says.
Mrs. Evans smiles. "Oh, well, I have cocoa as well. It's not a problem."
"Actually," I say. "We have to get going. Max, it's nearly five."
"Oh, shoot, yeah." Max looks at his phone. "We gotta run. Rain check?"
"Oh, don't worry. Mum will offer you tea every day you're here," Harlyn says, a small smile playing on his lips. God. His lips. Why did I look at his lips?
"Perfect," Max says, standing. I stand, too.
"Too bad. I was going to invite you to join us for our Marvel marathon," Elly says, frowning. I share a grin with Max.
"Definitely another time," Max says.
There's a flurry of goodbyes - awkward waves and handshakes like we're thirty five year old business men and not twenty somethings who just made tentative plans to watch Marvel movies together. And then Elly hugs me. And I'm so surprised that it takes me a second to hug her back. And even though she's at least a foot shorter than me, she seems to engulf me, squeezing tight. I feel myself melting a little.
We put our shoes on and step out the door, waving to Mrs. Evans. As soon as we're out of sight, I slug Max in the shoulder.
"Ow!" he cries, clutching his bicep. "What the hell was that for?"
"You didn't tell me he was cute!" I exclaim. "You just let me gawk at him like an idiot."
"I wanted to see your genuine reaction," Max says, that wicked smile on his face that Elly had given Harlyn earlier. "He's cute, isn't he? He's nice, too. I think you'll get along."
I groan. "Max, you have got to stop trying to set me up with people. The German guy's roommate at orientation. That one girls' brother at the social the other night. Must I remind you of my 'Max doesn't set me up on dates' policy?"
"No," he grumbles.
"Besides, you literally said he's had, like, four thousand girlfriends," I remind him. Of course, all the straight guys are gorgeous.
"Four," Max corrects. "He's had four girlfriends and none since high school. That's almost two years. And might I remind you - again - that bisexuality exists."
I roll my eyes as we wait to cross the street. "That line hasn't worked on me since junior year, Max. I'm done pining after guys who might be gay because they haven't said otherwise. It's not healthy. And you know it." That was my entire high school career. Rural midwestern towns didn't exactly offer up a diverse gay dating pool. Or a diverse dating pool in general.
"I know," Max says softly, jogging to keep up as we finally cross the street behind a Range Rover. "I was mostly kidding. I just...haven't seen you check a guy out like that since Jared. A year, Fin. A whole year."
"Yes, well," I say, trying to ignore the fluster that's creeping through my voice. "I'm here to have a love affair with England. Not a love affair with some guy. A guy who is almost for sure straight and lives thousands of miles away in a different country. If you'll remember, Jared and I broke up because he was moving to California, and we both swore never to do long distance."
"No, you and Jared broke up because he had eyes for Leslie," Max reminds me as we wind through campus.
I knew I wouldn't get that one past him. Jared and I started going out last January and agreed to "break up" - if you could call a handful of dates and kissing sessions a relationship - at the end of the semester when he transferred. But after only a few weeks of us sort of dating, he'd moved on to Leslie, a girl in one of his classes.
"And," Max continues. "You never swore off all long distance relationships. Just with Jared."
"Why are you insisting on Harlyn so hard?" I ask.
He snags my elbow halfway through a courtyard, and I stop even though we're definitely going to be late. "I'm not insisting on Harlyn necessarily, although he is a great option if it turns out I'm right, and he's secretly hella bi. I just don't want you to close off the possibility of dating completely because it 'can't go anywhere.'" He puts the last phrase in scare quotes with his fingers. "You're in a new country, far away from tiny, pathetic central Illinois and its tiny, pathetic pool of eligible queers. Embrace it! I'm begging you!"
"You're very melodramatic today," I say, raising an eyebrow.
"I just worry about you," he admits. "I don't want you to repeat Senior year, hiding in your room and avoiding all social contact."
I flinch but manage to joke, "You won't let that happen."
"No, I won't," Max exclaims, still on fire. "We're here to learn and see new places and all that. But we're also here to experience living in England. And that means talking to cute boys, even if they're not gay."
"Ok. Ok. Calm down. I get it," I say, putting my hands up. I raise my right hand like I'm in court. "I promise to talk to the cute boy, even though I had no intention of ignoring him for three months."
Max rolls his eyes. "Now who's being melodramatic?" But he waves me on anyway. "What else?"
I sigh, hand still raised. "I promise not to overlook other cute guys who I will have more of a chance with than Harlyn Evans."
"Fin!" Max exclaims, shoving my shoulder. "Be serious!"
"I am being serious," I laugh. As much as I hate to admit it, Max might be right, no matter how much the prospect of trying to date - or just talk to people in general - terrifies me. "I'm promising what you want. I'll try, ok?"
"Thank you. That's all I want." He claps me on the shoulder. "Now, we should go. We're going to be late."