Stefan Baker, my fiancé.
Holy shit. I can say that now.
The kiss ends and then he holds me against him in a tight, bone-crunching embrace.
“Rudy knew,” whispers Stefan into my ear as he holds me.
I bite my lip to fight off a grin, then finally concede and nod. “Who the hell else do you think gave me the pep talk before I went and did all of this?”
“That little shit said nothing.” Stefan chuckles, his voice still shaking with emotion. “Guess it just speaks to his character. He’s an honest kid.”
“Not really a kid anymore,” I point out.
Then he pulls away to get a long look at my face, his wet eyes sparkling as he gazes on me.
Somewhere in his eyes, I see the fourteen-year-old who sat on me in that bathroom long ago. He was an honest kid, too. He knew what I was and still wanted to be my friend. How could we have possibly predicted back then where we would end up?
In each other’s arms, that’s where.
A fourteen-year-old boy named Ryan who once nervously cuddled up to a fourteen-year-old boy named Stefan one night … and never could have dreamed that his lips would someday touch those of the boy he couldn’t get out of his mind.
In Stefan’s eyes, I see all of the laughter we shared, the jokes we made, and the games we played. I see how much I filled up his heart, and how much he mended my wounded one.
It was never a question. I always belonged to Stefan Baker. My life was destined to be the story of how two unlikely boys found each other in the mess and confusion of adolescent rivalry and emotions we couldn’t dare name yet.
And that’s thanks to a smelly catcher’s mitt.
And an ill-timed boner.
I grin at my fiancé and put my lips right where they’ve always belonged: on Stefan’s—my bromo for life—who’s been right here in front of me all along.
The End.