“I know. Fuck, I know, and I did it for completely selfish reasons too. It’s hard to see you like that.” When you loved someone, you wanted to fix things that hurt them, and I couldn’t do that for Milo.
“Too hard?” he asked.
My pulse jumped. “No, fuck no.”
“Because this isn’t a temporary thing. I will always have my idiosyncrasies, and sometimes they might change. And sometimes we won’t know what one is until it happens. There might be days you’ll invite me out and it’ll be fine, and times I might hate it, and there will be times I’ll tell you I don’t even want to go. I know it doesn’t always make things easy, but I’m not sorry about who I am. I like me.”
“Jesus, Lo.” I stepped close to him, risked reaching over to cup his cheek, and he let me. “I’m not sorry about who you are either. I’m so fucking crazy about you. Don’t you know that?” He looked up at me with big, blue, trusting eyes that had the key to unlock everything inside me. “I’m in love with you.”
His pupils blew wide, but then he jerked backward. “Noooo. You weren’t supposed to say that.”
My insides froze up. My heart stopped beating. Holy shit. He didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t every day you spilled your heart to a guy, and he answered with, Nah, I’m good. “It’s okay if you’re not there yet. I just, um…wanted you to know?” Fuck my life.
“What? Oh! No. That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to tell you first. I had it all planned out! Mom said you loved me, but I didn’t believe her. I was going to tell you anyway because it’s true, and I wanted to be brave and tell you, regardless of whether you felt the same.”
His words shocked me back to life, a defibrillator pulsing electrical currents through my heart. “Say what?”
“I love you.”
“I just wanted to hear the words. You didn’t actually use them.”
“But I’m still frustrated you said it first.”
“Milo, your boyfriend just admitted he’s crazy in love with you, and you’re annoyed he said it before you?”
“Yes, yes I am.”
I laughed. “God, I love you.”
His face split open in a smile. “I love you too. You make me happy in ways I didn’t know I needed. You’re smart, kind, funny, and talented. You accept people as they are. You accept me, and you love me for it, for all those pieces of me that other people think are strange. You are…” He stepped in closer again, wrapping his arms around my waist. “My favorite person in the whole world…even when you make mistakes.”
“Thankfully, it’s regardless of my screw-ups. If you’d come home earlier, you would have realized I forgot to add tomatoes to the shopping list. Don’t worry, I fixed it.”
“Gideon! You should just do it when you use something so you don’t forget.”
“I’m learning.” I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re my favorite person too. You make me feel wanted, and that’s even better than feeling needed. I never had that before you. I didn’t feel wanted or like I belonged. Even if it doesn’t make sense to others, and even if we’re different, we fit together, Lo.” I brushed the back of my hand against his cheek. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t ever want you to feel like I don’t trust your judgment or that I’m embarrassed of what might happen. But you have to understand that I’m not perfect, that I’ll make mistakes and so will you.”
“I know.” He looked down. “I think I put you on a pedestal. You’ve always been different with me than other people. That’s why it hit me so hard.”
“We’re both going to have to get used to this. There might be some stumbling along the way, but we can do it. I want to be with you.”
He nodded. “And I also wanted to say that it’s okay if sometimes you don’t…like, if someone has a party and you just don’t want to risk it or to worry about me, all you have to do is tell me. The worst part was that you stayed home instead of going. Orlando messaged you that night, and you still didn’t go. You can’t do that, Gideon. Ever. You can ask me if I want to go, or you can tell me you’d rather go alone, but don’t keep it to yourself and stay home. I won’t be the guy who makes you miss out.”
“You also need to be honest with me if you’re unsure about a situation,” I said. When he agreed, I added, “Everything is better when you’re there.”
“Are you trying to get into my pants? Because yes, you totally can. I’d really like to kiss you now.”
“I’d like to kiss you all the time.”