Stupid Love (Stumbling into Love 1)

“Dating?”

“Not really.”

Danny frowned. “So you’re friends who fuck? That’s not your thing, Eli. You’ve never been one to do that shit. If this is supposed to make me like or trust him, it’s not working.”

My chest squeezed because…well, because I wanted Danny and Shaw to be friends. I wanted them to like each other. “This isn’t supposed to do anything. It’s simply me telling you the truth. I’m a grown-ass man who can make my own decisions. Shaw didn’t push me into…whatever we’re doing.” I was so fucking tired of calling it hanging out. “He’s not as bad as you think.”

“A month ago you hated him!” Danny countered, and he wasn’t wrong. Or I’d thought I hated him. “I just… I don’t get it. It’s weird. You guys are completely different.”

“So are we.”

He turned to me, a look of hurt on his face. “We’re not that different. You’re my best friend.”

“We’re still different in a lot of ways and not in others. It’s the same with Shaw. And we’re also making a big deal about this.”

“So you don’t have feelings for him? You’re just sleeping with him?”

I opened my mouth to confirm, but there was a twitch in my chest. That didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right, but God, I couldn’t have feelings for Shaw. I liked him, but that felt different from feelings. I hardly knew him… That didn’t feel right, though. I knew he was kind and liked to help people. I knew he told himself he didn’t believe in love, but it was really his way of protecting his heart because he’d been hurt. I knew he was the type of guy who took dance lessons he wasn’t interested in to be nice, and that he gave his contact info to a random stranger online to help him not feel so lonely. I knew he loved animated movies and enjoyed taking photos and that his smile made me feel light, like a cloud, and… “Holy fuck.”

“Exactly,” Danny said.

Noooo. I couldn’t. I couldn’t have feelings for Shaw outside of friendship and a little bit of like. I mean, we’d gone over that part, but this felt deeper. Like was only interest, in a way; feelings were part of you. They held a piece of your heart. “We’re just having fun,” I insisted unconvincingly.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I didn’t know what made me say it. I was pretty sure my brain was fried from acknowledging I more than liked Shaw and had feelings for him. Whatever the excuse, I blurted, “I used to think I was in love with you.” The air was sucked out of me as I realized what I said. “Oh my God. Why did I tell you that?”

Danny didn’t reply. He didn’t look shocked either. He sat there staring at me with knowledge and what looked almost like pity.

“You knew!” I accused. “You knew, and you never said anything?”

He groaned. “What was I supposed to say? Hey, Elijah, I can tell you think you have feelings for me, but we’re better off as friends?”

Which meant that while I thought I loved him, he always knew he didn’t. He’d known how I felt and didn’t return those feelings. Despite everything, that still hurt. “Well, I was wrong about how I felt about you, which means I’m likely wrong in thinking I might have teeny, tiny feelings for Shaw. I apparently don’t know my own emotions.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Come on. Don’t do that. The lines were blurred with us. I wondered too, at different points in my life. I get it. Hell, even Shaw made me wonder again because I really wanted to punch him in the face when we had dinner here. But I think it’s because our lives are so entwined together. We love each other. We’ve always loved each other, but we’re not in love with each other.”

It made sense, but… “Yeah, well, at least one of us has always known that,” I grumbled.

“Cut yourself some slack. Emotions are confusing. It’s not all cut and dried.”

I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I didn’t know what this said about me. And maybe it was dumb, but it made me not trust myself. Maybe Danny and Shaw and everyone else had it right. Things were a whole lot easier when you fucked your way through life instead of focusing on the other stuff.

“Come here.” Danny held one arm out, and I scooted closer, leaned into him. He wrapped his arm around me, and I closed my eyes. We’d done this a thousand times before. Lately, I’d looked at it differently, felt something different, but I didn’t in that moment. I focused, tried to remember when Danny held me over the past year, when I’d questioned my feelings for him compared to being in Shaw’s arms, and even thinking about Shaw and the way he let me in made my skin tingle.