Stupid Love (Stumbling into Love 1)

Everyone said their goodbyes after that, and Elijah and I went home together. We’d moved into my apartment, as it was a little bigger than his. There was a new guy across the hall. He was aight.

E and I showered together, then went to the couch. I pulled his feet into my lap and began massaging them, because again, best boyfriend ever.

“You’re pretty good at this boyfriend thing,” Elijah told me.

“I’m great at it.”

He winked. “I knew it from the first time I saw you. That’s why we didn’t get along at first. I knew you had all this boyfriend potential you weren’t living up to. It was really because I always had your best interests at heart.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” I sang.

Elijah hit me in the face with a pillow.

Love was kind of fun.

“Have you checked the site?” Elijah asked.

“Nah, but we can do it right now.”

He dropped his feet from my thighs, and I grabbed my laptop off the coffee table.

Stupid Love

He Said, He Said, Advice & Thoughts on Love, Dating & Sex

We’re ex-frenemies turned boyfriends. One of us didn’t believe in love, the other wanted it, and now that we’ve found our happily ever after with each other, we thought we’d share our knowledge with you.

Disclaimer: We rarely agree on anything. The advice will reflect that.

I switched over to our email address for the site.

“Oh my God! It’s him!” I told Elijah.

“Oh, him!” he teased. “Who is him?”

I rolled my eyes. He was infuriating, and I loved it. “Rural.” I hadn’t heard from him except for that one message. I’d wondered about him, and now I was both excited and scared to click the message.

“You do it,” I told Eli, passing the laptop over.

He nodded, took it from me, clicked, and read.

Anonymous,

It’s been a while! I appreciate your advice all those months ago. I know I never contacted you again. At first, I felt weird. Then I realized you’d inspired me to want more, but I couldn’t message until I had it.

I met someone, and he’s great. We found each other online. We started out as friends. I didn’t think it could go anywhere. How could it? How could he care about me if I hadn’t learned to care about myself?

I started therapy around the same time. I won’t go into all the details, but along with my therapist and John (that’s my guy), I worked through a lot of things. We’re together now, and I moved to a bigger city. I’ve come out to my family. I’m in love. I have a community, and that’s all because of you. Maybe that sounds silly, but I feel it. Something you said that day clicked with me. It stayed with me, and together with your offer to talk, and the way you put yourself out there for a stranger, it changed my life.

So thank you. And from the site, it looks like you’ve had some changes in your life too. Congrats!

Thanks for everything,

Rural/Timothy

We were both quiet for a moment. I didn’t know what to say, what to feel, other than awe. E closed the laptop and put it aside, then turned to me. “You did that, Shaw.”

“No.” I shook my head.

“Yes, you did. You changed his life. You changed mine. I have my storybook, romance-novel happily ever after, and his name is Shaw Hastings. Don’t tell him, though. I don’t want it to go to his head.”

I smiled, pulled him to my lap, and wrapped my arms around him. “I won’t tell him, as long as you don’t tell Elijah that he’s the same to me.”

“Promise.” He cupped my face. “You’re incredible, you know that? You always have been. The way you care about people, take care of them… Even before you liked me, you put yourself out there for me.”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” I whispered. “I always liked you. I wanted to bone you the first time I saw you.”

He laughed and swatted my chest. “Ugh. I hate you. I’m not talking about sex.”

“You’re so abusive. Remember that time you kicked me in the face?” I teased.

“It was my knee!”

“Same thing.” I playfully dumped him on the couch beside me. “If we’re going to watch a movie, we should do it now. Then I can take you to bed, rock your world, and get some sleep. I have school early tomorrow.” I’d enrolled in college, hoping to do something with writing or in mental health. I wasn’t sure what yet. I was passionate about both.

Elijah chuckled and curled up beside me the way he liked to do. I wrapped an arm around him, and we settled on Shrek.

“Shaw?” Eli said a few minutes into the movie.

“Yeah?”

“There’s no one I’d rather be stupid with than you,” he said softly, and my chest swelled.

I kissed the top of his head. “There’s no one I’d rather be stupid with than you either.”

The End