Messy Love (Stumbling into Love 3)

“I’m not sure I like the thoughts-playing-across-my-face thing.”

“No worries. Since we’re gonna be besties, I won’t tell anyone your secrets.”

His eyes darted to the side in this shy way I couldn’t read. “Let’s go. Someone didn’t make me lunch today.”

“What? I’m your lunch maker now? That was a short-term thing, buckaroo. You’re on your own. Plus, I don’t see you making me lunch.”

We went out together, I locked the door behind us, and we headed for the elevator.

“Buckaroo?” he asked.

“Eh. I don’t know where that came from. It just happened.”

“You are so weird,” he replied, and somehow, I could hear a smile in his voice. I’d never heard a damn smile before, so maybe I was going a little crazy.

Once outside, we turned right. The streets were packed, people along the sidewalks, some construction going on at one of the buildings, but it had stopped for the day.

“What’s for dinner?” Jonathan asked.

“I figured we’d go to Midtown Bite. It’s a restaurant-sports-bar kinda feel, only gay.”

“It’s a gay restaurant?”

“No, I mean, straight people go and some probably work there too, but it’s in our little village, so everything here is pretty gay. Like I said, we stick together, we’re safe together. There are a lot of us who go there or work there.”

“Gotcha.” He was wearing another T-shirt, one that showed off his impressive upper body, and a different pair of threadbare jeans. I was noticing a theme. I also couldn’t help but see people who walked by and did a double take of him. Jonathan seemed unaware of the attention, just walking along with messy hair that a guy wanted to fix and muscles for days. Why, why, why did he have to be Will’s brother?

We walked across the rainbow crosswalk that had just gotten a new paint job. “One of the bars I go to isn’t far from here. Just right down this street.” I pointed. “We have to go sometime.”

He nodded, but that was his only response.

“This is okay, right?” I asked, wanting to be sure. “I would never push you into doing things if you aren’t ready.”

“No,” he rushed out more quickly than I expected. “It’s fine. It’s…good. That’s why I moved here. I know I get quiet sometimes or run things over in my head a lot, but it’s just because things I thought would only ever be inside me are now out there, they’re real and people know. I still can’t believe it sometimes. Then it makes me feel…so fucking stupid for spending so much of my life as a liar, and like I’m so far behind.”

I stopped walking, put a hand on his biceps. “You’re not a liar. Have you talked to your therapist about these feelings?”

He looked away, nodded again. “That’s still abstract, ya know? This is living. And I don’t see him anymore.”

Oh, I hadn’t known that. It was none of my business, so I just said, “I get it.”

“But I’m glad…to be here…doing this…with you. So thanks. Even if I fight you on it sometimes, thank you for not giving up.”

Jonathan gave me a small smile and pulled away. I stood there for a moment, feeling these foreign, twisty things inside me, my pulse racing in an unfamiliar way, before I started walking too, moving in line beside him.

CHAPTER NINE

Jonathan

I didn’t know what it was about Danny that made me open my mouth and say shit I wouldn’t say to anyone else. Well, my therapist, when I’d seen him, but that had taken a while. With Danny, it felt like it happened almost from the start, and I couldn’t quite figure out how I felt about it, or how to fucking stop doing it, or why I wasn’t sure I really wanted to. It was infuriating.

When we got to the restaurant, he opened the door for me, and we went inside. A woman with a purple pixie cut asked, “Just two?”

“Yeah.”

“Booth or bar?”

I turned to Danny.

“Up to you,” he replied.

“Booth is fine.” She led us to our table, and we sat down. We weren’t too far from the bar, where people were eating and screaming at the TV.

“Your waiter will be with you in a moment.” She sneaked away.

“This doesn’t look gay,” I found myself saying.

“Crazy, right? We’re just like everyone else.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know. Sorry if it came off that way. People have their stereotypical ideas, and it’s frustrating sometimes. Like, when we were in high school, people were shocked I was gay but weren’t surprised by Elijah being the same, because if I was queer, I had to be a certain thing. It’s upsetting, but I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

No, I hadn’t, but I still said it or thought it. I had lots of shit to work through. I had my own stereotypical ideas which threw me sometimes, because I knew I was attracted to men, I wanted to touch them and have sex with them and be with them, but it had taken me a long time to sort through it because of my problematic thinking. “I’m buying dinner tonight,” I said, though I didn’t know where that thought had suddenly come from.