Chapter Eighteen
Damon almost blurted out something un-take-back-able.
Words for the feelings that were churning through him bubbled up.
His fingers tightened on Elliot’s waist as they spun in a slow circle.
The rest of the gym faded away. It was just the two of them wrapped up in an energy sphere of their own creation.
Damon knew that Elliot could read him, could see the longing that tightened a noose around his heart. Elliot could read the words for the feelings Damon had as if written plain as day in his eyes.
Elliot’s face transformed in slow motion. From something soft and unguarded to eye-widening horror and finally, terror. He knew what Damon had almost said, how he almost broke their friendship irreparably.
“I can’t do this.”
Elliot sprinted out of the gym and into the hall, leaving Damon in the middle of the dance floor and swirling in a toxic pool of unrequited feelings.
Longing turned sour by rejection.
He’d hesitated only a moment before he was running out the door after him. He didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what he was doing.
It’d stung when Elliot had said he didn’t have serious feelings for any of the guys he’d messed around with, but Damon could wait for him to see what he’d always known. That there was something special between them.
What Damon couldn’t do anymore was hide how he felt. Hide that he wanted more. He wanted whatever Elliot would give him.
If that was just friends who messed around, it would suck, but fine. Damon could be patient until Elliot realized they were meant to be together.
He’d never been one to wait and think and plan, to need to know with certainty the way something would turn out before he acted.
He was a risk taker. He followed his heart. And Elliot was usually his voice of reason.
But love didn’t need a reason.
And Damon was in love with his best friend.
He ran out of the gym, and almost caught up to Elliot as he escaped out the front doors of the school, except Ms. Benson slid in front of him.
“You can’t leave. A parent or guardian has to sign you out,” she said. Another teacher walked toward them, blocking the doors. Damon peered over her shoulder. Elliot’s form disappeared down the sidewalk and around the corner of the school.
“I’m not trying to leave. I just—” Damon threw a hand out. “Elliot is upset. Please let me go get him. I’m not like doing drugs or drinking or something. Come on.”
Ms. Benson narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “You haven’t been drinking?”
Damon opened and closed his mouth. “No, ma’am.”
“Cause your breath smells like you have.”
Shit. Fuck. Fuck.
“I haven’t,” Damon said. “Please. You let Elliot out.”
“Mr. Croft slipped by us,” Ms. Benson said. “But I’m not worried about him since he’s an excellent student. He needed some air. Maybe you should go wait for him in the gym.”
Damon huffed. The other two teachers didn’t look like they were going to vouch for him.
It was moments like these Damon wondered if he had lighter skin, would he be treated different? Was being deemed “less than an excellent student” just a socially acceptable way to be racist?
“Fine.” He let the unfairness burn in his belly and went back into the gym.
He went to the chair that Elliot hung his jacket on and checked the pockets, and as he expected, Elliot’s phone was there.
Damon slumped down in the chair and held his head. His phone dinged, but it was only a text from his mom. She was on her way to pick them up.
Damon resigned himself to waiting until she came to sign them out.
“Where’s Elliot?” Chelsea asked. Her shoe must have been fixed because she was walking fine.
“We were dancing,” Damon said. “But he said he couldn’t do this and ran outside. When I tried to follow him, Ms. Benson stopped me, and I can’t get out.”
Madison and Chelsea exchanged a look.
“There’s an exit from the locker rooms,” Madison said.
Damon glanced toward the other end of the gym. The door to the locker rooms was only guarded by one teacher. The other teachers stood, watching over the punch bowl in the far corner.
Chelsea smiled. “Come on, Montré. I’ve got a plan. You wanna get your man or what?”
“He’s not my—”
Both girls raised their eyebrows.
Damon licked his lips and nodded. “Yeah, okay. Yeah. Let’s go get my man.”
Chelsea and Madison didn’t try to get their prime dance spot back.
Instead, the three of them danced at the edge of the crowd, near the locker room.
The girls were making a scene, doing crazy dance moves, and as the bass of the song boomed, Chelsea kicked her leg and strategically fell down with an exaggerated holler.
Madison and Damon went to their knees and hovered over her.
“Help!” Madison shouted over top of the music.
The teacher in front of the locker room door came rushing over.
“My ankle. I think I broke it!” Chelsea yelled.
A few other teachers also made their way over. Other kids huddled around her, distracted by the commotion.
Damon stood and slowly inched out of the crowd.
He walked backward until he was a few paces away, checking that all the adults were focused on the spectacle, and then darted to the door.
Damon sprinted through the locker room, sweat gathering on the back of his neck, nerves flooding his body. He was sure Ms. Benson would somehow sense his jailbreak.
He ripped open the door to the outside and sucked in a huge breath as soon as he was in the night air.
“Freedom!” he shouted, arms raised in victory.
“Damon?”
Elliot sat on the half brick wall that separated the back of the school from the parking lot. His brows pulled together in confusion.
“Elliot,” Damon exclaimed. “I basically just broke out of prison for you!”
Elliot’s confusion warred with amusement, and he huffed like he was about to laugh but caught himself. “Go back in. I’m fine. I just need to think.”
Damon hopped up on the wall and took a seat beside him. “I can think with you.”
“No. I need to be alone.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t think about what I need to think about with you sitting next to me,” Elliot said, refusing to look at Damon.
“Why not?”
He blew out a breath through pursed lips. “Because I’m thinking about you, idiot.”
Damon’s heartbeat hadn’t recovered from his jailbreak and took off at a new speed. The toxic pleasure of pride swelled in his chest. Damon tilted his head to the side and put his face in front of Elliot’s, forcing him to look at him. “Good thoughts, right?”
Elliot’s expression twisted into his I’m trying to be stern face, but it was undercut by the twitch at the corner of his lips. He exhaled heavily and jumped off the wall.
“Come on, Elliot,” Damon said. “Whatever you need to think about. Just think out loud. I promise I won’t interrupt.”
Elliot took a deep breath, and with his back to Damon, he said, “I’m gay.”
Damon nodded but kept his word and said nothing.
“And that means that I like guys.”
Damon’s lips pursed, his eyes narrowing. Elliot was the smartest person he knew, and if these were his thoughts…they were kinda dumb.
“And that means that I want to touch guys. I want to kiss them. I want to hold them and dance with them. I want them to look at me and tell me I’m beautiful and perfect. That they love me and that they will always be there for me.”
Damon chewed on his lip. It was becoming really hard not to interrupt. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want Elliot to like guys. He wanted Elliot to like him.
“I wish I’d never told you I was gay,” Elliot said. “Because you wouldn’t have wrestled with me and got hard and realized you were bi.”
Damon really wished Elliot would turn around.
“Because it kills me that I’m gay,” Elliot continued. “And you’re bi. And we’re best friends, and what happened between us didn’t mean anything to you—”
Damon slid off the wall. “It did,” he interrupted.
Elliot threw his hands up and turned around. “Well, okay, anything more than your bi awakening or whatever. But it meant a lot more than that to me and—”
“No, Elliot. It meant something to me too.” Damon walked toward him but halted an arm’s length away as terror flooded his best friend’s eyes again, just like on the dance floor. Damon’s next words were a gentle, pleading whisper, “You mean something to me. You’re my best friend.”
Elliot cringed. “I know. I know.”
“And I love you.”
He sighed. “I know. I know you do. I just... We can’t keep kissing and doing things. Dancing and touching. I’m getting confused, and I don’t know how to be your friend now.”
“You aren’t listening,” Damon said. He grabbed his shoulders and shook him, forcing him to hear, no feel, the truth. “I love you.”
Elliot swallowed, his eyes searching back and forth between Damon’s. “As a friend?”
Damon shook his head and slid a hand to the back of his neck, gripping his hair.
“You’re my best friend. My favorite person.
You’re the only one that I want to wrestle with”—Elliot snorted—“You’re the only one that I find stupid excuses to touch and make up silly plans to trick you into coming over. ”
“You did steal my keys, didn’t you?”
Damon smiled. “I was jealous of all the time you were spending without me.”
“I was studying!” Elliot laughed.
“Yeah, and I was with Chelsea, but all I was thinking about was getting rid of her so we could hang out.”
Damon put his hands on either side of Elliot’s jaw. “I love you. More than a friend. More than anything platonic or innocent. I want to kiss you and hold you and dance with you. When I look at you, my heart hurts with how much I love you. My dick hurts with how much I fucking want you.”
Elliot’s laugh was a little watery.
“You’re beautiful. You’re perfect,” Damon said. “I will always be there for you. I love you.”
Elliot took an uneven breath. “I love you too.”
Damon pressed their foreheads together. “Yeah?”
He nodded, tears in his eyes. “So much. For so goddamn long you don’t even know, Damon.”
“You been pining for me, Croft?”
Elliot pushed his shoulder. “Fuck you, Montré.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Is this how you flirted with all your girls? And here I was, jealous of them.”
“Shut up.” And to make sure he shut up—Damon kissed him.