Chapter 25
25
“ M um, Dad, Ed…I have something to tell you.”
My palms were sweaty as fuck. Why did no one tell me how nerve-racking it was to come out to your family? Yet, here I was, about to do it. I still wasn’t sure whether to even put a label on it—bisexual, probably—but either way, the fact was that I was in a relationship with a man for the first time in my life. A man who happened to be my best friend, who was already considered part of the family. So…it wasn’t like I should be afraid because I knew my family loved Leo, and I was sure they’d accept me. It was just…nerve-racking. Yeah.
Okay. Fuck it, I was just going to say it. “Leo’s my boyfriend, and I guess I’m bi or whatever. The point is, yeah, uh, we’re together.” I cleared my throat. “He’s my boyfriend,” I repeated, as if there was a chance they hadn’t heard me the first time when I’d practically shouted it across the kitchen table.
“Oh, sorry. Is this meant to be a surprise?” my dad said after an agonising silence that had Leo’s breaths turning short and panicky next to me. Beneath the table, my hand found his, and I squeezed it gently, letting him know we were in this together.
“Bro, this is old news. I literally walked in on you two kissing.” Ed rolled his eyes, and my dad laughed. I didn’t know what my face was doing, but it made him laugh harder. Have you ever given your own parent the middle finger? I did, right then.
“Sorry. Did you want us to act like we’re surprised?” He turned to my mum, widening his eyes and giving a fake gasp. “Can you believe it? Finn and Leo are in a relationship. They were so subtle. I never had a clue.”
“Very subtle.” My mum smirked, but then she pushed her chair back, coming around the table to stand next to me, placing her hand on my shoulder and squeezing lightly. “You know we love and accept you, whatever your sexuality. And, Leo—” She turned to him. “—you’re part of our family, and we love and accept you, too.”
“Thanks,” he whispered, his lips curving upwards in a shy smile, and how was it possible for me to be so fucking head over heels for this person? And how hadn’t I realised sooner?
Later, when we’d escaped to Leo’s flat, after way too many intrusive questions from my well-meaning family, we stretched out on his bed, finally able to relax in our own private space. Leo curled into me, holding his phone out so I could see the screen.
“I told my dad about us. I-I didn’t say I was bi because I don’t know what I am. You know, I’ve only been kind of attracted to one other person, and that was a long time ago. So I just told him about you.”
“Baby, it doesn’t matter what you want to call it. The fact is you’re mine, and I’m yours, and that’s all anyone else needs to know. We’ve said this all along. We don’t owe anyone any explanations about our relationship.”
He shifted forwards, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “I know.”
When he laid his head on my shoulder, pushing his phone towards my face, I scanned the text thread with his dad.
LEO:
Hi Dad. I tried calling a few times. I’m not sure when you’ll be free to phone me back so I thought I would text. I wanted to let you know I have a serious boyfriend now. His name is Finn and he’s a student at my uni studying engineering
I hope you can meet him soon. He’s amazing. I think you’ll like him
It fucking hurt to see that Leo had sent those messages yesterday, after our celebratory drinks with Connor, Niall, and Niall’s girlfriend, and he hadn’t received a reply until this afternoon, just a couple of minutes before we’d sat my parents and brother down in the kitchen.
DAD:
Good for you! Hope the course is going well. Keep up the good work
He’d added a thumbs up emoji, and that was the extent of their interaction.
There and then, I promised myself I was never going to let Leo feel like he didn’t matter, that he wasn’t important enough to answer the phone to. Leo was everything to me, and I was pretty sure he was aware of it, but just in case he wasn’t, I was going to make sure I made it very, very obvious.
“It’s good that he doesn’t have a problem with me being with you, isn’t it?” Leo murmured.
It’s not good that he didn’t bother calling back his own fucking son .
“Leo, you deserve so much more.” Stroking my hand through his hair and then lightly scraping my nails over his nape, I sighed. “I am glad that he doesn’t seem to have any issues with you being with me. I just wish…”
“I know. But I have you, don’t I. And your family.” His words were firm, stated as fact rather than as a question, and some of the tightness in my chest eased.
“Yeah. You have us, and you have our friends— Fuck. Speaking of our friends, when are we gonna tell them? And do you think they’ll be as unsurprised as everyone else seems to be?”
Leo’s laugh was muffled against my throat, his breath tickling my skin, making me laugh too.
“They’ve made comments about us being boyfriends before, so I don’t think they’ll be surprised. When do you want to tell them?”
I thought about it for a minute. “We’re not acting any differently around each other, are we? Maybe we don’t need an official announcement. Maybe we should just carry on as we are. Or…” An idea came to me, and a slow smile spread across my face. “What if we post some photos together? See how long it takes for them to notice.”
It was a great plan, in my eyes. Not only would we get to troll our friends a bit—and they deserved it after all the boyfriend comments before they were true—but I’d also get to fill my camera roll with photos of my favourite person. Win-win.
“Oh. Okay, yeah.” He pushed himself upright, sliding off the end of the bed. Eyeing me from beneath his lashes, he tugged his lip between his teeth, shifting on his feet.
“What is it?” I couldn’t help smiling. He was so fucking cute when he went all shy.
“I wanted a photo of us for my phone wallpaper before, but I didn’t know if we could do that.”
“Of course we can do that. We could’ve done that before, too.” Rolling off the bed, I crossed the room to his gaming chair and took a seat. I patted my thighs. “Come here, boyfriend. Let’s get a photo of us looking all cute with our gaming headsets.”
When we’d arranged ourselves with Leo seated on my lap and both of us with our headsets on, I leaned into him, hooking my chin over his shoulder, both of us smiling at the selfie camera. I took a series of photos, turning my head to kiss Leo’s cheek in one of them, and then he twisted around, grabbed my head, and kissed my lips…
After that, we forgot all about the photos.
By the time I remembered what we’d originally been doing, we were on the bed, naked and breathless, coming down from the high of our orgasms, and my jaw was aching from sucking Leo’s dick. Totally worth it.
When I’d regained the use of my legs, I recovered my phone and returned to Leo. We cleaned up, and then I pulled the duvet over us and wrapped my arm around him, so he could curl into me as we went through the photos we’d taken. I stopped on an image showing the two of us leaning into each other, the sides of our headphones pressed together. We were both grinning at the camera, our faces a little blurry where Leo had knocked my hand with his as I was taking the photo. Despite the minor blur, we looked so fucking happy, it was almost radiating out of the screen.
“This is the one.” Opening my social media, I uploaded the photo, adding the caption “Gaming day with my favourite person,” followed by a heart emoji, and then I tagged Leo’s account. He only had a couple of posts on his profile, but I had the feeling that was about to change now we were officially together.
I was right…yet completely taken aback by what he did. Because I was scrolling through my notifications, I wasn’t really paying attention when he reached for his own phone, and I was totally unprepared for the notification that appeared on my screen.
“You tagged me in a photo as well?”
“Yeah.” Leo turned to kiss my cheek. “Look at it.”
“Fucking hell, baby.” I stared at the image on my screen.
“Too obvious?”
“Maybe, but I don’t care.” I placed my phone down next to me and then gently tugged his phone from his unresisting grip, placing it next to mine. “Come here.”
Leo shifted onto me, his legs tangling with mine as his body pressed me down into the mattress. “Hi,” he said, brushing his lips over mine.
“Hi. I love you.”
His cheeks flushed. Dipping his head, he smiled against my skin. “I love you.”
“That picture isn’t gonna leave anyone with any doubts.” I stroked my hand down his back. “It makes it all seem even more real.”
“It is real. That’s why I wanted to post the photo.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “It’s real.”
Next to us, our phones lit up with notifications from our friends. The picture Leo had posted showed us lying in bed, with me scrolling through my phone with a grin on my face. Leo was curled into me, smiling up at the camera. Only the tops of our upper bodies were in shot, and we were covered by Leo’s duvet anyway, but it clearly showed that our shoulders were bare, and we were cuddling in bed together.
Leo had added a simple one-word caption.
Happy .