Chapter 11 #2
I shrug. “Chad never bothered to get to know me well enough to figure that out.”
“His loss,” Anthony says.
And the way he says it, without a flicker of doubt, soothes a place inside me that I didn’t know was still bruised.
“The best part was his friends fawning all over you. Chad hates not being the center of attention. He’d have hated them all wanting selfies with you.”
“Talking about selfies, do you want to take one together?” Anthony asks.
He pulls out his phone and looks at me expectantly.
I stop walking. “What?”
“Well, Chad’s friends got photos with me. Seems only fair that you get one too.”
“Ah…okay.” I can definitely think of worse things than having this moment immortalized. Even if things don’t work out between us, I will always have memories of this perfect extended date.
Anthony puts his arm around me and pulls me in close while extending his phone with his other arm. But instead of taking just a regular photo of us both smiling, he turns and kisses my cheek just as he takes it.
The result is a photo where I’m looking at the camera with a wide grin on my face, my eyes crinkled, while Anthony’s lips are pressed to my cheek.
It’s intimate, sweet, and perfect.
He studies the photo for a moment. Then he starts typing on his phone.
“What are you doing?”
He shows me his screen. He’s on Instagram, the photo uploaded with the caption:
Thanks to everyone who asked if my date with Nick went well. Given it’s been sixteen hours and we’re still on it, I think it’s fair to say it’s going extremely well.
“Are you okay if I post this?” he asks.
I stare at the photo he’s uploaded, my heart doing something complicated in my chest. “Are you asking me if I want to make us Instagram official?”
When I glance up, his dark eyes are fixed on me. “I guess I am.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I think we have something real here, don’t you?”
My heartbeat is pounding in my ears, and I meet his eyes. “Yeah, I think we do.”
“So?” He’s still holding the phone, thumb hovering over the Share button.
I take a shaky breath. “What will being your Instagram-official boyfriend mean?”
“It’ll mean that we hang out lots when I’m in town, both at my apartment and yours. It’ll mean that when I’m on tour, we pretty much continue what we’ve been doing, messaging each other constantly, telling each other small details of our days, although I’d like to add in some video calls as well.”
“Video calls could be fun,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Having experienced how thin your walls are, there will be a limit to the amount of phone sex we’ll have, but you know, I’m open to giving you a key to my place so you can go there and have some privacy when I’m gone.”
“You want to give me a key to your place?”
“Eventually. If you want. No pressure.” He bites his lip. “So, what do you say? Want to break the internet with me?”
Instead of answering, I take his phone and hit Share myself.
And I watch for the next few minutes as an unbelievable number of likes and comments start piling in.
@sparklequeenxo: you two are ADORABLE
@believerinlove: okay, this is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen
@musiclover2847: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Anthony post about any of the guys he’s dating before???
@nycgayboi: get yourself a man who kisses you like this
@antonyfanclub: wait, is this the guy from the apartment tour video? You know, the guy who mocked your Architectural Living segment? It really looks like that guy.
Anthony laughs when he sees that comment. “It looks like your identity has been outed.”
“Great. Now the entire internet will know I did a spoof video of you.” I groan. “Then my mom will find out and interrogate me about why I was mean to you.”
Anthony’s expression shifts. “Speaking of your mom… We should probably do the family introduction thing sooner rather than later.”
I blink at him. “You want to meet my parents?”
“I want to meet everyone important to you.” He squeezes my hand. “It’s just that this whole thing is probably going to get big. My publicist is going to want to ‘manage the narrative’ or whatever, and I’d rather your family meet me as Anthony, your boyfriend, not Anthony Devine, media spectacle.”
“That’s a fair point.”
“Then let’s get ahead of it. What about tomorrow?”
I stare at him. “Tomorrow? That’s…soon.”
“Too soon?”
I think about my mom’s face when I tell her I’m bringing Anthony Devine home to meet her. The sheer chaos that will ensue.
But then I imagine showing Anthony where I grew up. The sunny kitchen where my mom stress-bakes. The backyard where I had my first kiss with a boy and immediately panicked. All the pieces of me that existed before I became the guy who messaged him. I want him to see those too.
“It’s not too soon,” I say slowly.
He grins at me. “Besides, I need to see your childhood bedroom. I’m hoping there are more posters of me.”
“There are definitely not more posters of you.”
There’s absolutely more posters of him.
I glance again at all the comments coming in, with a whole side thread of people speculating about whether I am actually the guy from the spoof video.
“If I knew a spoof video was the key to finding a famous boyfriend, I would have tried making one of Matt Bomer,” I say, and Anthony laughs and reels me in to kiss me again.