Chapter 34
OLIVER
The espresso machine chooses the exact moment I’m locking the front door to make a sound like a dying whale.
“Not now,” I mutter, jiggling the key in the lock. “I already turned you off. You’re supposed to be quiet.”
The machine gurgles again, defiant to the last. I make a mental note to have a serious conversation with whoever scheduled maintenance, then finally get the deadbolt to cooperate. The click of the lock is satisfying in that end-of-shift way that makes minimum wage almost worth it.
The Brew sits dark behind me now, the chairs stacked on tables, the display case empty, the chalk menu wiped clean for tomorrow’s specials.
I pocket the keys and walk down the sidewalk, already mentally composing my evening plans. Shower. Food. Text Ryan. We haven’t talked since the picnic, and the silence is starting to feel like a physical weight on my chest.
That’s when I walk directly into a human being, sending us both stumbling backward. “What the—”
“Oh golly, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t—”
We both freeze.
Ryan Abrams stands in front of me, illuminated by the single functioning streetlight like he’s been staged there by a romantic comedy director with no sense of subtlety. He’s wearing his usual khakis and a button-down, and his brown hair is slightly windswept.
“Ryan?” My voice comes out approximately two octaves higher than intended. I try again. “Ryan? What are you doing here?”
“I was—” He gestures vaguely at the coffee shop behind me. “I came to see you. But then I noticed it was dark and thought maybe I’d missed you, so I was walking toward the Hockey House, and then—”
“You walked into me.”
“You walked into me.”
“I think it was mutual.”
“Mutually catastrophic,” Ryan agrees, and there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that makes my stomach flip. “My apologies for the collision. I should have been watching where I was going.”
“You came to see me?” The words finally register, cutting through my post-collision brain fog. “It’s almost eleven.”
Ryan’s cheeks flush, visible even in the dim light. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about…things. And Jackson said that thinking about things was not the same as doing something about things, and then he threatened to physically carry me here if I didn’t leave on my own, so.”
“Jackson threatened to carry you?”
“He’s surprisingly strong for someone who spends most of his time cuddling a stuffed penguin.”
I laugh, and some of the tension in my chest loosens. This is Ryan. My Ryan. The guy I’ve kissed under stars, held hands with in the archive basement and made come in a public park. There’s no reason for my heart to be pounding.
Except there’s every reason, because we still haven’t talked about what we are, and the not knowing is slowly driving me insane.
“Come on,” I say, gesturing toward a nearby bench. It’s wrought iron and uncomfortable, but it’s better than standing in the middle of a sidewalk. “Sit with me?”
Ryan follows without hesitation, settling onto the bench close enough that our arms brush. The contact sends a familiar spark through my body, and I have to resist the urge to close the remaining distance between us.
“So,” I say.
“So,” Ryan echoes.
We sit in silence for a moment, watching a moth circle the streetlight with suicidal determination. The night air is warm, carrying the faint scent of coffee from my clothes and something floral from the garden beds along the walkway.
“I had an interesting conversation with Kyle the other day,” I offer, because someone has to break the silence, and it might as well be me. “At the gym.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He gave me a lot of grief about not defining things with you. About how I’m wasting time ‘seeing where things go’ instead of just asking you to be my boyfriend.”
There. I said it. Boyfriend. I’ve been dancing around it for weeks, too scared to say it out loud, too worried about pushing too fast. But Kyle was right. In fact. everyone’s been right, and I’ve been an idiot.
Ryan is very still beside me. “Boyfriend?”
“Yeah.” I turn to face him, taking in the wide eyes and parted lips and the way his chest is rising and falling just a little too fast. “That’s what I want, Ryan.
I want to be your boyfriend. I want to hold your hand in public, take you on real dates, and introduce you to people as the guy I’m with.
Not the guy I’m ‘seeing where things go’ with.
And I know you’ve never done this before.
I know it’s scary, new, and probably overwhelming.
But I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and I’m tired of pretending I’m okay with ambiguity when what I really want is you. All of you. Officially.”
I’m breathing hard by the time I finish, the words having tumbled out in a rush that I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried.
My heart is hammering against my ribs, and my palms are sweating, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to either get the best news of my life or have my heart ripped out through my chest cavity.
Ryan reaches out, takes my hand, and threads his fingers through mine. “I came here tonight to tell you the same thing. Jackson even made me practice in the mirror before I left. He said I needed to use my words instead of hoping you’d read my mind.”
“So tell me.”
Ryan takes a deep breath. “Oliver, I’ve been falling for you since we were kids.
Every moment we’ve spent together this summer has been the happiest of my life.
When you kissed me on that Ferris wheel, something clicked into place that I didn’t even know was missing.
” His grip on my hand tightens. “I want to be your boyfriend too. Badly enough that it terrifies me.”
The relief that crashes through me is so intense I actually laugh. It’s a breathless, disbelieving sound that echoes across the night. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ryan’s smile is small but radiant. “I know I’m not experienced. I know I’m probably going to mess up a lot. But I’ve been told that’s just what relationships are. Two imperfect people trying to figure each other out.”
I lift our joined hands, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “So we’re really doing this, huh?”
Ryan’s answering smile could power the entire campus. “Yeah, we really are.”
I kiss him then, right there on the uncomfortable wrought-iron bench outside The Brew. It’s not our most romantic kiss—there are no stars, no Ferris wheels, no carefully planned picnics. But who the hell cares? We’ve finally stopped dancing around what we want.
When we break apart, Ryan laughs. “Jackson is going to be insufferable about this.”
“Drew and Gerard already are. Have been since the shorts incident.”
“Boyfriend,” he repeats after another couple of minutes of making out. “That’s me. I’m your boyfriend.”
“You’re my boyfriend.”
“Golly.”
I pull him closer, tucking him against my side, and we sit there until the streetlight finally flickers out and all we’re left with is the moonlight.