Chapter 17
MILES
Miles:
can I call you?
Joel:
always
I chewed my lip while I looked at Joel’s response, hesitating over the call button. Ryder’s advice had gotten me this far, and he was right. At least, he was right that I needed to try.
The bed creaked under me as I sat down on the edge of it, staring out the bedroom window at the trees beyond. It was a nice view, if you liked that kind of thing. Calming. All it needed was rain rolling down the window and it could’ve been a sleep ambience video in real life.
My phone lit up with a spam email notification, dragging my attention back to it.
I needed someone else to talk to, and it couldn’t be Evie. Well, it probably could have been, but… I didn’t want it to be Evie. I needed someone who was a step removed.
I hit call.
I’d planned to take a few deep breaths while the phone rang, but Joel picked up before the second ring had even finished.
“Hey,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “What do you need?”
You have a type, I thought. I knew someone else who would’ve answered the phone exactly the same way if I called him right now.
“Nothing,” I said. “I mean… nothing except to catch up with you?”
A brief silence on the other end of the line suggested Joel didn’t entirely believe that.
“Sure,” he said. “I hear you’re running your own library?”
“I am,” I said with a sigh. This wasn’t as hard as I’d expected it to be.
Okay, we were still in awkward small talk territory, but it’d been eight months since we last spoke.
That was to be expected. It was good to hear his voice, and no resentment in it.
“It’s… so much harder than you could imagine. ”
“So you need me to come rescue you?” Joel asked.
He would have. Because he was my friend. Even if he’d been Evie’s friend first.
I laughed. “I’m too scared of the guy who hired me to run away,” I joked. Well, sort of joked. I didn’t like the idea of disappointing Seth, but I wasn’t scared of him, exactly. Just of letting him down.
What I was scared of was…
“How’s things on your end?” I asked instead of following that train of thought just yet. “How’s Malibu?”
“Hot,” Joel said. “But I’m into it. No one ever yells at me to put a shirt on.”
“You mean Evie doesn’t yell at you to put a shirt on,” I said, grinning at the memory of Evie doing exactly that and flinging one at Joel’s head.
“No one,” Joel said diplomatically.
“Especially not your new boyfriend?” I asked.
That was at least circling the galaxy of the reason I’d made this call in the first place. I was getting there.
Joel laughed. I’d always loved the way he laughed, a deep rumbling sound that you couldn’t help joining in with.
That reminded me of someone, too.
“Never,” he said.
“So you’re happy?”
This was good. I was practically in the same solar system as my actual point. Soon enough, I’d be orbiting it.
“I’m happy,” Joel said. I could hear that he was in the warmth of his voice. Really, truly happy. Not that he’d ever been miserable, but in the few photos I’d happened to see of him on Evie’s Instagram with Dan, I could see the way he lit up. I’d never seen him light up like that before.
I knew in my heart that he really was happy. That what I wanted to say wouldn’t change that.
“Good,” I said, and then blurted out, “I think I’ve met someone.”
Another surprised silence reigned for a heartbeat or two. Then Joel took a long, slow breath. “Wow. So this someone…”
“You can’t tell Evie,” I said with a spike of alarm. I wasn’t ready to talk to her about this. She wouldn’t mean to hurt me, but I wasn’t ready to be teased the way I knew she would. “Swear to me.”
I probably should have made him swear before I’d told him, but I trusted Joel. I would’ve trusted him with my life without a second thought. I had done, more times than I probably realized. He’d keep my secret.
“Sure,” he said easily. “Why?”
I sighed.
This was not how I’d wanted this conversation to go.
“This wasn’t how I imagined this conversation would go,” I said aloud. “It’s… that’s not… I’m sorry for avoiding you,” I said instead.
“Avoiding me?” Joel asked. He was a terrible liar and it didn’t sound at all like a sincere question, but I appreciated the attempt.
“It wasn’t about you. I… you know I love you, right? You’re one of the best people in my life. I just… this isn’t an excuse, okay?”
“Okay, but I don’t need an apology,” Joel said. “Or an explanation. If you say it was you, I’m fine with that. I’m just… glad to hear from you again. I did wonder if it was me.”
“It wasn’t,” I said. It never had been. Not at all. “It… can I explain myself, anyway? I think… I think I need some advice and I only have so many people to talk to about this.”
“You can tell me anything,” Joel said. “And I’ll never repeat it to a soul.”
How was I supposed to say this?
Maybe the best way was like ripping off a Band-Aid. Quick and all at once.
“That kiss, at New Years…”
I paused to think of what I wanted to say next.
So much for doing it all at once, like a Band-Aid.
“It…”
“Changed your life?” Joel teased.
I swallowed.
“I think it might have?”
The silence was different this time. Not skeptical or shocked, but understanding. Joel was giving me time to breathe.
Dan was so lucky to have him. Anyone would have been.
He wasn’t right for me, and I knew that, but I would’ve been lucky to have him, too. I was lucky to have him. To call him a friend.
I couldn’t believe I’d gone this long without him.
“There’s this guy,” I said. “Here, in umm. Otter Bay. He’s so sweet, and he’s funny, and he’s kind to me, and I think he actually likes that I’m weird, and he took me fishing and I caught a trout with my bare hands and he trusted me to light a boiler.”
“Wow,” Joel said. Someone else might have said it sarcastically, but he was being sincere. He knew how much of a departure from my normal life all of that was.
“The other night we were watching a movie together and he made me dinner and I was so comfortable and happy and I dunno. Can you tell when someone wants to kiss you? I felt like he wanted to kiss me.”
“I can tell,” Joel said. “I’m not sure if you can. How did you feel about feeling like that?”
“I wanted him to,” I confessed, heart racing. The mattress bounced as I flopped down on it. I let myself close my eyes in the hopes that my head would stop spinning. “I wanted… him.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’ve figured out you like guys,” Joel said.
He knew?
“You knew?” I asked, sitting up again in surprise. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Well, it’s not the kind of thing you can just tell people,” Joel defended. “And you had that whole arranged marriage deal for as long as I’ve known you.”
“It wasn’t…”
Well, it hadn’t technically been an arranged marriage, or anything, but I could see what he meant. I’d always known I was marrying Robin one day. Everyone had always just assumed I would. We’d gone to senior prom together. It was a wonder Dad hadn’t told me to propose then.
I’d never even thought to ask if that was what I wanted. If any of it was.
“And for a while there you were my best friend’s hot older brother and I thought it was just wishful thinking,” Joel went on.
“Wait, I was?”
“Was what?”
“Evie’s hot older brother?” I asked.
“You fishing for compliments, now?” Joel teased. “You do always melt when a big guy calls you pretty, so I’ll indulge you just this once: you were absolutely Evie’s hot older brother who I had the most ridiculous crush on.”
I laughed, but Joel was right. I did melt a little.
Now that he’d mentioned it, I could see the pattern. I’d just assumed a compliment was a compliment and it didn’t matter who it came from.
This was why Evie told people I was engaged as soon as humanly possible, I was slowly realizing. Because otherwise…
Otherwise I would’ve unintentionally led them on because I couldn’t tell when someone was flirting with me.
Wow. It’d taken me a long time to figure all this out.
“And then you got to know me and it went away?”
Joel chuckled. “No. No, you’re adorable, and I love you with all my heart. It just turned into exactly the relationship we’re supposed to have. We were made to be friends. Family, even. I always think of you as family.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I umm. I think of you as family, too. Do you think, uh. In the spirit of that. You could forgive me?”
“Nothing to forgive,” Joel said easily, his voice so earnest I could picture him holding his hands out, palms up to show me that he meant it.
“I’m just glad to hear from you again. No!
Wait! Shit. I should have held the forgiveness you don’t need and also totally have anyway for ransom so you’d tell me about this guy. ”
I burst into laughter. Nothing had changed. Joel was the same old Joel and this felt like things had always been between us. Easy.
“Tell me anyway,” Joel continued. “I’ll have to meet him, you know. Make sure he’s good enough for you.”
“He’s better than I deserve,” I said, laying back and stretching out on the bed again, flattening the sheets out one-handed. Was this how teenagers with crushes felt when they told their friends about them? A lot of teen movie scenes suddenly made sense to me.
You really were never too old to learn new things.
“No such thing,” Joel said. “You deserve the world. Is he hot?”
“I’m not sure I know,” I admitted. “I’ve been… figuring some stuff out about myself.”
“Do you know I’m hot?” Joel asked.
“Well, I’ve been assuming so, since people flock to you,” I said. “But I don’t… know it instinctively. Ryder says I’m demisexual.”
“Is Ryder the guy?” Joel asked.
“No, Ryder is the actual Ryder White and he’s secretly the sweetest nerd. We’re friends now, somehow. This whole move has been one surprise after another.”
“Always good to have an adventure. So Mr. Perfect’s name is...?”
“Booker,” I said. “Everyone calls him Book.”
“You love books!” Joel enthused.
“That’s what I said to him when I found out his name.” I smiled wryly. I probably should have realized then that there was something about him. Nominative determinism, or whatever.
“You would.” Joel laughed. “Do you have a picture of him?”
I took a moment to think, and then remembered taking a shot of Booker while he’d been prepping dinner because he’d looked so focused that I wanted to show him when he was done.
He’d been surprised I took a picture of him, but not upset.
Weirdly flattered, I thought. Then I’d shown him all my pictures of everyone, Evie and Joel and Evie’s horrible cat.
My old houseplants and the glamour shots I’d taken of the new one he’d gotten me, which I’d named Dandelion after the character in Watership Down. Because it was a rabbit’s foot fern.
I sent the picture to Joel and waited for judgement.
“Wow,” he said. “Okay, definitely hot. And so your type.”
“Evie keeps saying bears are my type,” I agreed.
I’d have to ask her if she knew, too, but I thought she must have and hadn’t told me for more or less the same reasons as Joel.
It really wasn’t the kind of thing you could just tell someone.
It was the kind of thing they had to figure out for themselves.
I’d figured it out for myself. Kind of.
I was just realizing what I’d figured out and how exciting it was.
I wanted to tell Booker first. Well, second.
Third, after Ryder and Joel, but now I’d figured all of it out and I knew I liked Booker and I wanted him to know, even if he didn’t want our relationship to change at all.
I could live with that. I just wanted him to know.
“He’s so sweet. The first thing he ever did was change a tire for me.
He runs the gay bar in town. It feels so safe there.
He feels so safe. All I want is to spend time with him and then I realized that I wanted to kiss him and then freaked out and avoided him all day and all that did was make my stomach hurt.
And then I thought of you and… now I’m telling you about a boy I like. ” I laughed.
“Oh, that’s not a boy,” Joel said. “You’ve gone straight for a full-grown man. Always knew you had great taste.”
“Thanks, I think.” I took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, excitement fading just enough to let doubt creep back in. “I want to tell him. Should I do that? Or… how should I do that? You’re the expert.”
“I usually open with an ass squeeze,” Joel said. “When I know someone’s interested. That seems… not your speed, though.”
“I mean, if you tell me it works…”
“It works for me because I’m a certified slut,” Joel said. “You, though? I think you just… tell him. Just like you told me about him. Tell him you want to spend more time with him and you’d like to try out kissing him.”
“He won’t freak out? Or… not want to deal with me? Because I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“Well, there’s always a risk that he’s secretly an asshole…”
“He’s not,” I defended. I knew he wasn’t.
“Well, there you go.” I could hear the shrug in Joel’s voice. Everything always seemed so easy for him. I wished he could teach me how. “You should go for it. It’s not as if any of this is going to come as a surprise to him, if he knows you at all.”
That was a fair point. Booker knew what I was like. He kept saying he liked the weird, and I thought he meant it.
I didn’t have anything to be scared of. I knew that. I was never scared around him. At least, when he wasn’t personally opening the lid on a box I’d marked unanswered questions about my sexuality, sealed, and tucked away in the back of the attic of my mind palace.
I didn’t have a mind palace.
But if I did, that was where I would’ve stored that box. Or maybe in one of the dungeons, if it was a palace. At the bottom of the moat, maybe?
“I want to tell him,” I said, surer now. “I want... I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.”
“He sounds perfect for you,” Joel said kindly.
“I’m gonna tell him on my lunch break tomorrow,” I promised both of us so I couldn’t back out. If I’d told Joel I was doing it, I’d have to do it.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Joel said, as expected. “You deserve to be happy. You at minimum deserve some great dick now that you know you’re into it.”
I covered my face in embarrassment and barely stifled a groan.
But. I could admit to myself that I was into it. At least, I was so curious I couldn’t stand not knowing. Theoretically, I was into dick and I wanted to test the theory.
And Booker was safe. I trusted him to help me find out what I wanted. I knew he’d be kind to me.
“Thanks, Joel,” I said when I recovered from the wave of embarrassment. “You’re a good friend.”