2. Cold Pizza & the Name Terry #3
He nodded and they started on a stone pathway winding through flowerbeds and overhanging trees.
Twinkling lights highlighted the colour of the flowers—mostly purple with some yellow and white.
Theo thought the smell would be overwhelming, but it was subtle and pleasant, like warm honey.
He was so lost in his excitement about Jordan that it took him a while to realize they’d been wandering in silence.
He wasn’t sure if it had been comfortable silence before, but it sure as shit wasn’t anymore.
Which was absurd! All he was doing was walking down an (okay, fine, objectively romantic) pathway with his roommate, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say?
What was happening to him? He was Theo ‘social butterfly’ Walker, this nervous nonsense was not him.
“Thank you for coming,” he finally said.
Dae nodded, and it took him a few breaths to answer. “I had fun.”
“I could tell. Tone it down, please.”
Dae didn’t even crack a hint of a smirk, which made Theo worry that he thought he was making fun of him. Which he sort of was but not in a mean way.
“I meant—”
“I don’t not like you.” Dae winced as if it physically pained him to use a double negative.
“You said before that I don’t like you. That’s not true, and um…
” He studied the ground as if it were telling him what to say.
“I’m sorry I made you think I did…not like you.
” His blush was instantaneous. With anyone else, the pink crept in, working its way across faces or climbing necks.
But with Dae, one moment he was a normal flesh-coloured human being, and the next, his cheeks and ears were glowing.
It was adorable, and Theo was tempted to milk it so the blush would continue, but he also desperately needed to put the poor guy out of his misery. “No, I jumped to conclusions. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Okay.” It seemed like he wanted to say more, but also that he really didn’t want to say more. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his hoodie so hard that it pulled on his shoulders. No wonder all his clothes seemed stretched out.
They walked in silence a little longer, and Theo was surprised to notice it wasn’t uncomfortable. “So, are you against social media?”
Dae blinked, perhaps thrown off guard by the question that seemingly came out of nowhere. “No, not really.”
“But you’re not on it.” Every few months since Dae’s disappearance from their school, Theo would get curious and try to conduct some light cyber-stalking, but all he ever found was Dae’s sparse, expired profile on their own school directory, and a years-old article about him winning some art award.
“Um, right. I’m not.” Dae’s eyes scanned the ground in front of him, as if afraid he was about to step on a crack and break his mother’s back.
Theo waited for more, but Dae stayed silent. “You don’t like talking?”
A shrug. “Just makes me nervous.”
Of course. It felt like Theo had drunk seven shots of espresso. It made so much sense. Dae wasn’t too annoyed to talk; he didn’t know how. This was social anxiety, wasn’t it?
“Jason and Caleb would underst—”
“No.” He stopped walking. “Please don’t say anything.”
“Okay, if you don’t want me to, I won’t.”
Dae appeared to search for any hint of a lie, and Theo made his expression as honest as he could, which gave him a chance to notice the rim of light brown around the dark, almost black of Dae’s irises.
They stayed that way for so long that his skin started to prickle with heat.
Which was preposterous, of course. So Dae was objectively attractive; that didn’t mean Theo had to get all flustered about it.
He cleared his throat and backed up, absolutely not noticing the way Dae’s throat bobbed with his hard swallow. “Do you want to be friends with them?”
A nod.
“Then it’ll happen.”
Dae finally smiled in earnest. It was soft and brief, but it was real and unselfconscious. Theo thought he saw dimples, but the flash was too fast to be sure. He would’ve noticed them in school, right? Had he really never seen Dae smile? In all that time?
“You must know how to talk to people at least a little. You had a girlfriend in high school, didn’t you?”
“Oh.” His eyebrows came together as if he’d forgotten about the artsy girl he’d spent entire lunch hours with. “Um, Rayla did most of the talking.”
Theo nodded. “Makes sense.”
So, right, probably straight, then. And his roommate. Theo needed to nip this—who was he kidding, years old—crush in the bud before it became disastrous.
“Well, you can count on me. I’ll help you with friends, girlfriends, whatever.”
Dae’s nose scrunched, which was not adorable in the slightest. “I’m going to regret telling you, aren’t I?”
“Absolutely.” He bumped Dae’s shoulder with his and they kept walking. “But then you’ll thank me.”
This was good. Theo had never, not once, managed to mix romantic feelings with friendship without it ending in disastrous hurt. The last thing he wanted to do was turn their burgeoning roommate dynamic into something awkward and tense.
So. Yes. Good. Crush extinguished. All for the better. He felt great about this development, actually. So, so, great.
Everything was just really fucking great.