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“It was good for me too,” I tell him softly.
His eyes widen and shine a bit at that. “Yeah?” And I don’t miss the hope hitched to that single word.
I nod, and force a swallow. “It was the first time I felt like…like it would be okay. Being gay, I mean. I had you, and I had Waylon, and…and my parents. As messed up as shit was back then, they loved me and accepted me too. Until that day, I don’t think I really let myself, um, be happy about it. It wasn’t this inescapable curse, but…but something to celebrate.”
His eyes redden, and his jaw tightens as he gives a short nod.
“You gave me that. So, thank you. Again.”
He shakes his head, and says, “It was literally nothing.”
“Mase…you could barely get through the day back then,” I say gently.
He winces. “Fuck, I was so selfish. Izzy’s your sister, and I?—”
I quickly shake my head and interrupt, “Don’t do that. It’s not a competition. She wa–is the love of your life,” I say quickly, hoping he didn’t catch my near slip-up.
The tightening around his eyes tells me he did…but fortunately, he doesn’t draw attention to it, and I quickly go on to distract us both from the denials we both know I only so fervently cling to for his sake. It goes unspoken at this point.
“And she’s my twin—my other half. We’re both…” I wave my fingers, looking for the right words. “Half of who we once were without her.”
His eyes fall shut, and a blaze sweeps through my chest, making it hard to breathe suddenly.
“It’s all fucked,” I croak.
His eyes open and he nods. “Yeah.” A beat then, “But we’re getting by. Gotta hold on for her, right?”
Throat tight, I nod. “Right.”
His gaze ping-pongs between mine, and he opens his mouth to say something, but must think better of it, because he clamps his lips together and shakes his head. Turning away from me, he blows out a breath, and drags the laptop closer.
Right, the movie.
He hits play, and turns up the volume.
Twisting to the side, I flick off the lamp just as the familiar flipping of pages sound fills the room as the Marvel logo comes across the screen.
I wiggle down so my neck is cushioned comfortably against the pillow. Mason’s muscular arm brushes mine, catching me off-guard for the second time tonight. Prompted by the memory, my mind catapults to earlier, when he charged his way through the crowd and scooped me up into his arms, swinging me around like I weighed nothing.
Muscles. Mason has muscles.
Sure, he did back in high school—back before drugs and grief ravaged him down to the bone—but not like now. Where in high school, he carried a lean, sort of boyish layer of muscle crafted from good genes and a relatively active lifestyle, now there’s a sort of whip-like power in the chords running under his skin.
I didn’t just feel it earlier, but I can see it now in the faint veins scoring his forearms. The bulges of his bicep. His broad shoulders and back.
He told me he started working out—that they got some hand-me-down exercise equipment, like weights and shit, and even a heavy bag, to put in the basement.
I guess I just… I didn’t really let myself consider what it would do to his body.
Like his lip ring, I was woefully, tragically unprepared.
I squeeze my legs together, and stare hard at the screen, forcing myself to ignore the fact I’m once again sharing a bed with my childhood crush.
That’s not what this is and you know it.
Nothing has changed.
If anything, things are back to the way they used to be.
