Prelude

Before the stage lights, screaming fans, and aggression of our reunion, we were just two guys, a battered acoustic guitar, a beat-up drum set, and feelings neither of us dared to name.

Eric
Dmitri crashed into my life and became my constant from day one. We do everything together—coffee runs between classes, music theory debates in the quad, and swap late-night playlists when neither of us can sleep. We share everything, but now I’m noticing things I never noticed before, and this new awareness is rocking my entire world.
At first, I told myself it was nothing more than appreciation for my best friend, but the thoughts won’t stop. He’s my first thought in the morning and the last before bed, and he occupies the daydreams in between.
I’m realizing what I’m feeling is more than friendship, and that truth is unraveling everything I thought I knew.

Dmitri
I fell for Eric the night we met at open mic, right before freshman year. One song was all it took, and I was finished. I buried it fast, because he was straight, and I refused to gamble the best friendship I’d ever had. So I stayed his musical other half and called him my best friend. I convinced myself being this close was enough.
It wasn’t.
Lately the air between us has changed. He’s holding my gaze a little longer, letting his hands linger when before they wouldn’t, and everything feels like it’s shifting. Songs feel like openings, lyrics like confessions, and questions hang unspoken in both our eyes.
The lines are blurring fast, and I have to decide whether I’m brave enough to risk everything for the chance that he might feel this too.