Page 39 of Friends to WHAT?!

My heart swells, and my blood runs through my veins with a pleasant tingle.

I am content. Here, with Leora, near to Amia, a level of contentment I’ve never come near to before settles in my gut. The only way this could be better is if we were upstairs with my daughter a door away instead of a ceiling, and Leora even closer. On my couch, next to me.

On my couch, against me.

On my couch,on top of me.

I shake that thought right out of my head.

Leora conquers her ice cube and cheers, hands flying in the air as she shouts, “I did it!”

I celebrate with her.

She pushes empty glasses and beer bottles aside to fling herself over the table and hug me.

My breath catches in my throat as I hug her back. “Good job,” I choke.

She squeezes me hard, shaking me side to side in her joy. She pulls back enough to speak to me face-to-face, arms still around my neck. “Ilovethis bar!”

I loveyou, I think.

Initiative, Wolfe. Take charge. Cross a boundary.

“I loveyou,” I say.

Her eyes crinkle, green jewels shining with happiness. “I love you, too,” she replies. Then she kisses my nose, unwinds her arms, and falls back to her side of the booth.

I open my mouth to clarify my feelings, not for the first time. The same thing happened after The Great Wolfe Dissection, too, when we were hugging in front of the whiteboards. I was sodetermined. It took every speck of nerve and courage I had to say the words, even as desperate as I was for her to have them.

I didn’t have the nerve or the courage to take them further than what she interpreted as a friendly sort of love.

I thought I’d grown since then. Cons are being crossed off. Pros are being added.

With a click, my mouth slams shut.

Apparently I haven’t grown enough.

One step forward, two steps back.

That’s still progress, though. And progress is what we’re going for.

Maybe next time I work up the courage to tell Leora I love her, I’ll have enough progress to tell her what, exactly, that means.

For now, if I can’t say the words, I can at least show her with my actions. I can cross boundaries into love, so that when I can finally say the words to match, I’ll have a series of despicable events to back me up.

Chapter Eighteen

?

Brothers. Twins. Forever, to the end.

Wolfe

I close the door to Leora’s house behind me and join Fox on her front porch after we have successfully completed our mission to get her home safely.

“Thank you for helping me,” I say as we descend the steps to the path that leads to my twin’s large, black truck sitting behind Leora’s pale yellow Honda Fit in the driveway. Fox’s vehicle is about as far from my clunky minivan as you can get, thankfully, which means we won’t have to worry about it breaking down as he drives us back home from dropping Leora and her car off—the entire reason we chose his truck instead of my van when we left the bar. “And thank you for helping Leora,” I add.

He nods, humming thoughtfully. “I’d do anything for you. You know that. And I like Leora. In general, and for you. You seem… I don’t know. I don’t want to say happier with her, because that’s not quite right. Relaxed isn’t really the word I’m looking for either… Maybe hopeful? Like there’s a future you can see where things don’t feel so heavy, and you’re getting nearer to it.”