Page 129 of Dickathlon

“You love me?”

I did say that, didn’t I?

“Uh, yeah. Of course I do. A lot.”

A huge smile spread across Declan’s face. He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him and out of the room, ignoring the confusion behind us.

I kept a tight grip as we weaved through the crowd. He opened the sliding glass door to the patio next to the pool and closed it behind us. The lights above us were off, but the pale blue light shimmering from the water was enough to illuminate his face. He was still smiling.

“Say it again.”

I suddenly felt very self-conscious.

“Please,” Declan pleaded, his hands holding both of mine in between us.

I relented. “I love you. I’ve loved you for a while now, Dec.”

“I love you too,” he said before pulling me against his body and kissing me ever-so-gently. He quickly made his way around my jawline to nibble on my ear, before whispering, “I’ve wanted to say it for so long now, but I needed you to get there first, babe.”

It was like a wave of thoughts crashed into my brain all at once. Declan loves me. How could I be this lucky?

“When did you know?” I asked the first coherent question I could think of.

“I thought it was love almost immediately after Santa Cruz, but I first thought the words last Christmas.”

“A year ago?!”

“Yeah, being with you around your family. I don't know how to explain it. You were just so yourself around them.” He smiled. “How about you?”

“Venice. When you brought me naked breakfast in bed.”

We both heard the tapping on the glass at the same time and turned. It was his parents. The door slid open and the overhead light turned on.

“Sorry, we know we’re interrupting. We just wanted to talk,” Elijah said.

“We’re not mad, honey. We just want to try to understand. If we need to stop seeing the Campbells, we will. You’re our son.”

“No, that’s not what this is about. It’s about Ian,” Declan replied.

“Right. What Tyler said. By the way, that was really romantic. I can see why my baby chose you. You’re a good match for him.”

I knew they could see my blush, but I didn’t care because I also knew it was the truth. We were a good match.

Declan sighed. “To avoid this taking an hour, here’s the super-short version. Ian and I started dating freshman year in college. We professed our love for each other and were together for years until the day he ended it. He said it was an experiment, that none of it was real for him, he-”

I heard his voice break, so I wrapped my arm around his waist and put my other hand on his chest. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

Declan took a deep breath. I ignored the concern on his parents’ faces and tried to do what I could to comfort him enough so that he could finish the story.

“He said it was an experiment, that he was just confused, and then asked if we could just be friends. Needless to say, I was devastated and hadn’t dated anyone seriously until Tyler.”

“Oh, son. I’m so sorry you felt you couldn’t share that with us,” his dad said, coming over to him to offer him a hug.

Declan pulled away from me to accept it and his mother joined the pair, saying, “And here I’ve been pushing Ian towards you all these years. I should’ve known something was up. He always seems tense around you. He’s either ashamed of how he treated you or he still has feelings.”

I finally spoke up. “His feelings can go to hell. He lost the right to have feelings for Declan when he dumped him like a-”

“Please don’t finish that simile, Ty. I don’t want to think about what I was like back then any more.”