Page 176 of The Waiting Game

Felix stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded. “True.”

Maybe Jonah was right.

“And I knew you’d have felt bad that you didn’t return my feelings,” Jonah said.

Felix protested. “No, I—”

“No, listen to me,” Jonah argued. “If I’d have told you how I felt, you’d have felt guilty. You’d have either tried to make yourself feel something for me that you didn’t, or you’d have tried to set me up with someone else so I could find the perfect guy and you’d be off the hook.”

Felix sighed. “You’re … God, you’re right. I would have.”

“Of course I’m right.” Jonah shot him a slightly smug smile.

Felix elbowed Jonah in the ribs. “Full of it too.”

His head was still reeling from Jonah’s revelation but this part felt familiar. The teasing.

They walked in silence for a few moments, crossing the little wooden bridge to the pavilion, as Felix let the news sink in.

“Would you have ever told me?” he asked. He took a seat on the bench inside, tucking his palms under his thighs. “If we hadn’t decided to do this fake engagement thing.”

Jonah, who remained standing, shook his head. “Probably not.”

Felix swallowed hard, looking up at him. “Were you really going to stand up for me as my best man at my wedding to Whitney and just be fine with it?”

“Fine with it?” Jonah let out a soft laugh. It didn’t sound bitter, exactly, but it was tinged with something. Maybe sadness. “Probably not. But if it made you happy … yeah. That’s what I was going to do. I would have figured out how to be okay with it because I wanted you to be happy more than anything.”

“Jo …” Felix whispered. His heart ached at the thought of his friend being so willing to sacrifice his own happiness for Felix’s. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to do that.”

“I know.” Jonah’s expression was conflicted. “I know that. But what else could I do?”

And Felix felt helpless because he didn’t know either. “Lately, I’ve been feeling grateful it didn’t work with Whitney,” he admitted. “I’m glad we broke up. Partly because of all that’s happened between us lately but also because … I think—I think I would have been a pretty shitty husband for her.”

Jonah nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”

Felix reached out and took Jonah’s hand. “I have a little bit of a confession to make too.”

Jonah tilted his head, studying Felix’s face. “What’s that?”

“I was starting to suspect that I wasn’t so straight even before I brought up the fake engagement idea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean … once I got out of rehab things started to get clearer. There were a lot of rationalizations at first.” Felix let out a little huff of a laugh and stood, resuming their walk. He stopped on the bridge, looking down at the koi swimming below.

They were bright slivers of orange, white, or mottled shades in the dark water below.

“I couldn’t hide from myself anymore,” he said softly. “I couldn’t … I couldn’t stuff it down. Or go out drinking with the boys so I didn’t have to think about things.”

Jonah shifted closer, his upper arm pressing against Felix’s. “That sounds hard. And scary.”

“It was,” Felix admitted, throat thickening. “But I needed it.”

“I know.”

“But I kept noticing you in a new way. And I let myself admit that I wanted to touch you. To be close to you in a way we’d never been close before.” He frowned down at one of the speckled fish, fins waving gracefully as it swam under the bridge. “And I started to wonder if we could be more.”

“More than friends?”

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