Page 38 of The Waiting Game

“What?” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “I’m awake.”

“You’re definitely not.” Felix smiled and shifted into an upright position. “Tell me what happened at the end of the movie.”

“They lived happily ever after?” Jonah suggested.

Felix snorted. It had been a gritty crime drama that had ended with blood splattered across the pavement. “Uh, no. Not so much.”

“Damn. Well, I was close.”

“Something like that.”

“Hey, thanks, by the way,” Jonah said, shifting to face Felix.

They’d turned off the overhead lights before they started the movie and there was just the dim glow of the screen illuminating Jonah’s face. He still looked sleepy and a little rumpled, his wet hair having dried in a weird cowlick.

Felix resisted the urge to smooth it down.

“For what?” Felix asked.

“Getting me through the flights this past week,” Jonah said earnestly.

Felix shrugged. “No big deal.”

“No.” Jonah tugged at his sweatshirt and leaned in, his soft voice weirdly intent. “It is a big deal. You know how hard it is for me.”

“Of course.”

Felix would never forget those nights when they were still young, sleeping on the floor of Jonah’s bedroom, Jonah waking screaming from a nightmare of his parents plummeting to their death.

Or, sometimes, of going down with them.

“No, I mean it,” Jonah said. “I’m so grateful to have you in my life. I—I love you, man.”

His voice broke and Felix’s throat suddenly felt tight. If Jonah got emotional, Felix was going to as well.

Over the years, he’d dried Jonah’s tears countless times.

After those nightmares. After tough losses. After breakups and heartache and everything life had thrown at them.

“I love you too,” Felix said roughly, wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve. “You know I do.”

Jonah nodded, blinking, his face half in shadow now.

Felix’s heart thumped a little faster as he stared at Jonah’s face. He knew every inch of that face. Knew what it looked like in happiness and sadness and everything in between. It was nearly as familiar as his own.

“I just … I think that was the hardest part of last fall,” Jonah said and Felix’s heart clenched because he didn’t want to talk this out right now.

They’d done it once, when Felix had gone through step nine of his twelve-step program and made amends. There had been tears then too, for both of them. And maybe more needed to be said at some point but Felix was too tired, too raw to do it tonight.

“Jonah …”

“No.” Jonah still had a grip on Felix’s shirt and he leaned in a little more, their faces just inches apart. “I know you don’t want to talk about this but I have to get this out. I lost my parents so young and I lost Grandpa, and I know at some point I’ll have to say goodbye to Grandma, but I can’t lose you, Felix. I can’t. You have been everything to me for so many years and …”

Felix suddenly had the overwhelming urge to press his lips against Jonah’s to shut him up and he made a strange, strangled sound, confused by the reaction.

Over the years, Felix had playfully kissed Jonah’s cheek or touched his lips to his hair or temple when he was sad, but he’d never kissed Jonah full on the mouth like he suddenly wanted to do now.

“What?” Jonah said, studying his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

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