Page 150 of Butterfly Effect

“What I felt about him?” I deny it. “Subconsciously? Possibly. But we never talked about it.” I lean into her touch, savoring every second. Afraid it’ll evaporate, and I’ll lose it forever.

“Do you want to tell him? Do you still want him?”

“No. I only want you. But…” The words evade me. “It’s like, the attraction is still there. This is the first time I think I’ve said it out loud.”

Her thumb moves across my lower lip. “You can keep going, if you want.”

“Oh.”

She means sayit.

Say it.

“Gabe.”

Solemn encouragement glimmers in her dusky eyes. “Yeah?”

I grip her forearms, clinging to her. My heart thuds in its cage. I can’t lose her, but I can’t lie to her either. She knows all the other messy parts of me. She might as well know this one. Maybe I’ll get to know it better, too.

“I’m bi.”

Water floods her bottom lids.

One weight swaps for another. The first, a secret. The second, a fear of loss.

Both lift when her arms raise me, hauling my body onto the mattress until we’re lying across it face-to-face.

“You’re incredible.” Velvet lips dote on my cheek, temple, forehead, and nose, peppering my face with the gentlest of kisses and dispersing my panic once and for all. “I’m so grateful I get to see all of you. I understand why you don’t share yourself fully with others, but don’t hide from me, okay?”

“Okay.”

With the finality of the last nail in a coffin, my heart decides.

I am never letting Gabe Finch go.

Chapter 26

You Broke My Dick!

Gabe

Being trustedwith Wade’s soul feels like winning a gold medal.

After months of feeding me slivers of himself, witnessing the overlays peel away to reveal a gorgeous, well-crafted mosaic—instead of the no-brainer four-piece puzzle I assumed—is a marvel.

The rest of cuffing season allows for a routine as we bounce from city to city between short stints in Ottawa. We pay for room damages in Denver, Minneapolis, and Edmonton, defile hotel washrooms in Tampa Bay, Buffalo, and Raleigh, and ruin bedsheets in Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Newark. We sneak off to shows and make out in the theaters of Chicago, New York, and Nashville.

I thought I didn’t miss any sort of commitment—it hadn’t served me in the past—and convinced myself that Wade and I were better off defining our relationship on our terms without being stuffed into a suffocating box by societal norms.

But today, as I’m frosting succulents onto cupcakes for Indi’s garden-themed baby shower, doubt fuels my unease.

Kurt Vaughn and I were together for seven years. We prepared foryears—or maybe it was only me—for a life together, and it imploded so easily.

While Wade is the opposite of him in the most important ways, it’s only been six months, and two of those were spent hating his guts. I’d handed over my broken pieces, but what if it isn’t enough? What’s stopping him from waking up one day and sayingfuck itand never talking to me again?

Being my fiancé didn’t deter Kurt from cheating. How would being my not-boyfriend convince him to stick around?

With that thought and a heavy sigh, I finish piping a Mexican snowball, admiring how the rosette pattern turned out, proud of the bluish sage color miraculously created by mixing blue and green spirulina into a cream cheese icing. A new text message from my father interrupts the complicated train of thought.

---