Page 33 of The Embrace of Evergreen

I spin my lip ring with my tongue and idly trace my fingers along the fine-line tattoos that extend down to the first knuckles of my left hand as I try to put what's happened to me into words. As much as I want to find a way to convince Gabriel that it's just a coincidence, even though we both know it absolutely isn’t, I can’t. So I settle for sitting here, quietly hoping Gabriel will miraculously become so focused on his ice cream that he’ll forget what he asked. I mean, stranger things have happened; look at the mermen on our fridge.

"I can wait all night, kitten,"he mumbles around yet another bite.

I don't know why I thought I could wait him out; the fucker is nothing if not persistent. In truth, I don't really think I want to, not anymore. For months now, he’s kindly chosen to not say a word about all of the ways I've been changing, even though he absolutely noticed itbeginning the moment I first winked at Ethan in the coffee shop. It’s strange to look at myself and see how different I am from just a few months ago, and it’s taken some time to wrap my head around this new me. But Gabriel has been my biggest support since the moment we met, and it feels like it’s time to let him in. Having a bit more of his support right now certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

The past month has been wonderful and confusing and complicated and…hard. Things between Ethan and me are good. We still meet most mornings for coffee, and he still joins us for Friday Night Friend Dates. Saturdays have changed though. During our normal coffee not-an-actual-date date the Wednesday after the boat festival, Ethan asked me to join him in exploring a new trailhead the following weekend, and it took everything in me to say yes like a normal person instead of jumping up and down like a kid who’d been given a bonus bag of candy on Halloween. We’ve spent every Saturday together exploring nearby woods and beaches for the past four weeks. We pack coffee and pastries and talk and laugh and enjoy comfortable moments of lingering silence while eating our car breakfast. We stop at random diners and pubs on the drive home, always ordering different things and splitting them the way we did after our first trip into the forest together.

We talk about work and art and nature and life. Our knuckles brush and our shoulders press together as we hike around tight trail corners. We offer hands to help one another up steep inclines, and our thighs or calvespress against one another when we pause to rest and enjoy brief moments of early winter sun in grassy fields or take shelter from sudden rainstorms under moss-covered tree branches. Ethan’s head falls back and his entire body trembles when he laughs. When he leans in to tell me stories about his youthful hijinks and indiscretions in a near whisper, as if he doesn’t want any birds or foxes that might be hiding nearby to be able to repeat them, he gets close enough for me to notice the shadow of stubble along his strong jawline and the way his eyes seem to reflect the colors of the pines and redwoods and firs that surround us. The intoxicating scent of sweat and clove and orange permeates my car and my clothing and my life.

My entire existence seems to have reorganized itself to revolve around Ethan. I want his smiles and his laughter and his quiet, painful truths. I want his gaze on me and his small, innocent touches. For the first time in so, so long, I want. I want more than just the fleeting enjoyment or momentary satisfaction of fingers and tongues and skin and orgasms that come in a rush only to leave an aching emptiness in my chest and cold, stained sheets behind.

I want to lie in bed and talk about nicknames and hobbies and favorite books. I want whispered words of desire and fingertips that move slowly enough to count every freckle sprinkled across pale white skin. I want late mornings tangled up in strong, lithe limbs and my cheek resting on a broad chest in the dark. I want to let myself believe that love just might be real and that not everyonein the world is going to hurt me. I want to be open and honest and truthful. I want to forget my past and find a future where I belong to someone, mind and body and heart and soul. I want that someone to be Ethan.

I want to spend every waking moment with him. I want to spend my non-waking moments with him, too, if I’m honest with myself, and I’m afraid that if I allow myself to ruminate on the color of his eyes or the freckles that speckle the bridge of his nose or the way his broad, broad shoulders taper down to a narrow waist that fits so perfectly in my hands on the dance floor that I’ll slip up and let him see how much I want him. I don’t want him to realize that as hard as I’m trying to behave like nothing more than a good friend, I want more. So, so much more.

"Ethan is my friend. It's not my story to tell, but he's got a bit of a rough history. Not like mine, rough in other ways, but he hasn't had a lot of friends or support. I don't think he’s even known much real kindness, and there is something about him that makes me want to offer him those things, to support him and help him and make him happy."

Gabriel's expression has shifted to something gentle and concerned, and he's let his hands fall to his lap, his attempt to ingest a pint of ice cream in under three minutes seemingly forgotten.

"You know what you're saying, right? Tell me you recognize what those words mean.”

I close my eyes and shift to curl up under Gabriel’s arm.

“It means I’m falling in love with him.”

Ethan

Absolutely everything has changed.

Blue was right about me, and I’ve never been so grateful to have been mistaken in my life. I’m not broken, I’m demisexual, and that has been a life-changing revelation. I don’t need to spend my nights alone, wondering why I can’t seem to feel anything resembling attraction. I don’t need to force myself to go on dates that I know will end badly. I don’t need to worry that I’m a lost cause and that all the moments I’ve spent clinging to hope have been for nothing. I don’t actually think I even need to try at all anymore. I think I may have accidentally fallen in love already.

It's possible that I’m completely misinterpreting what I'm feeling; after all, it’s not like I have a lot of experience with attraction or love-adjacent emotions, but I don’t think I am. I don't think I’m mistaking the stirring in my belly and my racing heart and the rush of dizziness I feel when my lungs simply forget that I need to take in oxygen to survive when I’m around Blue for somethingthey aren’t. I want to be near him always. I want to touch and kiss and curl up against him with my face buried in the bend of his neck so I can smell the crisp, appley scent of his shampoo. Even though this is the first time I’ve truly had a close friend in more than a decade, I don’t think I’m wrong in remembering that those feelings aren’t usually a part of friendships. I mean, Gabriel is my friend too, and I don't lose control of my body every time he gets close. He's an attractive man objectively, but I don't feel any differently about him than I did the first time we met.

Blue is different. Everything about Blue is different. When I’m around Blue, when I think about him alone at night, when my mind drifts at work to the way his hair falls like water in the sunlight and how he moves with a surety and grace I can’t even begin to understand, I feel everything that I remember feeling with Jordyn. I feel even more than I remember feeling with Jordyn. I loved Jordyn completely, and that will never change, but that was a young, innocent first love. It was the gentle and careful rush of first kisses and stolen touches and smiles and moments. This is the first time I've felt want and need and longing fill my soul so completely that my very bones ache. This is the first time I’ve felt the bright pull of attraction and desire as a man who's known the drabness of a life filled with only loss and memories and disappointment to keep me company at night. This is the all-encompassing urgency of desires that have lain dormant for a lifetime.

I’m a different person than I was when I fell in love with Jordyn. Back then, I was naïve and innocent and soincredibly sure that love would always be enough. That falling had been the hard part and everything else would always simply drift into place as long as we had love. I’m not that person anymore. I’m a man who's learned that love isn’t automatic or guaranteed. It’s a fragile thing that has to be nurtured and protected and fought for. I’ve spent so much of my life fighting. I’ve fought to find my own way through grief and heartache to build a life and a career, even if it is a dull life and a boring career. I’ve fought through my insecurities and what I mistakenly thought were my failures to find love and romance, even when I felt like giving up. I want to fight for Blue now. I want to discover every tiny fact and quirk and eccentricity and protect them like the gifts they are. I want him to know that he is perfect so that he never feels the need to change. The passion and yearning and heart-stopping joy that I feel when we’re together, when I think about him, it’s already so deeply ingrained in my soul that I couldn’t remove it, even if I tried. It feels as necessary as air, and I want to hold on to him with everything I have. I want him to hold onto me in return. I want to keep him as my own.

I want more than just his company and laughter and presence at my side. When I lie in bed at night, I can’t stop thinking about all of the other ways I want him. I want him to overpower me. I want to trace every line of his tattoos with my mouth and to toy with his lip ring with my tongue the way he so often does.I want to watch him move, all strong and agile and tan skin and sharp black lines. I want to feel his body against mine, to becovered by strength and warmth. I want to blur the lines between us until I can’t tell where I end and he begins.

He doesn’t touch me any more than Gabriel does. He hasn’t made any more jokes about fucking me since the first time we formally met at the hot shop, and I’ve never caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye when he thinks I’m not paying attention. He hasn’t given me any indication that he might be open to more than friendship with me. Why would he? I’m quiet and boring, and he is radiance and freedom and excitement. He is the embodiment of life itself, and I’m someone who has forgotten what it means to actually live.

Blue has been a good friend to me over the past few months. He’s been kind and supportive, and I’ve never once felt like he’s judging me. Not when I explained my sexual hangups, not when I share pieces of my past, not even when I stammer and ramble like an idiot. It feels like I fit with him effortlessly. Hell, we even share the same taste in coffee and whiskey and old movies. He’s everything I’ve always dreamed of in a partner, and all of the small moments I’ve always fantasized about experiencing one day - suddenly, I can so easily imagine them with him. These days, when I find my mind drifting to thoughts about my future, I see late mornings in bed, leisurely brunches, weekends wandering through the woods, and quiet afternoons watching him create beautiful art in the shop.

I haven’t told him that my feelings for him have changed. That they’ve grown into something unexpectedand overwhelming in the best of ways. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m willing to take that risk. What if he’s so repulsed by the idea of a sexual relationship with me that he pulls back from our friendship? What if he’s open to the idea of a sexual relationship but that’s all? Just because I’m a demisexual, who’s always anticipated having a romantic relationship with the people I’ve slept with - even if that’s never worked out before - that doesn’t mean that Blue is. Hell, I know he’s not. Even though he seems to be taking some time away from one-night stands for some reason, his friends have made his history pretty clear. He doesn’t do repeats, and I don’t know that I’d survive getting to experience truly good sex with someone I care for only once before having to let it go.

For the second time in my life, I find myself in the position of having to risk my closest friendship by telling someone that I’ve developed feelings for them, and that’s not an easy thing to do. So I’ve hidden my feelings away, cherishing them for as long as I can before the ache in my chest becomes so overwhelming and impossible to ignore that I can’t hold it in anymore. Before I have to tell Blue how I feel and put my heart in his hands and hope there is a chance. I hope that even if he doesn’t return my feelings, he’ll be gentle with me. But more than that, I hope beyond hope that he just might be open to more.

Chapter 14

Ethan

I raise my knuckles for the second, okay, seventh time and finally rap them lightly against the door, even though it’s taking everything I have to not turn and run back down the hall before it opens.

“Umm…hi…is Blue here?” I stammer like I'm some teenager asking out his first crush.

The fact that I didn’t expect Gabriel to answer wearing a bright-purple robe that’s hanging open in a way that shows off his dark, perfectly sculpted chest and very tight, silky, lime-green underwear isn’t helping my anxiety. I try my best to ignore the heat rushing to my cheeks, even though I know he’ll notice them redden. While I can objectively appreciate a gorgeous man like Gabriel, seeing one in teeny-tiny underwear when they answer the door isn’t something I’ll ever expect or getused to, even though it’s not the first time this has happened during the past few months.

“Sorry, sweet cheeks, he left for the shop about thirty minutes ago. I don’t expect him to be very long though. He was mumbling to himself when he left, and I know him well enough by now to know that he can’t usually create when he’s mumbly.”

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