Page 34 of The Embrace of Evergreen

“Oh. Is he okay? Like…is mumbly a bad thing?” Maybe I should go home and save this for another time if Blue is already having a bad day.

“He’s totally good. Everyone has mumbly moments, don’t they? Honestly, the walk to the shop and back will be enough to sort out whatever has him feeling off. It always is,” Gabriel says with a chuckle as if no part of him is concerned about Blue in the slightest. So even though it’s enough to convince me this isn’t the day to spring my feelings on him, I don’t think I have to worry that anything is actually wrong.

“Okay, then. Thanks, Gabriel. Sorry to bother you.” I turn on my heel before I’ve even finished the sentence so that I can escape back to the safety of silence and my apartment and pretend I never came over here and almost poured my soul out in the hopes that it wouldn’t be crushed like a bug.

Gabriel has other plans for me, though, and his hand is on my arm before I know what’s happening. “You’re never a bother, honey. Come in for a while and have coffee with me.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Thank you though. I really can’t stay. I have to…”

“Nice try, babe. You don't have anything else going on if you came all the way over here just to talk to Blue about something that apparently can’t wait until you see him in the morning for coffee. If I were someone who wasn’t so aware of my own magnificence and secure in my standing as your unofficial bestie, I’d be offended that you’re acting like I’m nothing more than a poor substitute for Blue’s company. But,” he winks at me, “I know how you feel about Blue and how you feel about me.”

There’s something almost teasing in his voice that I don’t quite understand, and if I wasn’t already so worked up, I’d probably be able to grasp what he means, but because I’m not currently capable of understanding things like vocal nuance and subtext, all he’s managed to do is make me feel a bit guilty that he may not understand just how important his friendship is to me. This, of course, makes it even easier than normal for him to break through my walls, and before I realize it’s even happened, he's guided me in, shut the door, settled me on a stool at the bar, and started the kettle.

“Want to tell me what's eating at you?”

My eyes drop to the counter, and I pick at a fingernail as he pulls out mugs and silently waits.“It's just…well…can I ask you something?”

“Course you can. But thanks for asking. Consent shouldn’t only be a bedroom thing.”

I can't help but blush and snicker at the way almost everything he says is both suggestive and serious.

“So, you probably know that I’m demi. Well, maybe you don’t. I know you and Blue are close, and I haven’t sworn him to secrecy or anything because, well, it’s not a secret, but now that I think about it, I guess it doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing Blue would mention without asking me first, so maybe you don’t know?”

Gabriel’s kind, accepting smile helps silence my rambling. “He’s mentioned it. Not in a ‘we’re always talking about Ethan’ kind of way or anything, but just offhandedly.”

“Okay. Good then. Well, the thing is, it’s not something I realized about myself until recently. Blue was actually the one who suggested it while we were all away for the weekend during the boat festival thing. I had no idea ace spectrum sexualities even existed before that.”

Gabriel sets a full mug in front of me without a word before leaning conspiratorially toward me, elbows on the counter, chin in his hands as he gives me his fullattention and listens as though I’m going to offer him the secrets of the universe.

“Lately, I’ve sort of…” God, why do I feel like a fourteen-year-old boy? I’m thirty-two, for fuck’s sake. “I guess I’ve been having some…sexual…or umm, well…and romantic feelings for someone, and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“Blue.” Gabriel pulls me out of my panicked spiral with a single word.

“What?”

“You’re in love with Blue.”

My nose crinkles. “What? How did you…I’ve never…I mean, I don’t know that I’d go as far as saying that I’m in love with him.”

He straightens up and stares at me for the briefest of moments, then throws his head back in laughter, and my heart shatters into a million pieces because my friend is laughing at me and maybe I’ve somehow managed to lose my only two friends before I even got the chance to tell Blue how I feel because the idea is apparently so ludicrous that Gabriel has no response other than to laugh at me.

“It’s not funny,” I choke out, embarrassed by how broken my voice sounds and the sudden, uncontrollable burning behind my eyes.

“Oh, sugar.” He rounds the counter and pulls me into his arms, and even through my emotional distress, I’m acutely aware that he still hasn’t managed to close his robe. “That man is wildly in love with you.”

“What?” I jerk out of his grasp, falling off the barstool as I try to convince my brain to make sense of the emotional roller coaster this conversation has become.

“Babe. Blue swore off relationships almost seven years ago, and I haven’t seen him come even close to questioning that decision. Not once. In truth, it’s killed me just a little because even though choosing not to have long-term or monogamous relationships can be the right fit for some people, it doesn’t really suit him. He only pretends that he doesn’t really want to be loved that way because he’s afraid of it, and he deserves so much more than that. He deserves to feel special. I mean, I know his history, and I understand why he’s tried to find happiness with nothing more than one-night stands, but the last time he hooked up with anyone was the weekend before he met you. He’s been a goner from the start, even if it took him ages to admit it.”

“Took him…” My jaw almost drops to the floor. “To admit it? He’s told you flat out that he has feelings for me?”

Gabriel backs up and slides onto the barstool I vacated when I fell out of his underwear hug. He picks up the mug of coffee I haven’t touched and sips loudly as hewinks at me, and my entire life reorients itself in one blinding and absurd moment of realization when it hits that maybe, just maybe, I might not be destined to spend my life hoping after all.

“I have to get ready and head to work. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable, huh? He’ll be back in a bit, and you boys can chat.” Gabriel’s voice registers somewhere in the periphery of my consciousness as he downs the rest of the coffee with a grimace and kisses my cheek before prancing down the hall, leaving me too stunned to do anything other than continue to stare at the kitchen wall.

I’ve never been more thankful for the existence of e-books on phones in my life than I am while I wait anxiously on Blue and Gabriel’s couch. I don’t have any napkins to shred or stray threads on my shirt to pull at, but I do have access to an almost endless supply of words that I can use to dissociate from my panic.

“For the last time, you haveGOTto stop throwing your man panties in with my laundry when you don’t want to do a load.” The front door barely cracks open before Blue’s voice startles me out of my trance. “I was at the shop for more than an hour before someone pointed out that I had this atrocious leopard-print pair stuck tothe side of my pants! Who owns leopard-print man panties? I mean, I know that… Oh my god, Ethan, not you. I didn’t find a pair of your underwear stuck to my pants. I mean, I’m pretty sure they weren’t yours. Not that I know what your underwear looks like.” Blue rolls his eyes skyward and shakes his head as he drops his bag next to the counter. “What I mean is, hey, Ethan, is everything okay? You’re not over here very often.”

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