Page 89 of Romance Languages

Fat guys could be loved.

I was tired of shrinking away. I was going to walk into South Rock High and confess my feelings to Seamus. I was done with dancing around this delicate topic. When we met up tonight for our final session, we would be two men making love. Physicalandemotional.

I entered South Rock High, my heart buzzing and my stomach dealing with so many butterflies it could’ve been mistaken for a nature conservatory. Seamus was already in his classroom, busy toiling away on Cyllabus.

Now that I had confirmation that Seamus liked me as more than a friend (correction:reallyliked me), I should’ve had no problem being around him, right?

Wrong. Very wrong.

Nerves pummeled me.

I knocked at the door with a shaky fist.

He looked so damn good in a polo that hugged his freckled shoulders. How did I know they were freckled? Because I’d seen him naked. Multiple times.

“Hey, Jules.” He stood up. His polo showed off his flat stomach, a stomach that I had also seen in the buff multiple times.

“Hi. Happy Friday.”

Hey Seamus, so I heard that you like me. Really like me. Well, I like you, too.

That was all I wanted to say, the only train on my one-track mind. The words were on the tip of my tongue ready to parachute out, yet they refused to move.

What was I more scared of? Raleigh being wrong, or Raleigh being right?

And if Seamus did like me, then what was stoppinghimfrom proclaiming it?

Something about his posture seemed unusually rigid, a tenseness that I couldn’t blame on Cyllabus.

“Still having trouble?” I pointed at the computer.

“Always.” He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I thought teaching meant I didn’t need to be on the computer all day.”

“What’s the problem? I can help.”

Seamus kept his hand on the closed laptop. “It’s okay. I can figure it out. I should figure it out on my own.”

There was a heaviness to how he said it that made me paranoid he wasn’t merely talking about grading software.

“Oh. Okay. Well, I’m right across the hall.” I pointed behind me, as if he’d forgotten where my classroom was, which only made things more awkward.

“Cool,” he said. The mood between us seemed tense.

“Great. Have a good Friday!” I turned on my heel and retreated into the hall.

Dammit, what was I doing? I kept thinking of that quote that all my jock students were fond of:You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.

I marched back into his classroom and shut the door.

“Actually, can we talk for a second?” I fought to stay calm.

“Sure.”

He leaned against his desk and fixed his icy blue eyes on me. It was now or never. One small sentence for Julian. One giant leap for Julian’s love life.

“Seamus, before we go forward with our grand finale session tonight, I have to be honest with you. I don’t want this to be the grand finale. I want it to be the start of something.” My eyes initially shifted to the floor, but I found the courage to meet his gaze. “I like you. I really like you.”

Where I should’ve been petrified, I felt oddly exhilarated. An epiphany came to me: moments like these, where we dared to be true to ourselves, were what life was all about.

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