Page 61 of It Starts With Summer

He pointed at me.“Autistic heartthrob.”Then at himself.“Chronically lonely mess.”

“You forgot sexy.Sexy mess.And not so lonely, anymore.”

“No, not so lonely.Not anymore.”He smiled and kissed the tip of my nose.“By the way, Jay and Aiden invited us to join them for dinner tonight.Let’s ask them about moving you in?”

“It’s only been three months since we got back from camp,” I said.“Is that too fast?”

“Baby, this is slow in gay time.It’s November and we’ve known each other since June.By now, our relationship has stood the test of gay time, which works differently.”

“Oh, does it?”

He laughed.“Yep.By my calculations, we should either be married, or polyamorous and fucking a lot of other men.”

“Ew, not that second one.There’s not enough Lysol in the world…” Ravi shuddered."I don't share."

Parker burst out laughing.“But maybe the first?”

“Perhaps,” I said, heat rising to my cheeks.“Once we both figure out grad school.”

He rolled onto his stomach and propped his head up on his hands, looking excited.“Oh!I got accepted into Washington University’s psychology program!”

And finally, something in my life was going perfectly, wonderfully right.Washington University’s biology program was at the top of my list as well, and they had already accepted my application for grad school in the biology department.

Ravi blinked at me.“We’re getting an apartment together.”

“We are getting an apartment.Together.And by the way, the moment I got accepted, Jiya texted me saying she’s going to come visit.”

“You told my sister before you told me?”I yelped.“I told you not to accept her friend requests on social media.”

“Hey, they all told me they’re my family too now,” Parker said, cuddling close.“I guess it won’t be official until after the wedding, though.”

I smiled at the happy future stretched out before us.We’d finish school, graduate, and then there was my summer research project.It felt stressful right now, but in the scheme of things, it wasn’t so long until we’d be together every day, living in a home we’d set up for ourselves.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“Love you more,” Parker said.“Especially when you let me put my foot on the counter.”

“Oh, crap!I didn’t finish sanitizing.”I tried to leap up out of bed, but he pinned me down, laughing, and kissing me deeply.

twenty-eight

Epilogue - Parker

Wewerestuckintraffic on our way to San Francisco to visit Ravi’s family, but I wasn’t too bothered.Ravi was telling me about his upcoming research project, and I was happy to listen, to watch how passionate he got about his plants.

“We’ll be okay this summer, right?When I leave for the research project in Eastern Washington?”The way he blurted it out in a rush told me he’d been worrying about it for a while.

I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed it.“We’ll always be okay.”The longer we were together, the more confident I felt about that, and eight months in, I was pretty damn certain I was going to marry this man.“But I got the email this morning!I landed the internship in Spokane, working with a clinic there.”

He beamed at me, then suddenly frowned.“You got it this morning and you waited until—” He checked his watch.“11:27 am to tell me?”

“You were making your checklists to leave for the long weekend.I didn’t want to throw you off when you were focused and enjoying yourself.”

He considered that for a moment.“It would have thrown me off.How close will you be?”

“It’s outside the city, so I’m going to look for an apartment as close to the research site as possible.We’ll be able to see each other when you have days off.”

“But not sleep together,” he said.

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