Page 109 of If This Gets Out

“What about the tour?” asks Ruben. “We have a show in two days.”

“We’ll discuss, and get back to you soon with a plan.”

The screen goes blank.

And that’s it, I guess.

I look to Erin, I guess searching for some sort of comfort, or at least some answers.

“So what’s going to happen?” I ask. “Are they going to make us perform without Angel?”

“I’m really sorry, Zach,” she says, frowning. “But I can’t talk about this.”

Wow. Okay. So that’s where she stands.

Ruben and I go back to his room.

“This is fucked,” he says.

I nod. Because yeah. Guys in Saturday might not be allowed to use that word in public, but it’s the only appropriate one for this current situation.

“Do you want some space?” I ask. “I can go, if you want?”

He shakes his head. “Stay.”

We move to the bed. I lean back against the headboard, and Ruben sits in my lap, his legs curled underneath him. I look him in the eyes and push a strand of hair back into place. He smiles softly at the contact, which makes my stomach fill with butterflies. I wonder if he even knows how cute he looks when his hair is a little messed up. Or how beautiful I find him.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Not really. Are you?”

“Same.”

“I keep thinking about last night. I keepseeingit, like it’s on a loop. And I can’t stop thinking about what he said.”

“Which part?”

I put my hands on his hips, holding him close to me. Maybe I’m not the best at saying exactly what I want sometimes, but I hope maybe I can show him by doing this, by listening. Maybe that will be enough for him to just know. I start rubbing him with my thumb, feeling how warm he is through the soft material of his shirt.

“All of it, I guess,” he says.

“I’m sorry they’re being so shitty.”

I reposition, lying down and putting a hand behind my head. Ruben starts touching my necklace, like that’s all he wants to be doing, but I know from his furrowed brow that he’s going to ask me one of those questions he’s wanted to ask for a long time, but has held back, waiting for the perfect moment.

“Zach, how do you actually feel about coming out after Russia?”

“What makes you ask?”

“You knowIwant to come out, and you know they’re saying we’re allowed to after Russia, but what about you? Just because we’re allowed to doesn’t mean that’s what you want.”

I sit up, my brow furrowed. “I want to.”

“Do you really though? Or are you just going along with it because you think it’s what I want? You know you don’t have to, right?”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not scared of coming out.”

“Not being scared of something and wanting to are very different things.”

---