Page 28 of Lakeside Little
“Yeah,” I said, rolling around on the floor to get a better view of his face. “Why is your house still in boxes?” He’d asked the question himself, and now, he was being quiet. I could understand, sometimes unpacking felt permanent. “Are you moving?”
“I bought it. Mortgage is paid, so I could just sell it and move on.”
“Well, you promised me a room for my dolls,” I said, trying to make eye contact with him.
He shook his head. “I know, I’m just saying, I had a lot of time to think while you were napping. Nothing is keeping me in Philadelphia anymore. There’s family, sure, but I’m ready for a big change.”
“I’m a big change,” I whispered.
“You’re a huge change,” he said, locking his fingers with mine. “The reason I want to leave and—I don’t want the rest of my life to hinge on a decision I make in the moment.”
Sitting upright, I had to stare at him in his eyes. “I’m not forcing you, and you don’t have to. Being a Daddy doesn’t meanyou’ve got to have this assertive decision-making skill. It means taking care of me and taking care of you. Spending all this time with you has been the best summer I’ve ever had. I’m not gonna lie, I think I’d be depressed as heck if you left and we never spoke again.”
“Me too.” He stroked my cheek. “You’re the reason I want to change things. I want to live in your bubble and breath your air and see the world the way you look at it.”
“Ok, but you’re not stealing my eyes for that.”
He laughed and yanked me in for a hug. “You’re so silly. I feel like I’ve wasted years being—” he squeezed. “Not out out, you know, and you remind me that it’s ok to be gay and to do this with you in the warmth and smell of pizza.”
“That’s it,” I said, pulling myself out of his arms. “I’m going to make you a friendship bracelet. And it’s going to be full of all the rainbow colors.”
“Just friends?” he asked.
“Well, I mean, it could have another name, maybe. I don’t know, what would you call it?”
It was right there on the tip of his tongue, and on mine too.
“I guess you are a boy and a friend, so—” I began, trying to edge the two together. After we’d already discussed our lives going forward, it sounded like something we would do together.
“Boyfriend,” he said.
“Are you asking me out?”
The timer on the oven beeped. “We best get that.” He was quick to his face, but I chased him down to the oven, desperate for an answer.
“Well?”
Equipping his hands with the oven mitts, he looked at me with a big smile. “Jack, will you be my boyfriend?” he asked.
I hummed and stared at him. “One condition.”
“Make it quick, or these pizzas are gonna burn,” he said.
“Cuddles, kisses, on demand, and you get me, and I suppose cuddles and kisses but not on demand,” I said, listing them out on my fingers as if I was even keeping track.
“And I get a boyfriend bracelet.”
“Deal!”
We sealed it with a kiss.
Now, did I bring my bracelet making kit with me?
12. DIEGO
Technically, Jack was my first boyfriend by title. I’d engaged in relationships, but I’d never been anyone’s boyfriend before, again, not officially, maybe I had, but I couldn’t recall. I think the closest to relationship I’d had was fling, and never worked from that stage, probably because of my own issues.
Losing my job might’ve been the best thing to have ever happened to me. It cut all the nasty stuff around my identity away and left me with a new form I was happy to take on. Someone who didn’t have to fit in with the straight guys who talked constantly about their wives, or divorces.
