Page 70 of Sicken of the Calm
“You can ask Iva. She knew.That’s probably what she was trying to tell you then, when the whole, you know,with the football team. She knew. Ask her, I can-” I go toward my desk to grabmy phone but he stops me, lifting his hand and shaking his head.
“No, it’s…don’t.” He looks at mesearchingly, and hope flares in my chest as his hard expression cracksslightly.
“You liked me,” he says slowly asif trying the words out.
“Yes.”
“And…now?”
“I still like you,” I sayimmediately, finally being able to confess something that Ezra hasn’t yet.
“Like…likeme, like me?”
“Yes,” I snort slightly. “I likeyou like you a lot.”
He smiles slightly, but theexpression drops after a moment. “Why didn’t you…All this time. I mean, Ithought-”
“Because I’m an idiot. Ezra,” Isay, taking a step toward him, and am glad when he doesn’t move away, eventhough he doesn’t move closer, either. “I… there’s no logical reason. There’snot. It’s not because of some, some –reason.I’ve wanted to and I justdidn’t because I thought…I thought you… You took the first step and I expectedyou to take all the others. I didn’t know why you wouldn’t. I know now, notthat it matters, I should have – I wanted it so much, and I should have justdone it myself, and I made excuses until they went on for so long I didn’t knowhow to turn back. I want you. I wantthis,” I say, moving a hand back andforth between us.
“What’sthis, exactly? Like,exactly. What do you want?” he asks. He’s looking at me carefully, but hisexpression is brighter, mirroring my own hope, and I know that now is the timeto put my cards on the table.
“I want to be your…yours.And I want you to be mine and I want there to be – I don’t want it to becasual. I want to be serious. About each other,” I say lamely.
“So, if I introduced you as myboyfriend?” he ventures, a smile peeking at the edge of his lips.
“Yes.”
“And what about…partner?”
“Um, yeah. Sounds like I’m inbusiness without you but, yeah, that works.”
“What about if I introduce you asmy lover?”
“Urgh, no,” I say, and can’t evenkeep a fake frown on my face, the grin bursting through. He laughs and I take astep closer, another, until I’m right in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. Heshakes his head.
“Dude, I was there too. I couldhave-”
“No, you-”
“No. No more excuses, for eitherof us. We both – it’s been more than six fucking months!”
“I know!” I say, bursting out anincredulous laugh.
“We could have had a six-month anniversary.”
“Anniversaries are every y-”
“Urgh, you’re gonna bethatkind of guy, huh? Not even flowers on my birthday,” he says withmock-annoyance.
“I’ll buy you a millionnightlights,” I say. He blinks at me for a moment, before his expressionsoftens completely.
“I could say something soincredibly cheesy right now,” he says. My hands come up to cup his face, andwhen we press together we can hardly kiss through the smiles on our faces.
“I like you like you, too,” hesays softly when we part, and I can’t help but kiss him again, deeper thistime.
We alternate between kissing andsmiling at each other like the idiots we are, and when even that’s not enough,I start stripping Ezra from his jacket and his hands start divesting me from myown clothes in turn. That often-awkward transition between clothed and bare isgiven its own shape and feel as we undress each other almost carefully, revealingeach piece of skin as if we know that this time, finally, finally, it’s ours tokeep. There, standing in the glow of my room, where we have stood hundreds oftimes before, we breach the distance between us and press close, close-close,closer still. All his skin and the jut of his bones and his hair and his nails,his smile and fingers and warm smell, all of Ezra here, mine, and I gasp alittle into our kiss because – God. The sacrifice that inaction could havedemanded from me.
