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Antonio munched the red string slowly. “So you like bad boys.”
I didn’t want to talk to him about it, but I didn’t have much choice. I cleared my throat, annoyed when I still sounded whiny. “It’s not about bad boys or good boys. It’s about…” I stopped. I didn’t know. Loyalty? Love? Both?
Adam needed me. He told me so, and even though he hurt me a lot, I believed him.
“I promised Adam I’d see him when he gets back in two weeks,” I hedged.
“Okay, so you can dump him face-to-face. I get it, you want to be a stand-up guy. But why hurt Daniel in the meantime?”
“I don’t plan to dump Adam.” I swallowed and forced myself to say the next words. “I love him.”
Did I really, though? I didn’t love the Adam who’d left in May. I didn’t love the Adam I’d talked to on the phone this summer. But I could love the Adam he might learn to be in August. Iwantedto love him. Heneededme to love him.
Antonio blew a raspberry and then kicked off his shoes to rest his socked feet against the dashboard. “Love’s stupid. I don’t get it. You and Daniel work. You could be good together. And you’d be happy with him. Tell me you wouldn’t be.”
“If things were different…”
He bit into the red string again and repeated, “I don’t get it.”
“You haven’t met Adam.”
“True.”
“He’s been in a bad place with his family.”
“Rome sounds like a pretty awesome place, actually.”
“His dad’s a homophobe and hits him anytime he suspects Adam might be gay.” I squashed the whisper in my mind that reminded me Adam had only said his father hit him once. “Adam’s never been able to really choose for himself. He deserves that chance.”
“Are his folks paying for that fancy university?”
I nodded, a sick sadness rolling inside me. I already knew what Antonio was going to say.
“He won’t be free to choose then either. Not with his education hanging over his head. Who are you trying to fool?”
I’d already considered that. “He could get a job, take out loans, switch to UT…”
Antonio blinked at me, chewing another length of red licorice and saying nothing.
“Why wouldn’t he do that?” I asked, gripping the steering wheel.
“Dude, if he was going to do that? He’d have set it up that way to begin with. You know that deep down. You know it.”
My chest hurt, my breathing off and wrong. “He said things were going to be different.”
“Look, I’m bisexual. I get it, okay? He’s into pussyanddick. Believe me, no one in this car understands that more than me. But what he’s doing is wrong. If you were both okay with it—if she knew about you and didn’t mind, or if you weren’t upset because he loves stuffing her pussy so much—then that’d be another thing altogether. But there’s no agreement between you all. It’s just him getting whathewants and needs, while you and the girl both get screwed. Literally.”
I cleared my throat. “But he loves us.”
“Maybe he does. Sucks for him.”
“What if you fell in love with a girl—”
Antonio cut me off. “I like sex with girls, but romantically I’m not interested.”
“Then youdon’tunderstand,” I exclaimed. “You think you do, but you don’t. Because he really loves us both.”
Antonio sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “You’re right. But it doesn’t matter. It’s too late now anyway.”
