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It was all too much—the lying and sneaking around. Besides the lie that Leo had told Piper, he felt just as awful lying to his best friend.
Through the window, Leo could see Sam was still up, sitting on the couch and watching The Promenade for the billionth time. Sam was a dreamer and frequently liked to imagine himself as an A-list actor and America’s next heartthrob. He had the acting chops to get there someday, and if Leo had any say in it, he’d drag Sam by his collar into stardom along with him.
When Leo finally decided to brave Sam’s presence, he walked in through the front door and threw his backpack on the ground. Sam slowly popped his head up from where he was sprawled out with a fuzzy blanket and gave a mild wave at Leo, and the pit in Leo’s stomach grew three sizes like the Grinch’s heart. But while the Grinch was becoming a better person, Leo was just becoming better at being a lying asshole.
“I need to tell you something,” Leo word-vomited and stomped his way over to the couch. Sam lifted his head higher and looked at Leo with questioning eyes. “I slept with Piper.”
“I already knew that, you dick,” Sam huffed. “I came back early once, and the walls are thin, so I left. Plus, you looked guilty as fuck when Piper and I were doing the kissing scene, like, forever ago. I just wasn’t going to make you tell me if you didn’t want to.”
“Oh.” Leo cringed. “Sorry.” He rubbed the heels of his hands into his forehead. He didn’t have a headache, but it felt like there should be a way to massage out the thoughts stuck in his head that wouldn’t leave him alone.
“Why are you telling me now?” Sam reached for a roll of toilet paper on the floor below him.
“Are you sick?” Leo asked, and Sam confirmed it by blowing an entire noseful into a few sheets he had ripped off the roll.
“Yes,” Sam said simply, though his stuffy nose made it come out more like “des.”
“I should let you sleep, then.” Leo turned to walk away, but Sam lobbed the toilet paper roll at the back of his head with surprising force. Leo turned around to find Sam looking extremely dizzy from the exertion as his torso fell back onto the couch.
“Tell me first, then I’ll sleep,” Sam bartered.
Leo let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. I, uh…”
“Hurry up, I’m tired,” Sam whined.
“Okay, okay, Jesus.” Leo raised his hands in defeat. “I’m telling you because I’m in love with her.”
Sam transformed into the human embodiment of a heart-eye emoji. “You’re in love?” The look immediately depleted, replaced by a sickly grimace.
“Are you going to throw up?” Leo stepped back.
“Maybe,” Sam admitted.
Leo made quick work of running to the kitchen to grab a large bowl and set it in front of Sam, who lazily bobbed his head thank-you. Now that Leo was really looking, he noticed Sam’s hair fell in clumps of sweat-soaked strands, and he wasn’t just under one blanket, but four. “Are you two finally dating?” Sam asked.
“No. This was supposed to be casual, and she told me she doesn’t want to be in love with anyone ever. She doesn’t exactly know I’m in love with her,” Leo explained.
“So what are you doing, then?” Sam gained a little more levity. “If she doesn’t want what you want, then you can’t sit around scrapbooking pictures of your future children together.”
“I haven’t met a single person who’s done that.” Leo rolled his eyes.
“True. I’m gay, but not an organized, scrapbooking gay. That seems like a lot of work.” Sam yawned then hit Leo with a low-energy stare. “You can’t keep torturing yourself.”
Leo’s whole body stiffened as he said everything aloud. “I’m telling you as a friend, not because I want you to give me sound advice that I already know. I have a limited amount of time to be around her before I go to film school and she goes back to Archwood to run her parents’ business, so I’m taking every single second I can. I don’t care that I’m screwing myself over, because she’s worth it. I don’t care that I’ll probably regret it. I don’t care that she’s never going to know how I feel about her. I just don’t care about anything other than being around her. No me importa.”
Sam gave an exasperated sigh, longingly looking over at the roll of toilet paper on the ground. Leo walked over to pick it up and handed it to him. “Thanks.” Sam began to rip pieces off. “This is not going to make you happy, Leo. Maybe if you tell her that you’re in love with her, she’ll feel the same way.”
Leo pulled his fingers through his hair. “Stop trying to give me hope, Sam. She’s never going to be in love with me. She basically told me that point-blank.”
“But you didn’t tell her how you feel!” Sam must have found a little strength within himself because his voice had turned loud and irritated. “So how do you know that it wouldn’t change everything?”
“Not everything is a rom-com!” Leo shouted back. “This won’t end well for me, and I already know that.”
“I have never known you to be this dumb.” The sick version of Sam had no qualms about telling it to Leo straight. “If you’re not planning on telling her, then the whole thing is a bad fucking idea.”
“Stop reminding me it’s a bad idea,” Leo snapped. “I know it is, and I don’t give a fuck. La amo.” He punctuated his Spanish with a flick of his hand. “End of story.”
“I just want you to be happy.” Sam shivered and pulled the blankets up around his shoulders.
