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“I know,” I said, but I felt hollow inside from when he wanted to touch me and didn’t. How I physically ached when he held back from kissing me and how my fingers tingled from pulling them away from his when all I wanted to do was hold tighter.
He’d been completely respectful and cognizant of the fact that my friends didn’t know my orientation. He didn’t complain or act like I was selfish or inconvenient. He said I was enough.
But suddenly, I wanted more.
Suddenly, I was needy and impoverished, fixated on wanting to touch him. To let him claim me, to claim him in front of any eyes that stared our way. I’d been all out with him before, hell, even with who I was. But as I stood there staring at that empty street, I’d unexpectedly become all in.
“You really like him that much?” Kruger asked, his voice hushed as if he knew the brevity of what he was asking.
I met his eyes. Held his stare. That alone was a difficult task for me, but just then, my eyes were as steady as my resolve.
“I think I like him more.”
Just admitting that out loud crashed my confidence, but even in the crash, the truth remained. My arms slackened, and Kruger came forward to take the metal pieces from my hold. When they were gone, he cuffed my shoulder and pulled me in, hugging me hard.
“All right then, bro,” he said. “If this is what you want, I’m here for it.”
“You’ve been a giant dick to him.”
“That’s my job. I’m your brother.”
“I need you to like him, Ben,” I whispered. I wished I didn’t have to be like this. I wished it didn’t matter. But it did. It mattered so much.
And if Ben and Arsen couldn’t get along…
“Like him? Of course I do. He’s like the sun. Totally lights up my day,” Kruger quipped.
I snorted.
He pounded on my back before stepping away. “As long as he makes you happy, then I’m happy.”
I nodded, some of the worst pressure in me easing. “Ben?”
“Yeah, bro?”
“What if it doesn’t work out?” I ached just thinking about it, and because of that, I knew it was already too late for me.
“Not to be one of them dudes that answers a question with a question,” he said. “But what if it does?”
“You think it will?”
“Judging by the way he looks at you? Yeah, P. I think I like your odds.”
16
Arsen
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The aggressive thumping on the studio door was startling. Not because it was loud but because no one had ever knocked before. It was common knowledge that you didn’t bother the DJ while he was on air.
So obviously, whoever was beating on the door lacked common sense.
Snagging the headphones off my head, I dropped them on the panel in front of me, hit a few buttons to make sure the booth was muted, and then yanked open the door.
“If you moved any slower, I was gonna have to call the coroner’s office to come get your corpse.” He scowled from the other side.
“Kruger,” I said, surprised to see him but not surprised he was the one with zero common sense. “What are you doing here?”
