Before, his touches carried the weight of playing a friendly game. Now, with Sam gone, each contact feels deliberate, searching. He's finding excuses—brushing past me in the narrow space, lingering too long when handing me something, and now this.
It's driving me to the edge, my pulse thrumming beneath my skin. This isn't the gentle flutter of possibility; it's the dizzying spiral of confusion.
He knows how I feel. Ted made sure of that. So what game is he playing?
My hand moves, slow but certain, closing over his before his fingers can wander further. His skin is warm, his pulse beating against my palm. For a heartbeat, we stay like that. My hand holds his, suspended in the olive-painted silence, before I gently guide his hand away.
He looks at me, confusion clouding his features, but I squeeze his hand with a smile before releasing it and turning back to the wall. This feels too close, too intense. If I don't stop him now, I'm not sure I can keep my feelings in check.
"So, since you already made me tell you two secrets to your one, here's another," I say, desperately steering the conversation into safer waters. "My dad disowned me for being gay when I came out at sixteen. I haven't spoken to him since, and I hate his guts."
Vince blinks, caught off guard, but I don't stop there. "Oh, and when I was sixteen, I also stole my boyfriend Brian's Adderall soI could stay up all weekend and binge-read The Lord of the Rings series without stopping."
Vince lets out a wholehearted laugh, his face lighting up with relief. He grabs his paintbrush and climbs back up the ladder, grinning. "I let my sister's cat escape the house after a fight over Legos. He came back two months later, but she's still mad at me."
I laugh, dipping my brush back into the paint. "I had a huge crush on my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Cohen, and would purposely flunk his tests just to spend time with him after school."
"I crashed my dad's truck into a ditch when I was fifteen, lied about it, and got the shit kicked out of me when he found out."
"I stole liquor from my parents' cabinet and blamed it on my brothers when they found out."
"I stole books from my Latin professor's office and promised I'd return them. Never did. Don't even feel bad about it, the guy was a dick."
The grin on my face feels permanent. "Vince, you're not the worst. Not even a little."
When I glance up to catch his reaction, his grin is just as fixed as mine. We paint in silence after that, the words lingering in the air between us, each stroke of our brushes sealing the secrets we've just exchanged. The olive green walls become a canvas for our confessions, each coat of paint another layer of understanding between us.
As I finally leave to drive downtown for my classes, the weight on my chest has lifted, replaced by a lighter, more fragile feeling. We've both laid down some of the burdens we've been carrying, but in doing so, I can't help but wonder what new weight we've taken on instead.
Chapter 23
The Matchmaker’s Penance
Andrew
"Stabilizeyourcore,Gary.Brace it."
Blonde strands whip across my face as I demonstrate, pointing at the sagging line of his spine. His form is a disaster, but his attitude is worse. This is our third session, and the pretense of trying has evaporated entirely. Getting him through the studio door this morning had required the promise of coffee—bribery for a man who treats yoga like a sentence.
"How are you making this look so easy?" Gary groans, his face flushed and slick with sweat. "This is torture. I'm pretty sure yoga isn't supposed to make a man question every life choice that led him to this moment."
"It feels like torture until it doesn't," I say, suppressing a smile.
"What?!" He collapses onto his knees, the plank abandoned in a heap of defeat.
"You build strength, you build flexibility. Then yoga becomes something else entirely. It's about finding connection with your body even when it's under strain—"
"Okay, I'm done." Gary slashes the air with his thumb, collapsing onto his side. "I can't. I can't anymore today, Andrew."
I kneel in front of him, checking my watch with a sigh. "Gary, you keep making snide remarks about my waistline. Do you actually want this or not?"
"I do," he says dramatically, "but I'm done for today. Please stop torturing me. My muscles feel like jelly, and I need coffee."
"You've still got me for ten more minutes. You paid for an hour," I remind him.
"I'll still pay you the full amount. Come have a coffee with me instead. You promised coffee."
I roll my eyes, smiling. "Wow. What a quitter."
