“No, it is,” I agree. Feeling bad that he might have bought the pie for nothing, I pick out the thinnest slice I can. Satisfied, he sits back in his chair, legs kicked forward and crossed at the ankle. I think maybe it’s time to admit that I don’t know my old friend nearly as well as I thought I did.
“I don’t mean to keep beating the dead horse here, but…are you honestly telling me that if I’d told you how I felt, you would have been fine with it? You would have, what? Felt the same?” The question comes out exactly how I feel inside, like I’m reaching tentative fingers his way and waiting to see if he’ll run away or let me touch him.
“You already knew I felt the same, Ewan. I’m pretty sure we were the only teenage boys in existence saying we loved one another.” He slants a look my direction from the corner of his eye, taking a bite of pizza and running his tongue over the corner of his lip to catch any stray grease. The accidental eroticism of the act isn’t lost on me. I look back out at the ocean instead.
“We loved each other as friends,” I tell him, not understanding why I have to explain this.
“Is there a difference? Isn’t your significant other meant to be your best friend?”
I open my mouth, pause, and close it again. He’s right, buthe’s also…wrong, somehow. Attraction doesn’t work like that. At least not for me. Daniel is my friend, but that doesn’t mean I have any desire to have sex with the man. Honestly, I’d rather not see him naked at all. Ever.
“Sure, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you want to have sex with all your friends.”
Shiloh huffs around his mouthful of pizza, breaking my staring contest with the sea and drawing my gaze back to him. He looks amused. I decide maybe this conversation won’t be as horrendous as I thought—strange, maybe, but not terrible—and tentatively take a bite of my own pizza.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to have sex with anyonebutyou in high school,” Shiloh says, casually tossing a grenade against the vigilantly tended wall around my heart and destroying it.
Nope. There is no way I can eat through this. Leaning forward, I drop my slice of pizza back into the box, complete with a single bite missing. Bending a knee, I turn as much as I’m able to face Shiloh and ask, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Chapter Twelve
SHILOH
Ewan’s hazel eyes are sharp enough on my face that it feels like his fingers are pressing there instead. I feel like I’ve said all the right things, but he’s once more reacting in a way that I didn’t expect. Maybe he’s upset that we wasted all those years not being together—dating, or boyfriends as we probably would have called ourselves in high school—but I feel nothing but a bone-deep relief. I feel like he showed up and smoothed aloe over a sunburn I’ve been sporting for nearly a decade. He did love me as much as I loved him, and so what if it took us this long to talk about it? What matters is getting there in the end, right?
“I think the relationship hierarchy is bullshit,” I start, trying to think of a way to say this. I’m not an expert in anything other than myself, and I’ve never had to explain before. “Romance orsexual attraction aren’t any more important than friendships. You were the most important person to me, and yeah, eventually I did start to think about how it might be to have sex with you. But that didn’t have anything to do with how attractive you are. It was because you were my person.”
Ewan’s face crumples, devastation peeking through the cracks before he’s able to control it. I’m making a mess of this, but all I’m doing is telling the truth. He was honest with me, and it’s only fair I return the favor. I could as easily have mentioned my own feelings to him as he could have to me before he left. Neither of us did, which means both of us hold the blame. Looking at Ewan now, I wonder if he’s trying to shoulder more than his fair share.
“So, Dryden Roy is your person now?” he asks carefully. I feel my cheeks warm, embarrassment making itself known before I even have a chance to feel it.
I pause, thinking for a moment. Is Roy my person? Part of me wants to answer yes. The part that played pinball with him when he bought the machine for no apparent reason. The part of me that shared meals with him, fished with him, and made love to him. But part of me also wants to answer no, he’s not my person. That, after two years of standing still, this tiny, breakable thing between us was destroyed with no effort and no fight.
I wanted so badly to care for him even half as much as I do Ewan. I wanted him to care aboutmethat much. I wanted us to try, and I’m starting to wonder now if neither of us actually did. Clearing my throat, I answer Ewan.
“Well…no. He sort of came out of nowhere, and to be frank, I was tired of being alone. With Roy, I tried something new, I guess. Sex before friends.”
“And how’d that work out?” Ewan’s voice is soft, precisely matching the chocolatey warmth in the brown parts of his eyes. He looks so serious and so sad, and I seem to only be making things worse.
“A relationship that both Roy and I could discard pretty easily, apparently,” I admit, gut squirming in discomfort. I’ve been uncomfortable in my relationship with Roy for long enough that I should have ended it myself. I should have ended it long before Ewan Fate drove back into town.
“I’m sorry I caused that.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t. We were already on the edge of that cliff. You just gave us the shove to send us over.”
He grimaces. I wish he’d pick up his slice and keep eating. He was definitely asleep before I knocked on his door and woke him up. I doubt he’s had any food today, and to be honest, he doesn’t look like he’s had much food at all these past few years. After a day spent on the boat, I’m starving. If he doesn’t help me with the pizza, I’m going to finish it all myself.
“You should eat,” I tell him. He shakes his head.
“I need a second to digest just how much I’ve fucked up first.”
“Hey.” He looks at me, mouth soft in a frown and eyes sad. “Let’s not do this, please. I don’t want to be angry or play the blame game. I don’t want to live in the past, okay? Let’s just move on.”
“You were angry last night. Rightfully so,” he adds.
“I was,” I agree, shrugging. “And I’ve spent a fair bit of time angry at you over the last seven years, too. And the only person who suffered during those times was me. I’m sick of it, Ewan. So, please, let’s just move on.”
His lips part on a breath, but he seems to rethink what he wanted to say and looks away instead. He seems to have an easier time staring at the ocean than maintaining eye contact with me, which is fair enough. I have a hard time looking at him, too, although I imagine it’s for different reasons. He’s so beautiful. And while I can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of someone like Roy or even Oliver, nobody I’ve ever met has struck me like Ewan does. Desire is a strange and fleeting emotion for me. It’s never been something I can count on, and the few times in my adult life I have experienced it have been lackluster.
