Still silent, still holding hands, we walk all the way upstairs to my suite before he finally finds his voice.
“So… you gonna be okay?” he asks.
Reluctantly, I let him go and open the door, then turn back around to face him. It’s the first I’ve allowed myself to look at him full on since the meeting, and his eyes are more fiery than ever now, blazing with a million unsaid words, a million burning secrets.
This time, I know they’re not about me. Not the kind he owes me, anyway.
“I’m fine, Baz,” I say, and even I can hear the exhaustion in my voice. “Just tired.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll just… right. See you tomorrow, then?”
This is ridiculous. It’s about two hundred degrees Fahrenheit between us, and we’re both just standing here like idiots who forgot how to talk.
No, I don’t need Baz to lay his soul bare on my doorstep. But I do need him to answer one question.
“Where do you stand with me, Baz?”
A nervous laugh escapes his lips, and he shoves his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders. “Is this a trap? It feels like a trap.”
“No trap,” I assure him, thinking about what Kelly was saying about communication—how we often give up when we can’t figure out what the hell the other person is talking about. I don’t want to give up. And waiting around for the other person to figure things out first feels like a form of giving up. “I’m just tired of wasting time trying to figure out the right words to say, so I’m practicing a new strategy.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Saying whatever the fuck comes to mind, then working out the translations later.”
“I see.” Baz smiles. “So, where do I stand. That’s what you want to know?”
“Are we friends?” I ask.
“That’s two questions now, Little Bird. Slow down.”
“It’s a serious question, though. Are we?”
He cocks his head, his brow furrowing. “Stevie, come on. I’ve wanted to be your friend since the first day we met and you called me out for acting like a jackass.”
“But now I know you weren’t acting.” I laugh, but it quickly turns into a sigh, and then a whisper. “Baz, I don’t… I don’t want to be friends with you.”
“But I thought—”
“I want to be… something else.”
A slow grin slides across his face. “What else, exactly?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t even need a label. It just needs to be more than friends. If you’re cool with that.”
“Stevie, I’m more than cool with that.” He takes a step forward, but I put a hand on his chest and stop him in his tracks.
“But…”
“Ah. The but,” he says. “Always the but.”
“No labels, no expectations. I’m good with that—seriously. But the stuff with Carly, the constant drama and jealousy and pettiness… I can’t deal with that. I know I've contributed to the dynamic, and for that I'm sorry. I wanted to give Carly a chance—still do. I'm trying. But I also want to give my friendship with you a chance, and—”
“You mean our non-friendship.”
“Non-friendship. Yes.” I shake my head, wishing Ididhave all the right words for this. But I don’t, so onward I plow, fumbling my way through it. “I just don’t feel like I can do it if she’s constantly trying to interfere and pit us against each other.”
“I’ve told you before, Carly and I aren’t and never have been an item.”
