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“No, you didn’t.” He shook his head at me. “You didn’t think at all!”
He shoved my chest, so I shoved him back, unsure what the hell was even going on. How dare he think I didn’t care about our friendship. That shit hurt. Bad.
“You know how long I’ve wanted to…” He shut his mouth and glared at me in the dim light. “Fuck you for saying that.” He turned his back on me and reached for his cigarettes.
“What’s your problem?” I followed him through the patio door, unsure if we were about to turn into our brothers or handle this like we normally would. Unease, embarrassment, and guilt were already consuming me, and I didn’t want to let anger in, too. Fighting wasn’t our thing, but he’d never accused me of not giving a shit about our friendship before.
“You! You’re my problem. You weren’t supposed to say that!”
“So, what? We’re just supposed to fuck the same chick forever, even though it’s pretty fucking obvious we—”
“Don’t.”
“—want something more. We feel shit, Nate!”
“You weren’t supposed to feel anything!” he screamed at me.
I reared back, stumbling, and my slides slipped off my feet. When my back hit the glass door, I felt myself break. “Because I’m just a fucking joke, right?”
“That’s not what I meant.” He tried to grab for me, but I flinched. “Xavi, wait. You can’t just drop that shit on me so casually when I’ve been struggling for so long, and then you—”
“Yeah. Got it.” I ripped my wrist free from his hand. I’d read all his signals wrong. I thought we felt the same thing, but it seemed like he’d been trying to find a way to let me down gently instead. Nate wanted out of this hookup thing, not because he was done with threesomes, but because he was done withme. He could tell. He knew my feelings were changing, and he’d been looking for an escape to save me the embarrassment of having to shoot me down.
I didn’t know if I was more upset about getting it all wrong when I’d never struggled to read him before, or if the look of disgust in his eyes hurt worse than anything.He put sunglasses on to hide it from me.
“No. You don’t get it, Xavi. Fuck.” He tried to grab me again, but I flinched harder. Maybe in fear. Maybe shame.
My heart dripped down my chest and my mind exploded because life as I knew it had just ended. Who was I without him? I had to get out of the apartment, the shop, the fucking town. I needed to leave, and the only two places I could think to go were my parents’ trailer or my brother’s house.
I backed away from Nate, stepping into the apartment to find a different pair of sandals and the truck keys. Then my mind snagged on the fact that it was his truck, and if we were breaking apart, he probably wouldn’t want me to take it.
“Where are you going?” He followed me.
To hide. To feel my pain in solitude. To cry or scream or hate myself for ruining the only good thing I’d ever had in my life by disrespecting our friendship like he’d accused me of. I had to go. I left his keys on the counter, grabbed a pair of flip-flops, and pulled the door open.
“I have a thing for you, Xavi!” he shouted at my back, making me stop. “I do. You’re right, okay? I have a fucking thing.”
But my mind had already dipped deep into self-loathing and didn’t want to believe it. I was all churned up with confused feelings and broken emotions that wondered if he just said that to save our friendship. Another part of me worried he meant it, but never planned to do anything about it because he’d never see me as more than his best friend.
I couldn’t face him, so I slammed the door behind me and ran.
CHAPTER7
NATE
“He’s got a broken toe,”Devon said, handing me a wrench and a propeller part. “Fucking idiot ran all the way to our place in flip-flops. Broke a toe, tripped into the front door, got a bloody nose from it, and then threw up so hard he made the nosebleed worse. He’s a mess, man.”
My heart broke. I did that to him. “Was he… is he okay?”
“No, man. He’s not okay. What the hell happened?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Wouldn’t say shit. We don’t even have a spare bed, and Gnat was on the couch. Xavi was so pathetic that he didn’t even move Gnat. He just laid down on the dog bed and pretended he wasn’t hyperventilating with tissue sticking out of his bloody nose. It was sad as fuck, which made Madd pissed, and I couldn’t sleep because he thinks loud, and…” Devon paused to sigh and calm down. “I’m worried about you two. What’s going on?”
I fucked up. That’s what happened. I spent so much time worrying about what would happen if Xavi found out I had a thing for him, and then he just called me like a cute bastard to ask me about it like it was no big deal. All the stressing and the panic… for nothing.
I flew off the handle because, like usual, I felt like the idiot everyone called me. I’d been feeling so subpar lately that when he admitted something I’d been repressing for a year, I blew up.On Xavi!And I never blew up on Xavi. There had been a lot of times in my life when I felt dumb, but nothing made me feel dumber than going through a year of guilt and shame for nothing.
