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He smiled at me. “Grace under fire,” he repeated. “I like that. But no, I tend not to panic.” He shrugged. “I mean, in the end it doesn’t change anything.”
“I’m more of a panic-now, think-rationally-later kind of guy.”
Linden smiled and leaned into me a little. “I noticed.”
“Sorry about that.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Like I said, I learned some things about you. And as your boyfriend, that was probably overdue.”
I was hit with relief and nerves. Mostly relief. “You still want to be my boyfriend?”
“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I dunno,” I said with a shrug. “Because of what happened. Because I freaked out.”
“You didn’t really freak out,” he offered gently. “Your panic was out of concern for me, and what you said about consent was very sweet.”
Oh.
I tried to smile for him. “I just... I’m still sorry it happened.”
“I am too.” He slid his hand over mine. “We weren’t ready for that kind of heavy situation. We’d just jumped straight into calling each other boyfriend without having talked about anything. Because it was new and exciting, and everything was perfect and shiny. And I think it was a pretty big wake-up call, no?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“So while I wished it hadn’t happened, it did. And now we have to deal with that. But yes, I still want to call you boyfriend. If you want that as well.”
I nodded quickly and pulled his hand into my lap. “I do.”
His smile was short-lived. “But we need to talk about the heavy stuff.”
I held onto his hand, not wanting to let him go. “Yeah.”
“If my results come back positive in three months,” he hedged, “what would you do?”
“Well, to be completely honest, I’d probably freak out first. I tend to go to water in the beginning. I think we both saw that tonight.” I held his hand in both of mine and met his eyes. “But it wouldn’t change how I feel about you. That’s one thing I did realise tonight.”
He threaded his fingers with mine. “And how do you feel about me?”
I barked out a laugh. “Well, I feel giddy when I think about you, and I get butterflies. I want to touch you and hold you and talk to you all the time. I daydream about you at work, and I think about being with you all the time. Basically, if I’m breathing oxygen, I’m thinking about you.” I laughed, embarrassed. Horrified at admitting this stuff out loud. “I don’t know if it’s love, Linden. I keep telling myself it’s too soon. I can’t possibly be in love with you so fast. So maybe I haven’t fallen, per se. But I’m mid-fall. I’m falling in love with you. I told my mum about you, if that’s any gauge. I mean, good lord. Shealready wants to meet you because I told her how amazing you are.”
He stared at me, a stunned smile on his face.
“Oh, okay.”
Oh hell.
“Was that too much? I can reel it back in if you need. I just?—”
He barked out a laugh and squeezed my hand. “No, it’s perfect. No reeling of anything in, thank you very much.” His smile became something else. Something lovely. “I feel exactly the same, Keats. Giddy and like I’m buzzing the whole time. And I don’t know if I’ve fallen in love with you already, and I haven’t told my mother yet, but I did tell Cory I was going to marry you on like day two, I think. So if we want to have a contest about falling too fast, I think I might be winning.”
I laughed, stunned. “You’re going to marry me?”
He nodded. “After our first impromptu date and you gave me that serviette into a flower, I called Cory and was like, ‘Uhhhh holy shit, this guy... I think I’m gonna marry him.’ I mean, I named our hypothetical cats already.”
I chuckled, feeling a little lightheaded. “Yeah. Meatball and Spaghetti.”
Linden smiled and let out a sigh. “And if your results come back positive, it wouldn’t change how I feel about you either. And I know that’s easy to say right now, but I mean it, Keats. It would change how we do some things, but for the most part, it would be just something we live with. Something we monitor and take care of.”
