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“Huh?”
He looks from me over to the doorway where Shiloh and Vulture are lacing up their skates and whispering conspiratorially. “You and your bud. You two a thing?”
The groan that leaves my throat is entirely involuntary, but I think if one more person asks me that, I’m going to seriously think the universe is like an author who has no idea who they want their characters to end up with so they push them in every which direction to see where the dick sticks.
“No. Not a thing. There is no thing. Why does everyone think there’s a thing?”
Valco shrugs. “He kinda hangs off you like a lost puppy. Always looking to you for your reactions. The way he touches you…”
“There’s nothing strange about the way we touch.”
“I didn’t say there was. I’m just saying that it’s a lot more intimate than you see in most heterosexual friendships.”
I roll my eyes and kick at the barrel of smoldering logs. “I’m bi.” It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud like that, and it feels like a kernel of truth has popped alive in my chest.
“You into him, then?”
“No. I love him. He’s my best friend, practically my brother.”
Valco drops his chin into his open palm, scuffing his feet on the concrete floor. “He might be into you.”
My mind flips to that kiss in the dorm’s basement kitchen, then to Shiloh’s bright smile and the way he brushed it off and never mentioned it again.
“Nah, that’s not possible.”
“Oh, it’s possible.” Valco reaches under the chair and picks up a black duffel bag, standing and hauling it over his shoulder. “They’re being quiet. Let’s go check on them.”
I shake my head to knock away Valco’s question rattling away inside. Shiloh and I are affectionate; we’re practically trauma bonded: two halves of the same fucked up whole. We might come across as too close, but years of touch-starvation will do that to a person.
For most of our lives, if we wanted company, all we had was each other. Shiloh with me to escape his dad’s phobic comments, and me with Shiloh because my huge ass family is too busy to remember I’m alive.
Why does every relationship have to be romantic or sexual?
Yes, Shiloh is the most important person in my life.
Yes, I love him more than I’ve ever loved another person.
But if I’ve learned anything from the time I’ve been spending with Blair, it’s that there’s this whole other layer of emotions that I’m only just uncovering, and it’s a kind of wanting that I’ve never felt with Shiloh.
Something deep and aching.
Something that feels like it could rip our friendship apart at the seams.
Shiloh’s laughter comes to an abrupt stop as he lays back on the slanted roof of the building. The bottle in his hands has been empty since we sat down, but still he holds it above his head and twists it in every direction before he lets it clatter to the tile beside him.
“I miss you, you know,” he says as he stares up at the night sky. “It feels like I never see you anymore.”
I haven’t had a drink since before the roller derby street race escapade where Shiloh and Vulture nearly wiped out some industrial trash cans, so my mind is clear enough to know that his has to be a mess.
“We have breakfast and lunch together most days. We hit the gym every Sunday. I get to listen to you jerk off most nights.”
Usually Shiloh would bark a laugh at remarks like that, but that one gets nothing.
“Do you hang out with me because you feel obligated?”
“What?” I turn to him, and nothing has ever hurt more than seeing the dejected look on my best friend’s face. “Hell no. I hang out with you because you’re my person. Because even if we’re fighting, we’re gonna have each other’s backs. Even when you’re a dick off your meds and I’m a hard-ass who hates watching you fall apart.”
He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and releases a shaky exhale. “But you will. Because I hate them. I hate how they make me feel.”
