“Nate! At the baseball game! He watched you the whole time. Never looked away once.” He widens his eyes and stares at me dramatically, apparently trying to give me a visual representation of Nate watching me play baseball. “He’s obsessed with you.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not obsessed with me. I think he’s just…figuring himself out.”
“Well, he definitely wants to buy what you’re selling,” Max says, grinning. I roll my eyes, and kick my foot against his ankle.
“You’re spending way too much time with Luke.”
“There is no such thing as too much time with Luke. Seriously, though, Nate is cool. Are you guys dating?”
“No. We’re not even a ‘we.’ We text and we got together a couple times. And I told him he couldn’t touch me when we did, so that’s pretty mortifying.” I snort, rubbing a hand down my face and feeling my mood sour as I remember.
“I threw up on Luke the first time we hooked up,” Max reminds me. “It doesn’t get more humiliating than that.”
“God, we’re fucked up,” I joke, making him snort out a laugh.
“I like Nate,” he declares. “He’s a little bit like Luke, actually.”
I scrunch up my nose in distaste. “He’s nothing like Luke.”
“Mm, sure. You keep telling yourself that.” He injects what I feel is a wholly unnecessary amount of sarcasm into the words, and makes a face at me. I smile, still not used to seeing this side of Max again after so many months of despondency.
“We’re not together,” I remind him. “Me and Nate. It was just a…a fling.”
“But you want it to be more and that’s why you went to the doctor,” he fills in. He knows me so well, it’s not even a question. “And that’s who you’ve been texting all the time, right? I was wondering, since it obviously wasn’t me.”
“He sends me selfies all the fucking time. Pretty much daily.”
“You poor thing.”
Laughing, I relax further into the couch, closing my eyes and breathing out a deep sigh. “I’m supposed to try anxiety medication and therapy. And self-care, whatever the hell that means.”
“I’m sorry, Marcos.” I tip my head back up to look at him. “I know things have been harder because of me, and?—”
“Don’t,” I warn him, frowning. “Don’t apologize for what they did to you.”
“To us,” he corrects softly. A sharp pain prickles through my chest at the words. Carefully, I reach out and wrap my fingers around his wrist, squeezing gently, before letting go and returning my hand to my lap. Exposure therapy, the doctor called it—well, I hope Max is ready for me to practice on him all summer. Maybe if I grab him enough, I’ll be able to get laid without any complications in the future.
“I don’t know what I’m going to tell my parents,” I admit. “They’re going to see the charges on the insurance claim. I doubt therapy is going to be fully covered, either.”
“I just told my mom that school is stressing me out, and she didn’t ask any more questions after that,” Max says, shrugging. I nod, because that sounds exactly like his mom. He’s never been particularly close with his parents, and I’ve never really gotten the impression that they care all that much about his life.
“Maybe I’ll do the same. Dad is pretty old school though. I doubt he’ll buy into the therapy thing. He’ll just tell me everyone in the world is stressed and I need to suck it up.”
“Well, if your insurance doesn’t cover it, and they won’t pay the difference, I’ve got some money in my savings. My dad puts in?—”
“Jesus, Max, no. You don’t have to give me money.”
He shrugs. “If it would help you, though…”
Uncomfortable, I stare unseeing at the muted television. I don’t want to take Max’s money. I’m not even sure I want to do this therapy that Dr. Radford recommended. What I really want is to be magically better—to take the anxiety medicationand be able to put my hands all over Nate without any issues at all.
I sigh and give Max a smile.
“Thanks. I’ll let you know. Might not even be needed.” Checking my phone, I note that we’ve still got some time before the delivery driver comes with our food. “Tell me what’s been going on. Any news?”
“Oh.” He chuckles a little awkwardly. I look over at him, eyebrows raised. He’s blushing. “I told Luke that I love him.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
