“I was,” Cade said softly. Then he raised his eyebrows. “Because I washungry. Where are we going to eat?”
“Your place?” Aiden suggested. “We could get pizza, or—” He pushed the outside door of the library open and held it open for Cade to walk through, making sure Cade saw his waggling eyebrows as he passed by.
“No,” Cade said firmly. “I mean, okay for pizza, but we should eat at the restaurant, not get takeout.”
Aiden sighed. “Seriously? We’re protecting our virtue?”
Cade didn’t say anything for a while, not until they were down to the sidewalk, and Aiden thought about grabbing his shoulders and trying to shake some words free. But then Cadedidspeak, and he sounded so tired and old that Aiden wanted to scoop up the words and stuff them back into his mouth. “No. I guess not. We can go to my place if you want.”
Aiden stopped walking. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed. Maybe that had been obnoxious. But he hadn’t said anything to deserve such a cynical, soulless response. “You don’t want me at all but you’re tired of my whining so you’ll do me the favor of fooling around with me. Is that it? You don’t want it and you won’t enjoy it, but you’ve already suffered so much in this world that a little unwanted sex is just par for the course. Is that what you’re saying?”
Cade stared at him. Aiden started to feel a little foolish, and then he was angry aboutthatfeeling too. “I don’t get it, Cade. We’ve… fuck! Okay. Forget it. I can’t… no. I’m done. Forget the kissing. We can be friends. Sure. Whatever. But I can’t keep being the only one who wants more! I feel like I’m imposing on youall the fucking time.” All the hope he’d swallowed earlier was rising in his throat. “I can’t—”
“You’ve never kissed me,” Cade said quietly.
Aiden stared at him. “What?”
“I’ve kissed you twice. Okay, maybe both times sucked, but I did it. You’ve never kissed me. Do you want to?”
What a question. One answer was so obvious, but there was more to the question than just that. “Do you want me to?”
Cade nodded slowly. “Mostly,” he said.
Aiden squinted at him, trying to read his expression in the glare of the streetlight, trying to decide if this was one more evasion. “What does that mean?”
“I’m nervous. Maybe afraid, even.” He shrugged. “Not about kissing you. But about what comes after. Or whatmightcome after, I don’t know. I don’t want to mess it up. I don’t want to disappoint you, or hurt you. I don’t want you to hurt me. I don’t see how this can possibly work, not long term, but I feel like we’ve come so far that we can’t really go back, so we might as well go forward. But then I think that every step forward we take is one step closer to the end, and I don’t know if….” He trailed off.
Aiden stared at him. He was pretty sure he’d just seen more of Cade’s heart than he ever had before. Cade had shown it to him. It had been scary, but he’d done it. “I don’t want to mess it up either,” he whispered. “But I don’t think we will. I think you and me? Together? I think we could beawesome.”
Cade stared at him for long enough that Aiden felt like he was back in the library, forcing himself to stay still. Finally, Cade sighed. It was a small sound, but it felt like something important. Like Cade was letting go of something he literally had to exhale from his body. But Aiden had no idea if Cade was letting go of his hesitations or of his hope.
Then Cade said, “Okay.”
And Aiden still had no idea what direction Cade had chosen. What if he’d decided to walk away? Aiden felt cold, and realized how full of shit he’d been moments before when he’d acted as if he actuallycouldbe “done” with Cade. He’d pushed Cade to make a decision, and now he was going to have to live with whatever Cade came up with. “Okay what?” he asked, his voice small and a little squeaky.
“I want you to kiss me,” Cade said. “I want us to try. I’ll… I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll try to stop being scared.”
But now it was Aiden’s turn to be scared. Terrified, maybe even. Because this was his chance to get what he wanted more than anything else in the world. What if he messed it up?
Better to try and fail than to not try at all. He shuffled forward cautiously, saw Cade’s anxious expression, and tried to smile. “I think this is supposed to befun,” he whispered.
“That’s crazy,” Cade whispered back.
Aiden let himself reach up and rest his hand on Cade’s neck. The skin there was warm and soft. And it wasCade. “Last chance to back out.” He shuffled forward a little more, and Cade didn’t back away.
“Too late,” Cade said, and he leaned forward.
Aiden leaned too, and they met in the middle. Cade’s lips were warm and soft, and Aiden wanted to memorize them. But he pulled away after only a few seconds. He didn’t want to push.
But Cade didn’t look upset. He seemed thoughtful, if anything, and he licked his lips as if gathering their response. “Huh. Yeah, that was alotbetter than the other two. Still not, like, legendary, but much better.”
And then he turned and started walking. Aiden stared after him for a moment, then jogged to catch up. As he drew up beside Cade, he felt the familiar brush of warmth as their hands touched. But this time, the warmth stayed—Cade twined his fingers through Aiden’s and held on.
Chapter Fifteen
“Taking itslow?” Matt was lying on his own mattress, the top one in the triple bunk bed in the dorm room. He leaned over the side to peer down at Aiden in the middle bunk. “I figured you guys would be going at it like crazy. I thought the whole point of being gay was that you got to have lots of easy sex.”
“No,” Aiden said. He was sorry he’d let himself be dragged into this conversation. “The whole point of being gay is same-sex attraction.”
