Theo:Good. Really good.
Lucas:Define good.
Theo:Made her risotto. Told her about talking to my tomato plants. She called it romantic.
Lucas:You told her about the tomato plant thing?
Theo:Apparently I tell her everything now. It’s a problem.
Lucas:That tracks. You’ve always been an open book.
Theo:Unlike some people.
Lucas:I have appropriate professional boundaries.
Theo:You came home at 10pm raving about her books and kept me up until 3am.
Lucas:That was... important information sharing.
Nate:Stop texting. Some of us are trying to sleep.
Lucas:It’s 10:30.
Nate:I have a shift at 6.
Theo:Nate. She’s worth losing sleep over.
A long pause. The snow taps against my windshield. I watch the wipers clear it away, over and over.
Nate:I know.
That’s as close to an emotional admission as Nate Thorn ever gets. Coming from him, it might as well be a sonnet.
Theo:Your turn tomorrow?
Nate:Maybe.
Lucas:That’s a yes.
Nate:That’s a maybe.
Lucas:Nate Jean Thorn.
Nate:Don’t use my middle name.
Lucas:Then stop being evasive.
Nate:Fine. Yes. Tomorrow. Now go to sleep.
I pull back onto the road, grinning like an idiot.
Tomorrow Nate will see her. Tomorrow we’ll be one step closer to something that felt impossible a week ago.
There are still conversations to have. Still things to figure out. But for the first time in a decade, I let myself want something without apologizing for it.
And it feels like spring.
Chapter 13
