He keeps talking, and it’s clear he’s on a roll. “Ooh, I’ll put your initials in my social media profile if you do, too.”
“I don’t have that,” I say immediately. “But you’re free to do whatever.”
“Oh, right. I mean, you could make one. Especially if you keep your profile private.” Ian shakes his head. “You don’t have to, though. It’s honestly not important?—”
“I can make one,” I insist. “After all, Iamtrying to be as normal as possible.”
“There’s no such thing as normal. You already are.”
For a second, my heart stutters as doubt creeps into my brain. He’s almost beingtoochill about everything, and it’s giving me whatever the slow-motion, months-long version of whiplash is—I’m not used to being accepted, not at all.
Then I remind myself that Ian is my boyfriend. In theory, he has one of the widest dating pools out of anyone, but he’s dating me. He wants me. I asked him to be official, and he not only said yes, but he also got all enthusiastic.
I let out a breath and tell myself that I’m fine.
“Right,” I say, breaking the silence. “Let me do this social media thing.”
Ian’s face lights up as I navigate to the app store on my phone, and he pulls his profile up on his phone to show me while I wait for the download tofinish.
Holy hell, all the baseball pictures and the couple of shirtless lakeside shots make me regret not signing up for this earlier.
I fumble through the sign-up screen on the app and immediately follow Ian’s account. He accepts my request right away, and I peek at his profile again to copy his bio, taking a sneaky scroll through some of his shirtless pictures from last summer.
He catches me with a sly little smirk, and my cheeks heat. Hopefully, I’ll work my way up to posting one of my own to get back at him. His eyesdogo all glassy whenever I show any skin at all, and he’s always pawing at the hem of my shirt whenever we’re alone together.
Yup, he likes me back. And to think I doubted he ever could, even after he came out to me.
Shoot, I should focus on making my account. I flip back to Ian’s bio—it’s a string of the states he’s from, our university, and his graduation year. I tap my own version into my account.
WI/NH
WMU
I pause. While I’m hoping to graduate in four years, including my year and a half of community college, all that is still up in the air. I’ll leave it atWMU.
And I'll delete theNH. I don't need the world to knowexactlywhere I am.
“So can I post a nauseating couple photo and tag you?” Ian asks. “That would be cute. Mostly because of you.”
I think for a second. While thatwouldget the job done, I think I owe it to my other friends to fill them in more directly. Especially Laura. Looking back, she all but told me that Ian liked me, too.
“Can I actually tell people face to face?” I say. “I want to do it myself.”
The way Ian smiles makes me wonder if he’s going to maul me with another hug.
He doesn’t. “The Barrel is finally open again, and my team’s headingthere tonight. Do you think we should host a pre at our place and you could tell our friends then?”
“That sounds good.” I smile back, and we go to the group chat to make the plan.
“They’re gonna guess, right?” I ponder out loud, scanning the cleaned-up living room. “Like, none of my stuff is lying around.”
“Nah.” Ian waves me off. “And what if they do? We’re gonna tell them anyway.”
Right. Yeah.
There’s a knock at the door, and Ian yells that it’s open. Given that Nick is always late, my instincts tell me that it’s Laura and Sabrina.
This is it. I’m coming out to Sabrina and announcing that Ian and I are boyfriends. My heart races, even though I know I’ll be fine.
