His mouth twists like the bitter taste of this reality is hard to swallow, but then he shakes his head and shrugs.
“You have a lot on your plate, and at the end of the day, we have always been friends. I don’t like it, but I love you.”
I know he means it in both ways, but clearly, the platonic version is what is pushing him to be so understanding. I also know he hopes this statement will change my mind. It doesn’t, so I let him give me a hug, thankful that I don’t have to deal with this, too.
“If we are playing Taboo, you’re on my team,” he says, letting go.
“Deal.”
He tries to look like he is cool with it at all, but a few times over the course of the evening, I see him just staring at us before taking a shot. I ignore him for the most part, and Callahan doesn’t seem to mind, just having too much fun to really even focus on anything else.
When the party starts to dwindle and people begin to leave, Callahan pulls me into Rowan’s bedroom with a box.
“What’s this?”
He pops it open, and inside are mini cupcakes that are shaped like a heart. In the middle is a pair of toy ballet shoes and a race car.
“I knew you were going to say yes, so I got us a cake.”
I cover my mouth with both my hands and then bend forward.
“You are so extra,” I say.
“What?”
“You don’t buy a cake to celebrate becoming a couple.”
“Who says?”
I pick a cupcake up and lick off the icing while shrugging my shoulder. No one says, and maybe it should be a tradition.
“Is this how you treat all the girls you date?”
“I’m pretty all-in, but I’m even more over the top with you.”
Finishing off the first one, I grab another and slide to the top of the bed until my back is against the headboard.
“Tell me about your first love,” I say.
He grabs his own cupcake, then lies on his stomach facing me. Taking his time eating little bites out of it, he makes me wait while he thinks it over.
“Believe it or not, she was crazier than I am. If you told her there was something she shouldn’t do, she did it to spite you. I felt like I was always chasing her.”
“A habit of yours?”
“Not the same. It wasn’t like she was making me work for it or playing around. It was like she was trying to get away. But every time I would stop running after her, she would call my name and act like she was going to let me catch her.”
I lean forward and run a hand over his cropped hair, ending on his neck.
“I wanted her to love me so bad. I did anything she asked. I did things that I didn’t want to do.” He rubs his eyes and then pincheshis nose. “All it did was leave me with a broken heart and bad rep. I wanted her approval almost as much as I wanted my dad’s. In the end, I got neither.”
I pull him up until his head is resting on my lap. Continuing to stroke his head, I wait for him to speak.
“You are right when you say I do the most.” He lets out a breath and rubs his hand up and down his face. “I guess…” Pausing, his eyes flit between me and the bed, before finally landing on the covers. “I guess it’s to make up for the fact that I don’t feel like enough for anyone,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Do you still feel like that?”
He grows quiet, and in the silence, I hear my heart break for him. It makes me pull him even closer to me.
