He hated the idea of going alone and he’d always taken a date in previous years, and before now he’d only ever been going as a guest.
Gabriel was the only date he would have felt comfortable taking, but…
“There’s a whole… thing. A night. A dinner… thing. Suits and ties,” he rambled, hoping Gabriel would figure it out and drop the subject.
“Oh,” Gabriel said, twirling pasta around his fork. “The kind of thing where you bring a plus-one.”
“Yeah,” Reid admitted, looking down at the countertop, wiping at an imaginary spot on it. “It’s really no big deal, I didn’t want you to feel…”
“Like I was leaving you alone again,” Gabriel finished for him.
That wasn’t the way Reid would have phrased it, but now that Gabriel had put it that way, he couldn’t think how to correct him.
It was selfish to want Gabriel to just make a decision and come with him, and he knew that, and that was why he didn’t really want to talk about it.
Reid just wished Gabrielwantedto come. Even if he understood why he didn’t. Even if it was unfair.
The whole thing was making him feel like an asshole. An award he didn’t deserve and a boyfriend he couldn’t accept for who he was, despite the fact that there wasn’t anything wrong with him at all.
It made his stomach hurt.
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Reid responded, not wanting Gabriel to feel like he was disappointed.
Hewasdisappointed, but that was his problem, not Gabriel’s.
Gabriel nodded. “I know. You would never have said that.”
Reid set his fork down, suddenly not hungry.
That feeling he could have reached out and touched earlier was slipping through his fingers, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
Gabriel ate a few more mouthfuls in silence, and then set his fork down as well. Reid watched him stand up and move around the counter to where he was standing, stopping beside him.
“I’m extremely proud of you,” Gabriel said. “And I’m sorry that I can’t go to this event with you.”
Before Reid could say anything, Gabriel reached out and wrapped his arms around him, pressing himself against Reid’s chest, burying his face into his shirt.
Unsure what else to do, Reid settled his hands on Gabriel’s back, his heart clenching at the tightness of the hug.
This felt like goodbye, and he couldn’t find the words to stop it.
I love youstuck in his throat, along withplease don’t go, I promise I’ll stop being an asshole about this.
After a handful of heartbeats, Gabriel stretched up and pressed a kiss to Reid’s cheek.
“I have to go,” he said. “Let me know how the award dinner goes.”
“I will,” Reid responded, looking down to see tear stains on his shirt. “I…”
His throat caught again, his body unwilling to say the words his heart so desperately wanted Gabriel to hear.
It was too much like guilting him into staying, and Reid wasn’t going to do that. He was Gabriel’s first boyfriend. Gabriel didn’t deserve his first boyfriend being cruel like that. He didn’t deserveanyonebeing cruel like that.
And Reid didn’t deserve him. He’d had his shot at the most amazing person he’d ever met, and he’d screwed it up.
“Take care of yourself,” he said instead.
Gabriel waved at him as he opened the door, his shoulders unnaturally straight, like they had been the first time they’d met.
It was a different kind of pain causing it this time, but there was pain written all over him.
Reid wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for that.
