“Might’ve been better if I had a date,” Mike said wryly.
“Girlfriend out of town?” Ezra asked.
Mike snorted. “What girlfriend? No, I… apparently suck at dating. I guess it was easy when I met Rachel here, y’know? But now that I’ve gotta meet people without hanging out with them all the time, turns out I’m not great at it.”
“Really?” Ezra raised an eyebrow, packing the antiseptic and cotton rounds back into the first aid kit. “Hard to imagine you having trouble finding a date. Do you want a bandaid for that?”
“I think it’s fine,” Mike said, taking the cotton round away from his face to check for blood. There was a little streak of it, but he did seem to have stopped bleeding. It really was only a scratch, but it’d been right near his eye. That had to have been scary.
After all, when was the last time Mike dealt with a bird? It probably would’ve been before he left here.
Ezra packed up the rest of the first aid kit, zipping the case closed and pushing it away. Spot laid down under the table, having gotten her share of pats from Mike.
“Coffee?” he offered, standing to go to the pot.Hesure as hell needed a cup of coffee right about now.
“Sounds good,” Mike said. “It’s not thefindinga date, not really. It’s wanting to go on a second date. I dunno. Maybe I just need to be single for a while.”
Chuckling, Ezra got out two mugs—his own favorite, and one of the ones they reserved for guests. “Oh, yeah. That’s totally what I’m doing, too. Intentionally not dating.”
“Bullshit,” Mike responded. “You used to go through a girlfriend a week.”
“I’ve since expanded my horizons to boyfriends,” Ezra said, a knot forming in his stomach. Would Mike take that okay?
He’d stopped worrying about it ingenerala long time ago, but this was different. This was coming out to an old friend—an old friend who he’d never been out to, but who hehadnapped on the couch with from time to time. Who he’d cuddled and seen half-naked and been very physically close with. And Ezra wasn’t even sure he knew Oscar and Finn were gay, it’d never really come up.
Presumably he knew Oscar was interested in mennow, on account of having gotten a wedding invitation.
And he was here. So it had to be fine, right? If he was likely to be upset about it, he wouldn’t have been interested in coming to a gay wedding. He definitely wouldn’t have been dropping in a week early.
Ezra’s hand still shook as he poured two cups of coffee and got out the creamer. What if it was fine ifOscarwas gay, but not fine if Ezra was bi?
“Oh,” Mike said, which didn’t do anything to stop Ezra panicking. “Oh, uh… that’s cool. I, uh… did I know that? Should I have known that?”
Relief washed over Ezra as he set both mugs of coffee down on the table. Mike was being a little awkward about it, but he could handle that. Awkward wasmuchbetter than mad.
“I didn’t really figure it out until after you left,” Ezra lied. Mike didn’t need to know right now that he’d been the reason Ezrahadfigured it out. Not ten minutes after they’d met up again.
He’d tell him, at some point, before the wedding festivities were over. It'd be good for him to get it off his chest.
And then they could laugh about it and both go their separate ways happily. In Ezra's head, it seemed like it'd be a nice moment with an old friend.
But not just yet. Mike needed a little while to settle into the idea, first.
“Wow. Okay,” Mike said. “What’s that like?”
Ezra laughed, glad Mike was taking this well. “Well, you get to have at least twice as many awkward crushes.”
Mike sat back, taking his coffee mug and holding it against his chest. “I could go for having justoneof those. I haven’t been… interested, I guess. In anyone, for a while.”
A sympathetic noise escaped Ezra before he could stop it. Mike probably wasn’t looking for pity, but he seemed sosadabout that.
There was nothing wrong with it, but still. Ezra would have liked to see him happy.
“I shouldn’t be dumping this on you,” Mike said. “Not after I just disappeared like I did.”
“It’s fine,” Ezra said, surprised to find that it really was fine, that he wasn’t justsayingthat. Forgiving Mike was so easy now that he was sitting next to Ezra in the sanctuary’s kitchen, close enough for the heat of his body to seep into Ezra’s skin.
He’d missed this.
