“I’ll do it,” I said, before I’d decided what I was going to say.
As soon as the words were out, though, and Felix’s face relaxed, his shoulders slumping from where they’d climbed up to his earlobes, I knew I’d done the right thing.
This was just… helping a friend. With something bigger and more important than themselves.
It didn’t have to end up like Aiden and Carter.
Happy?
I took another bite of my burger while I let Felix process, since he looked like he could use a second.
Now was either the best or the absolute worst time to confess to him that I wasn’t sure I was as straight as people thought I was, and I’d been thinking that for a while.
Or to mention that I’d really,reallywanted to kiss him yesterday before I came to my senses.
“Really?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
Worst time, I decided.
I’d tell him later.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “Even if you’re the worst boyfriend in the world, it’s only pretend, right?”
Felix snorted. “I probablyamthe worst boyfriend in the world,” he said. “Haven’t had a whole lot of practice.”
“Me neither, so that makes two of us.”
I kept expecting to panic over what I’d just promised, but the panic never came. This was the right thing.
This was right forbothof my best friends. I’d heard what Carter said, about the difference it would have made if he’d had a book like this. And I knew how upset Felix was that he couldn’t write it.
If the only thing standing between him and writing this book the way he needed to was not having a boyfriend he could show his publishers, the right thing to do was agree to be his boyfriend.
Or at least, to fake being his boyfriend.
“You’re taking this so well,” Felix said, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
I shrugged again, not sure how else to respond. “Did you want me to freak out about it?” I asked. “For the record, you’re not the first guy to ask.”
“I’m not… the first guy to ask you to fake a relationship with me?”
I blinked. “Well. No.”
Carter had asked me to do this for him, and I’d laughed at the idea. It’d sounded insane at the time.
But this was different. This wasn’t about a family wedding.
This was about all the kids who felt like no one understood them, and about Felix needing to do something to help, and about Carter, too, about the hidden crap I’d never really known he was going through because neither of us had the words to start the conversation and the closest we’d gotten was one experimental kiss neither of us liked.
That was the thing, wasn’t it? Thethinggnawing at the pit of my stomach when I thought too closely about what I liked.
Carter hadn’t liked kissing me, and I hadn’t liked kissingCarter, but he sure as hell liked kissing Aiden.
Which had left me wondering if maybe it might have been different if I’d actually had a spark of anything other than brotherly love for Carter.
“But I meant not the first guy to ask me out,” I said, trying to lighten the mood and not sure I’d hit the mark.
“Are you trying to tell me that guys hit on you when you go out? Because that’s not a surprise,” Felix said, sipping his coffee.
