“Basically.”
“If you don’t feel at least slightly creeped out by the intensity of my feelings, then I’m doing something wrong,” he said, giving me a mock salute. Wrinkling my nose, I squeezed my eyes shut. Little did he know, my brain had long ago shifted fromcreeped outtoinfatuatedwhen it came to his slightly psychotic and unhinged declarations of his attraction to me.
“That’s quite a philosophy,” I said, leaving it at that.
“Do you have a diary or something I can read?” He asked after a little stretch of silence, and I snorted.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
When he gave me a pleading look, I shook my head.
“I never kept an actual paper diary. Just online journal entries. And they’re all deleted,” I tacked on quickly, which was actually true. When he pouted, obviously disappointed, I rolled my eyes. “Believe me, it would take you 10 minutes to think up everything I ever wrote, anyway. A whole lot offeeling alone in a crowded roomandno one understands metype of crybaby whining.”
“You have absolutely no idea how adorable all this is, do you?”
“Shut up or I’m going to smother you in your sleep tonight.”
“I can think of one very appealing way you could smother me,” he remarked. “I’d prefer to be awake for it, though.”
I could only shake my head, rolling onto my stomach so I could bury my face in my pillows.
“Pervert.”
“Your one and only,” he said.
I was starting to think he was right, that he really was my one and only, and that if anything happened and I was forced to try and date other guys after him, I was in for a world of disappointment.
“Can I ask you something, Cupcake?”
“Go ahead.”
“Will you go with me tonight? To have dinner with my dad?”
“You changed your mind?” I asked, popping my head up from my pillows to look at him.
“Yeah. I changed my mind. So, will you?”
It was an awkward situation. I wasn’t sure what Faulkner would want. But I knew what Caelyx wanted, and that was more important.
“Yeah,” I said, shifting back onto my side so I could stare up at him. “As long as… I mean, do you think your dad will mind?”
“I don’t think he will,” he answered, looking thoughtful for a second. “I kind of… I wanted to keep you a secret from him, but… I changed my mind about that, too.”
That cat had long been out of the bag, but of course I couldn’t tell him that.
“Um, he won’t mind that I’m… Trans?” I wondered, forcing myself to think of a question someone who hadn’t met with Faulkner Vane on two separate occasions and been referred to as his son-in-law to a random waitress, would ask.
“Nah. If anything, he’ll probably love that you’re on a scholarship and have a kickass GPA. And anyway, his opinion about you doesn’t matter to me.”
“Okay,” I conceded, the anxiety of Caelyx finding out I already knew Faulkner curling up in my stomach as usual. “Can you at least… Let him know I’m coming too? I don’t want to be a surprise.”
“Yeah, of course. I’m going to text him back when we’re in the car.”
“Okay,” I said again, and pulled myself up to a sitting position. “I guess we should get going, then.” When I stood up, I noticed he stayed sitting, a somewhat tense look on his face. “Are you nervous?”
“A little,” he admitted. “I haven’t talked to him face-to-face in over a year.”
“Don’t be nervous,” I told him. “You’ve come so far, and you’re doing amazing in your classes. You have nothing to feel ashamed of, and he should be proud of you.”
