“No, I mean it. I’ve enjoyed talking to you, it’s just?—”
His eyes held mine. “It’s just what?”
I thought about Keaton, about home, and how many years I’d been gone, and how none of it had changed the part of me that avoided being with someone else once things started to progress beyond kissing.
“We were close,” I answered. “For a long time. Then it turned into something more, but everything got fucked up.”
Bradford stayed quiet.
I kept going. “I’ve met people since then. I’m not sitting around alone every night waiting for him to magically show up. I go out. I talk to people. I know when somebody’s interested, but every time someone gets close, I put the brakes on.”
“Because they’re not him?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s rough.”
“I know.”
“You ever just let yourself get off by someone else doing it? Forget the emotional part of it?”
I shook my head.
“Not once?”
I thought about every “almost.” Every time I let something go far enough to convince myself maybe it would be different, only to stop it the second I felt myself slipping too far into it.
“No,” I answered. “Not all the way.”
“You mean that literally?”
I stared at him.
“You don’t have to answer that.”
I could’ve let him off the hook. Pretended not to understand. Been vague. Instead, I said, “Yeah, literally.”
He let that sit for a second. “Because of him?”
“Because nobody else ever felt right enough to get there.”
He nodded slowly, and I appreciated that he didn’t make my honesty awkward. No pity. No fake comfort. No weird surprise.
Just understanding.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be.”
I looked down at my bottle for a second before I said, “Just so you know, nobody here knows I’m into guys.”
His expression shifted—not much, just enough. “Got it, but you want to know what else I’m thinking?”
“What’s that?”
“If I drove you home and kissed you goodnight, you’d kiss me back.”
Every part of me went still.
