“You remembered.”
I rub the back of my neck. “I wouldn’t forget.”
Darius eats a slice leaning against the counter. I consider eating for a moment, but decide against it, my stomach an uneasy mess ever since I told my mother I would be at the funeral.
I don’t know if going is the right thing to do, but I figured I would be more likely to regret missing it than making the effort to go.
Darius groans, his hand reaching for another slice, and when he looks at me, there’s a smudge of barbeque sauce on his cheek and that glittering mischief in his eyes again.
“Do you want to get day drunk?”
A laugh bursts out from my lips, a sound I’ve heard more in the last week than in the three years before I met him. “That is the oddest question I’ve ever been asked on a Sunday afternoon.”
“We could go out, if you prefer. Or there’s a pool in the basement.”
“I’m easy. I’ll do whatever you want to do.” The honest truth is that I’m happy being with Darius in any capacity. If he wants to stay in, or go out, I’m game.
I spent all of Saturday moping around my apartment before pushing myself at the gym until I threw up. Moping over the fact Darius was on a date and he’ll never want me the way I want him, over the warring indecision about the funeral, and about what it will be like to look my mother and Alister in the face after all these years.
The thought of seeinghimagain makes me sick to the stomach, but I am not that scared child anymore. Not the teen who held a secret close to his heart until it ate a hole in him. Not the adult who wanted so badly for his parents to choose him.
I am a grown man. With a life and a job.
And a friend.
“Okay, okay, I have an idea.” Darius sips from his drink, holding up a hand.
We’ve been drinking in the kitchen, then out on his enclosed balcony for the past hour. He’s a little tipsy, a pink flush on his fair cheeks. I managed to eat a slice of pizza to line my stomach, and I’ve been drinking slower than him, but there is a definite rush of alcohol in my blood.
“I’m listening.”
“Let’s play a game.”
“A game? Like pool or…”
“Holy shit!That’swhat I need to buy for this place. Yes!” Drunk Darius is even more lively and confident than Non-drunkDarius. He continues babbling on before I have a chance to say anything more. “No, like a drinking game.”
“O-kay,” I reply hesitantly.
“It’ll be fun, trust me. We can get to know each other better.”
That scares me, but I am so incredibly weak for this man, I can’t say no.
Darius walks inside, flops down on the sofa and refills two short tumblers with vodka and cranberry juice. It wouldn’t be my first choice of drink, but he seems to like it.
“I’ll start. Never have I ever been in love.” Darius lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a hefty sip.
“I don’t think you’re playing it correctly.”
“I don’t care. My house. My rules. Now drink. Or don’t.”
He watches me for a second, then another. When I don’t take a sip, he frowns.
“Never?”
“Nope. Never. You have?”
Darius readjusts himself on the sofa, pulling his legs from beneath him and stretching out so that his feet are on my lap. I place a hand over a bare foot, digging my thumb into his sole. He hums appreciatively before answering.
