“I’m sorry,” Luke says, picking up on some of what he’s feeling.
“It’s okay,” he says, and he’s surprised to find he actually means it. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he continues.
“I have to tell you something,” Luke says, and Mikey immediately tenses up.
“I wanna say I love you,” Luke says, “but I don’t think we’re ready.” He laughs a bit. “I knowI’mnot. But…what I wanna ask is…will you go out with me? As boyfriends? We don’t have to tell anyone. It can be our own little secret. But…I don’t know. I justkinda wanna make it official, even if it’s just between the two of us.”
At first Mikey isn’t sure what to say. This is just what he’s been wanting, but now Luke’s asked the question, he can’t quite get his brain or his mouth to work.
With each passing second Luke is looking more hurt. He opens his mouth–almost certainly to tell Mikey to forget about it–and then Mikey makes a choice.
He leans in and gives Luke a deep, passionate kiss, one which Luke eagerly returns. As soon as he pulls away he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Yes, Luke Carter. I’ll go out with you.” He pauses, then goes on. “But is it really okay if we just keep it secret?”
Luke’s face betrays a bit of disappointment, but he immediately recovers.
“I told ya it was, and I meant it. We can figure out all the rest later.”
Mikey’s not quite sure he believes him, but it's good enough for now.
He starts to lean in to give Luke another kiss–and maybe take things further?–when a big truck comes swerving around the turn up the road, and Luke jerks back like he’s been burned. Mikey is terrified they’ve been seen–it was so close the day at the gazebo, and he’s been terrified of being discovered ever since–but whoever it is keeps barrelling down the road, kicking up a lot of gravel.
“Whew,” he says, before he can think better of it, “that was close, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Luke says, looking sullenly out the window, “it was.”
“What’s wrong?” Mikey asks, even though he knows, or thinks he knows, the answer.
Luke whirls around to face him again, a world of hurt in his eyes.
“You know what’s fuckin’ wrong,” he says, gesturing toward where the dust-cloud from the truck is still visible.
Mikey tries to think of something to say to take the sting out of what just happened. The more he tries, though, the more he fails to come up with anything.
Why does it always have to be so hard?
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, aware of how weak and limp the words sound. “I really am. I know it’s hard for both of us. We just have to be careful, y’know?”
“I know that pretty well,” Luke says, turning back the window.
They sit in silence for a few more minutes, neither of them able to get over the gulf opening up between them. They’re boyfriends now, or at least they were a few minutes ago, but things are even more muddled and confused than they were before.
“Can you take me home?” Luke asks.
Mikey frowns, but Luke’s right. The moment is pretty well ruined. Maybe things’ll be better tomorrow.
A silence settles down between the two of them as he drives Luke back to his place. When they’re about five minutes away, though, Luke reaches out and puts his hand on Mikey’s knee.
“We’ll be okay,” he says. “I don’t know how, but we will.”
Mikey doesn’t know just why Luke has changed his mind, but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Luke can see a path forward, then so can he. He puts his hand over Luke’s and smiles.
“Yeah,” he says, “we will.”
And, strangely enough, he believes it.
Later in the evening, he sneaks back into his house, grateful to not have to deal with his parents. He slides into bed and, as he does so, he thinks again about all of the unanswered questions.
