“Yeah?” he croaked.
“Yeah, she’s too short. You’re…” His eyes wandered over his face. “You’re perfect.”
You’re perfect.
You’re beautiful.
Elliot’s heart clenched, sharp shooting pains emanating from his chest and the center of his magic in his core.
The air thickened. The gym became too stuffy. A sickening dread filled his gut.
He couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t sway around with his best friend as some stupid, cheesy romantic song played in the background. Couldn’t look into his eyes as he told him he was perfect.
He couldn’t shove down the truth anymore. It was going to bubble to the surface. It’d been building for years. This crush that had started as an inconvenience and had evolved into a full-blown crisis.
He was in love with Damon. So in love with him it hurt not to tell him. Itached.
“I can’t do this,” Elliot said.
And he ran.
Chapter Eighteen
Damon almost blurted out something un-take-back-able. Words for the feelings that were churning through him bubbled up. His fingers tightened on Elliot’s waist as they spun in a slow circle. The rest of the gym faded away. It was just the two of them wrapped up in an energy sphere of their own creation.
Damon knew that Elliot could read him, could see the longing that tightened a noose around his heart. Elliot could read the words for the feelings Damon had as if written plain as day in his eyes.
Elliot’s face transformed in slow motion. From something soft and unguarded to eye-widening horror and finally, terror. Heknewwhat Damon had almost said, how he almost broke their friendship irreparably.
“I can’t do this.”
Elliot sprinted out of the gym and into the hall, leaving Damon in the middle of the dance floor and swirling in a toxic pool of unrequited feelings.
Longing turned sour by rejection.
He’d hesitated only a moment before he was running out the door after him. He didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what he was doing.
It’d stung when Elliot had said he didn’t have serious feelings for any of the guys he’d messed around with, but Damon could wait for him to see what he’d always known. That there was something special between them.
What Damon couldn’t do anymore was hide how he felt. Hide that he wanted more. He wanted whatever Elliot would give him.
If that was just friends who messed around, it would suck, but fine. Damon could be patient until Elliot realized they were meant to be together.
He’d never been one to wait and think and plan, to need to know with certainty the way something would turn out before he acted.
He was a risk taker. He followed his heart. And Elliot was usually his voice of reason.
But love didn’t need a reason.
And Damon was in love with his best friend.
He ran out of the gym, and almost caught up to Elliot as he escaped out the front doors of the school, except Ms. Benson slid in front of him.
“You can’t leave. A parent or guardian has to sign you out,” she said. Another teacher walked toward them, blocking the doors. Damon peered over her shoulder. Elliot’s form disappeared down the sidewalk and around the corner of the school.
“I’m not trying to leave. I just—” Damon threw a hand out. “Elliot is upset. Please let me go get him. I’m not like doing drugs or drinking or something. Come on.”
