The command reminded me that after our impressively traumatic lore drops, I still had absolutely no clue where Wes and I stood.
“You know what I find the most insufferable about you?” I asked him, thumbing two Slowdive records.
“I would do anything to have that information.”
I pulled out the self-titled album,Slowdive.
“OverSouvlaki? Bold. I like it,” Wes said as I handed him my choice. He took it to his record player and lifted the plastic lid.
God, I found so much about him infuriating. The way he could make me smile when everything in my body and mind felt wrong and bad. His ability to be so impressively self-aware without being nauseatingly self-deprecating.
The way he handled everything with such care—the record he placed delicately on the platter, fingers only touching the edges so as not to leave smudges, the precision with which he lowered the tonearm down to the grooves.
One of my favorite songs of all time,Slomo, began to play.
“I can’t place you in any of my mental schemas,” I said. “You have no discernable male archetype. You don’t fit anywhere on the board as I know it. Which means I have to actuallyknowyou to figure you out. It’s horrible and scary. There’s no prior model, no pattern to follow. You’re just… Wes.”
Wes slowly turned to me, grinning like I’d given him the world.
“Nova,” he said. “That is the best compliment anyone has ever given me.”
I laughed and crossed my arms. “Of course it is.”
“In AA, we call it terminal uniqueness. It keeps alcoholics sick, because we believe we’re entirely different than everyone else and thus cannot be helped,” he said. He shrugged. “What they don’t understand is that I reallyamdifferent than everyone else.”
He smiled, and I sighed in mock irritation. “I regret sending you back a few steps.”
“I can handle it. For what it’s worth, I feel the same way about you,” Wes murmured. “You’ve been impossible to read at times, and so beautifully vulnerable at others. It sort of drivesme nuts.” He held the back of my neck, his body pressing against mine. “And byit, I meanyou, if that’s not obvious.”
He twirled one of my waves around his fingers. The music brought me back to myself, back to the home I’d built in my mind that Lorelei could never touch. It was just us.
Just Wes and Just Nova.
“Also, just so you know,” Wes said. “Iwassearching for you last night. But it was a big fucking house. I was going from room to room. And Jayne, Archer, and their whole fan clubconvenientlyhad no idea where you were when I asked them.”
I nodded. “I believe you.” I smiled. “Because it isyouwho is obsessed withme.”
It was a call back to his joke in the wake of my humiliation, but Wes didn’t laugh like I’d expected him too. Instead, his grip on the back of my neck tightened. His eyes flickered to my lips, his head tilting ever so slightly. My smile fell. Warmth spread from everywhere he touched.
“Maybe I am.”
My impulse was to askwhat are we?but I wasn’t certain Wes, with his analogue existence, would understand that joke either. “Obsessed with me… as a friend?”
Wes rolled his eyes, breaking into a smile. “You have beenincrediblyhung up on that single off-handed remark, haven’t you?”
“No,” I lied, cheeks warming.
Wes’s firm hold didn’t loosen. “No, Nova, not as afriend.But I need to move slowly. I think it’s best for both of us. And I need to hear you say this is what you want too. I don’t mean just me—us. I also mean the kind of relationship we might explore. I need to know you meant what you said at the pulpit, and you want to experience your desires without shame.”
I took three deep breaths, my mind running wild with visions of thosedesiresbrought to life byWes.
Never in my life had I experienced a day with such stark highs and lows. It was exhilarating. And fuckingterrifying.
Finally, I nodded. “I don’t want to be friends.” I lifted my chin. “And I meant what I said. I don’t know where to start, but if you’re willing to try… so am I.” As soon as the words left my lips, a heaviness in my shoulders lightened.
Wes mirrored the mix of fear and excitement I felt under my own skin, but his emotions soon faded behind a stronger, less penetrable mask.
“We’re going to listen to this record. Then we’re going to go get snacks. I will cook us dinner while we listen to another record, and then we will watch a movie. Any proposed amendments to the plan?”
