I’m breathing hard, my chest tight, and my hand gripping the phone like it personally wronged me.
Silence. Then faintly, in the background of the call, Rowan’s voice asks, “Did he say they were glowing? From being…horny?”
Julian clears his throat. “You did the soulmate spell with Elias, huh?”
In the background: “Elias, that idiot! I knew you should’ve let me beat him—!”
“Rowan,” Julian mutters, cutting off Elias’ tirade, before saying to me, “I get it. He did it to Rowan and me too.”
I blink. “Wait, you guys can glow, too?”
“No,” Julian says. “We, uh…couldn’t stop touching each other.”
I pause. “That’s inconvenient. How do you play soccer like that?”
Julian laughs, a little helpless. “Yeah... But the point is that it forced us to actually spend time together, and we realized we really liked each other.”
I frown. “Okay. I’m glad Rowan isn’t holding you hostage—”
“‘Hostage’?!”Rowan yells in the background.
“—but what does that have to do with Colten being gone?” I finish.
Julian sighs. “Patrick…why were you kissing Colten earlier by the equipment shed?”
Heat floods my face so fast I feel light-headed.
“The-the spell made me do it,” I say quickly.
“Sure,” Julian says, very patiently. “And you’veneverthought about kissing Colten before?”
“Of course not,” I say. “He’s my best friend, and best friends don’t do that.” I clear my throat before quickly adding, “And I’m not gay.”
“Oh my god,” Rowan groans somewhere in the distance.
Julian tries again. “Okay, well, have you ever noticed how handsome Colten is?”
“Yes,” I say immediately, because it’s obvious. “Anyone with eyes could.”
I hear Julian sigh. “Well, have you ever wanted to, I don’t know, touch him?”
I open my mouth, then pause.
Because, well.
Every time we have a PT session, he’s wearing a tank that shows off not only his shoulders but also his biceps, and then when he flexes those biceps while helping me stretch…
I can’t help but want to reach out and feel how solid the muscle is. I know what it’ll feel like, I have plenty of my own muscle, but something about Colten’s is very compelling, and I just want to…
And when we wrestle, rolling around in the dirt and grass, there’s almost always this moment where my stomach swoops when he’s on top of me, and I can feel his legs wrapped around me and it’s…
And sometimes his hair slips out of his ponytail and falls in his face, and I have to physically stop myself from reaching out and tucking it back for him…
I blink back to the conversation.
“Well, yeah,” I say. “That’s normal. People touch their best friends all the time. I’m not homophobic.”
There’s a long, pained silence.
