Page 45 of We Are Just Us

Kieran exhaled a breath he’d apparently been holding since five o’clock. “I just...I didn’t want to assume anything. Or make it weird.”

“It’s not weird.”

“Okay.” Kieran nodded, restarting his stride. “Good.”

They kept walking, their footsteps falling back into a synchronized rhythm without either of them trying. Every now and then, Rory would glance over—a quick, silent check-in. Kieran pretended to look at the dark houses, but he noticed. Every single time.

“Glad you came tonight,” Rory said as they approached their street. “Even if you almost bolted.”

Kieran huffed. “I didn’t almost bolt.”

“Kieran, you threw forty bucks on the table like the building was actively on fire.”

“That was strategic generosity.”

Rory smiled, a low sound escaping him. “Sure it was.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out the crumpled cash, and pressed it firmly into Kieran’s hand. “I covered you.”

Kieran stared down at the cash. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

They turned into their shared driveway, their paces slowing down without either of them making a conscious decision to do so.

Rory stopped near his walkway. “Well. See you around.”

“Yeah,” Kieran said, his heart doing that familiar hiccup. “Night, Rory.”

Rory smiled, quick and entirely unarmored, and headed toward his front door. Kieran watched him go, waiting until the porch light clicked off a few seconds later.

He stopped in the dark driveway for a long moment, listening to the ocean in the distance. Then he turned, unlocked his own door, and stepped into the quiet house.

FOURTEEN

Kieran kicked off his shoes by the door and waited for a second longer than necessary, listening to the house settle around him.

The walk home replayed itself in fragments. Rory’s voice, the way he’d peeled off from the group without making a thing of it, the quiet stretch of sidewalk where Kieran had told the truth, made things clear, and gotten back a single word. Okay. A word that carried no weight and all of it simultaneously.

Rory, looking at him the way he always looked at him—with that steady, unhurried focus that either meant I see everything about you or I’m thinking about what to have for breakfast. Kieran still couldn’t tell.

He headed down the hall, tugged on a pair of gray sweats and a T-shirt, and pretended the outfit choice was entirely about comfort and not about a lingering, pathetic hope that someone might see him in it. He brushed his teeth, stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, and told himself firmly that he was done for the night.

The knee thing under the table was just friendly. Rory walked him home because they were neighbors. The “okay” meant absolutely nothing. He wasn’t going to lie awake replaying every micro-moment like a lovesick idiot.

He was absolutely going to lie awake replaying every moment like a lovesick idiot.

That was when the knock came.

Quiet. But urgent.

Kieran froze, the toothbrush still damp in his hand. The dogs didn’t stir from their bed in the living room. The house stayed completely still. His pulse, on the other hand, hammered once, hard against his ribs, and kept going.

He walked to the entryway and opened the door.

Rory.

He was standing on the porch like he’d barely made it inside his own house before turning right back around. His hair was still windblown from the walk, his breathing visibly uneven in the dim porch light. His eyes locked on Kieran with the kind of sharp, consuming focus that precedes either a profound confession or a terrible decision.

Neither of them spoke.