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“They said they love you. They asked me to bring you home. Do you think they would’ve done that if they didn’t want us to be around each other?”

He grabbed a napkin off the table and squirreled it away into his lap so he could pick at the edges. “No. I guess not.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I am.”

His smile was less shaky now. I returned it, and bumped our knees together. “So… you kissed me.”

“Yeah.”

“In public.”

“Yeah.”

“We weren’t even together, though.”

“I’m sorry,” Will said. “I’m an asshole. I wasn’t eventhinking straight. It’s just, I was high off winning the game, and youcame, and it just made me realize that you had my back, and also I don’t think I knew how badly I wanted you there until you were. I’ve been meaning to ask if we could try again, but I didn’t know how to when I couldn’t promise anything. I wasn’t ready yet, and I didn’t want to drag you down with me while I figured myself out.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. You weren’t dragging me down because you needed to take your time.”

“No, but I wasn’t in a place where I could give you what you needed.”

I nodded. “So what changed?”

“I don’t know. A few things. Like, my dad being suspicious enough to ask me to keep the door open, but not demanding I tell him what was going on or steer clear of you. And also, Lara coming out, and Matt still wanting to be with her even if she likes girls, too. It made me feel a little braver, I guess. I was still scared, but I was tired of being scared. The not-knowing was getting worse than the thought of just jumping in and dealing with whatever happened.”

“And now the hard part’s over,” I said. “Your parents know, and your best friends know. And they still love you.”

“Yeah. I really think they do.”

I took a deep breath. “And so do I.”

This, I was pretty sure, was finally an appropriate time to say that. And Will didn’t reel away from me, or panic, or scramble to respond. Instead, he grabbed my hand and tilted his head back so he was looking at the ceiling. It seemed like he was trying to force his tears to slip back down their ducts. “I don’t deserve it.”

“But I do anyway.”

He let out his breath like every bit of tension in his bodyseeped out with it. “I love you, too. I think I always did. I was just scared of what saying that might mean.”

“And now you’re not?”

“Not even a bit, Ollie.”

After everything. Meeting by chance, and falling too fast, and breaking up, and falling again, and pushing him away. All of it. This was the first time anything to do with us felt calm and rational. There was no impulsivity in this moment, or thrill of being discovered, or the passion and lust of discovering someone. It was just us. Two people who weren’t strangers anymore, and who were now well versed on all the things that could stop them from working out, and who’d maybe figured out a way to fit together anyway.

Apparently tired of waiting for us, the rest of the group made their way back over to the table as one.

“All right, well, they didn’t look too angry,” Matt said, waving at the door with one hand.

“Nah, not angry,” Will said offhandedly, the affectionate tone of his voice gone right out the door. Some things never changed. “They’re chill.”

He kept hold of my hand under the table, though. So.That’dchanged.

“Oh, sweet. And, uh,” Matt said, turning to me with a flourish.“Hi, Ollie.”

“Hi, Matt.”

“I cannot believe this has been going on since summer,summer, and no one thought to loop me in,” Matt said, obviously joking. “That is a bad start. We have bad blood now, Ollie, I’m sorry. You’d better do a fine job getting on my good side from now on. Everyone knows the best friend gets to call the shots in a relationship.”