Page 40 of Rebound

“Hey,” Ben said softly.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your date.”

“I’m not on a date.” Ben laughed gently. “Lara is my best friend.”

“Friend date, then.”

“Still not a date.”

Thomas scrubbed a hand down his face and turned sideways to look at Ben. “Either way, whatever it was, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

He started to head back home, his desire for gelato forgotten, but Ben reached for him. It wasn’t much more than a soft press of fingers against his forearm, but it was enough to bring his stubborn feet to a standstill.

“Thomas.”

“Yeah?”

Ben’s fingers slid up his arm and curled around the tense muscle. “Don’t make this weird?”

“Are you asking me not to?”

“I haven’t been ignoring you,” Ben said.

“Ben?” A woman’s voice came between them softly, and Thomas let his stare drift toward Ben’s friend. “I’m gonna head out.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Thomas said again.

She smiled at him, her eyes a vibrant and mischievous green even in the dim light of the streetlamps. “You’re not interrupting anything.”

“Lara,” Ben sighed warily.

“In fact, we were just talking about you,” she said.

Thomas looked from Ben’s friend—Lara— back to him, question in his eyes. “You were talking about me?”

Ben’s lashes fluttered and he gave Lara an exhausted look. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Hopefully much later,” she said, kissing Ben on the temple. “Nice to meet you, Thomas.”

“We didn’t meet,” he said.

Lara’s mouth twitched into a smile before falling away. “Well, until we meetagain, then.”

Thomas listened to the wedges of her heels clunk down the sidewalk until she disappeared out of sight and around the corner, leaving him and Ben alone.

“What were you saying about me?”

Immediately, he feared the worst. He imagined Ben and his friend laughing over cups of gelato while they talked about how closeted he was, how new, how embarrassed.

“I don’t want to say,” Ben muttered.

“You won’t hurt my feelings.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

Thomas jerked his arm, but Ben didn’t let his hand fall away. He tightened his hold, both of their stares moving to the place where they touched.

“You don’t have to lie,” he said.