Fake Friends - Saxon James Page 0,56

quick to shake his head. “We wouldn’t be closeted to our friends or the people who know us.”

“Oh really? So you’d hold his hand walking down O’Connell Road? You’d get married and not invite your parents? And what if he wants children one day? What? You and your roommate just adopted some kids together?”

His forehead creases.

“I’m sorry.” And I am. The last thing I want to do is give him a dose of reality when he’s actually starting to think of a future for himself. “But I know what it’s like to sit at a table and eat dinner with your family and to just be there as your ‘friend.’ Rowan, it sucks. And that was in high school when nothing had even happened except for the flirting and all those near kisses. That was all childish stuff and now …” I cover my face with my hand. “It would kill me now.”

I feel Rowan push up onto his forearms, and I’m acutely aware of him looking down at me. “W-why is it different now?”

“Huh?”

“Why would it kill you now? What’s changed?”

I think I’m falling in love with you. Which I certainly cannot fucking say to his face. I shouldn’t even be thinking that when his solution for living as a gay man is having a roommate. That one hundred percent isn’t something I will do. “We’ve had sex. That always changes the dynamic.”

I know it’s not the answer he wanted. And if I’d asked him that same question, I’m almost certain he would have said what I was thinking. These feelings have gone further than either of us ever intended them to, and when I’d been imagining an explosion, I’d thought it would be our relationship that blew up. Not my heart.

“Fair enough.” He settles beside me and rolls my body so I’m facing him. “Well, I’ve just spilled my guts about my problem. What are you going to do about yours?”

“What problem?”

Rowan gives me a soft look. “Anyone would be as upset about losing their parents. I can’t even imagine. But the money thing. Building a big house for, and I quote, ‘a whole bunch of kids.’ Wanting a family but not wanting to put yourself out there. I mean, fuck. You’re here with me. Someone who’ll probably be closeted until he’s an old man. You should be finding someone you can settle down with.”

I don’t know why, after everything he just said, that’s the most painful part. Suggesting I leave what we have—which admittedly, isn’t much—and find someone else makes me want to hit something.

“Plus the social media,” he continues.

“What about it?”

He pins me with a serious look. “I’ve been following your account for years. You think I haven’t noticed the way certain photos suddenly disappear? And since I’ve been back, you’re constantly checking your phone, and talking about interactions, and assessing the shots we put up and how they’ll be received.”

“It’s called business.”

“You’re lonely.”

I go to sit up, planning to, I don’t know … shower, throw myself off a ledge? Anything to get out of this conversation.

“No, you don’t,” Rowan says, hooking his arm around my waist and pinning me against the bed. “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for you to see someone.”

I glare at him. “When you have no one, you tell me how open you’d be to talking to someone about that. To admitting that the two people in the world who actually love you are gone, and now you’re just sitting back, watching your friends find their partners and live their lives and spend their holidays with their families.”

He laughs a little. “Circus, you live your life more than anyone I know. You’re creative and talented. You go out and experience the world. And you have friends who love you. So what, you haven’t found your forever person yet. You would have to be the easiest person to love because you accept people for who they are. You understand them.” Rowan cups my face and steers it so he can meet my eyes. “And until you find that person, I’m going to spend all my holidays with you. Every one of them. We’ll visit my nephews and spoil them with presents on Christmas. We’ll have your friends over for Easter, and I’ll bake a whole vat load of chocolate brownies, and we’ll feed everyone until their stomachs burst. Thanksgiving we’ll spend just the two of us. And we’ll have a turkey and be quiet and think about the people