The Sensible One (boyxboy) ✓

Chapter Twenty One

Unease mixed with my apprehension. I nodded, tight lipped as I pulled my briefcase strap back over my shoulder while keeping my coffee upright.

He stood up and stepped in the path in front of me. "Keeping it a secret from your friends?" He asked.

My lips pressed into a thin line, it took me a moment to reply. "Yes."

He looked like smiling for a second and I wanted to hit him but... even that seemed too friendly. We used to playfight a little back then, though it was always pretty gentle and resulted in me feeling more like I'd been kissed than being kissed had.

"You don't want them to know?"

"It's new." I muttered.

"Fair enough." He nodded, thought about it for a second then spoke. "Your old best buddy knows then?"

"Jeffrey?"

He shrugged and nodded.

It had been so long I forgot he even knew him. I sighed. "What's with this line of questioning, what does it have to do with you?"

"Nothing, Maxwell, I'm just curious." Because he didn't believe me. "Am I not allowed to ask any questions?"

I was annoyed with him for a reason. I despised how easily he acted as though nothing happened in the first place. 

I drew in a long breath, relaxing my shoulders. "I need to go, Weston." And planned on sidestepping him if he didn't move out of the way.

He saw me looking flight-ready and raised an arm so I wouldn't move around him. "Look." He put on that earnest tone again. "Why don't you let us sit down and talk like back then, it was good, I've never had a relationship like that again and I never wanted to lose you, it was why I made up that stupid childish story in the first place."

He stepped closer, raising his hand up to touch my face and I stumbled back moving fast to get away, but one of my legs was still standing in front of the sofa chair I had been sitting in and I almost fell over, so his hand touched my face either way.

I knew he probably saw it as me being skittish, not oddly aggravated by it as I was. My skin crawled, every second someone touched me the more I needed to go back... somewhere that felt... far away.

"Can we at least talk this through? So we can resolve this for you and let there be no unnecessary tension between us from now on?" He asked.

I brushed his hand away fast, not even wanting my hand to make contact with his. 

"I think my first priority is my significant other, here, not my ex... sex friend or whatever you classified us as, from nearly a decade ago."

His smile dropped, he moved back just barely I thought I saw his eyes quickly trail over me.

"You look handsome when you're mad."

I swallowed.

The spitting image of younger Weston, saying the exact same words in almost the exact same pitch. Casually and half-heartedly as he leaned back on the sofa in my father's living room, his white button up shirt, half buttoned up.

And now... Now it was just... I remembered James and realised just how inappropriate that sounded.

What exactly was his motive here?

I would have asked if it wouldn't have made me sound like a paranoid Grinch. Yes, back then had been nice, happy, but he had changed that the moment he chose his own pride over being honest, and predictably shattered my own in response.