Another Way To Love (LGBT)

XX

It took an eternity to get Monica out of the house, but after a promise to do her laundry for the next week, she finally made herself scarce.

Which meant I had the house to myself for the night.

And Cooper would be coming over any minute.

I quickly wiped my hands on a pillow in the living room to try to eliminate some of my sweat, but it wasn't doing as much as I would like.

I couldn't get my mind to turn off. I was so sure that this is what I needed to do to get my feelings across to Cooper, but what if it wasn't enough?

What if he still didn't believe me?

I couldn't think like that. I had to stay confident. I had to believe this would work out.

A knock on the door got my attention, and suddenly it was hard to breathe.

Jesus, I need to calm down. It's only Cooper.

It's only the love of my life. It's only the person who's likely supposed to be my soulmate. It's only my past, present and future wrapped into a single entity.

I opened the door.

Cooper stood there with his hand still raised, as if to knock again. He awkwardly lowered it when he saw me and instead gave a little wave. "Uh, hey."

"Hey." I breathed, moving to let him come inside.

Cooper stepped into my house and I shut the door. A heavy silence fell over us.

"So..." Cooper started after a few moments. "What was so important that I had to come over tonight? You know how I get without my beauty sleep." He joked, but I could tell he was just as anxious as I was.

He knew what this was about.

Taking a deep breath, I offered Cooper my hand. "I want to show you something."

Cooper raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Uh...okay?"

He took my hand, and I tried not to relish the sparks I felt at the contact before pulling him upstairs.

We made it to my bedroom, where I'd already set out the key piece in all of this on my bed.

Cooper's eyebrows furrowed as he let go of my hand and approached my bed. "Your box of treasures? Dude, I've seen this a million times."

"You've seen the outside. But you haven't seen the inside in a long time." I explained.

I could practically feel Cooper's confusion radiating off him. "...Okay?"

Rolling my eyes, I took the lid off the box and gestured to it. "What do you see?"

Cooper peeked inside the box, a grin forming on his lips. "Uh, a bunch of junk you were too sentimental to let go of?"

I shoved him lightly before reaching into the box, pulling out items one by one. "Movie ads, to movies we would plan to see together." I held up the stack of papers. A lot of them were either horror or romance themed.

Cooper's eyes widened in surprise as I set the stack down and pulled out something new from the box. "Wrappers from candies were shared on previous Valentine's Days." I held up the sparkly red and pink wrappers before carefully setting them aside and grabbing another item from the box. "Pictures we've taken together over the years on different occasions."

I set the photos down and tried not to get too anxious at Cooper's shocked gaze. I found a particular item in the box that made a fond smile form on my lips. "The first note you ever gave me." I held it up for him to see.