Page 80 of If This Gets Out
I’m so drunk, but I still can’t help but dwell on it. Has Ruben liked me for longer than I thought? And how long haveIliked him? What I drunkenly admitted was true; I was jealous of the guy he was flirting with at Angel’s party. I’ve always felt intensely about Ruben, but the ease with which this has become something more makes me think that there has always been something romantic in those feelings.
Maybe I just wasn’t ready to accept them until now.
“Hey,” he says. “Have you ever thought about us as…”
I fill in the blank for him. “Boyfriends?”
“Yeah.”
“Definitely.”
His eyebrows lift. “And?”
“Well, I have no intention of stopping seeing you likethis, so it feels a little inevitable.”
“Same.”
“So like…” I laugh. “Yeah.”
He chews his lip. “Being boyfriends would be cool, though. Just saying.”
“It would be,” I say, keeping my voice low and measured.
“We don’t have to or anything,” he says. “But for the record, if you asked me, I’d say yes.”
“If you asked me, I’d say yes, too. For the record.”
That hangs between us.
“That settles it, then,” he says, grinning. “We both want it, so one of us just needs to ask the other.”
“Yeah. Do you want it to be me, or do you want to do it?”
His eyes light up. “What if we ask at the same time? Or is that really cheesy? It is, oh god, I’m drunk, ignore me.”
He covers his face with his hand.
“Hey, Ruben,” I say.
He moves his fingers, so he’s peeking out. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me something?”
The smile he gives me kind of makes my life.
What he asks next totally does.
FIFTEEN
RUBEN
I’m sitting in Penny’s hotel room in Prague, getting my hair trimmed and styled for tonight’s concert, when Mom’s message comes through.
Interesting article on how heavy metals in tap water can kill the good gut bacteria and cause breakouts. Worth looking into re. your skin issues?
“Skin issues?” Penny reads over my shoulder in disbelief. “What skin issues?”
Zach, who’s already had his hair blown out into his precisely messy and windswept style and is sitting against the wall with a notebook, slams his hand on the carpeted floor with a thud. “Seriously?” he asks. He doesn’t need any context, apparently.
