A Mistake About Friendship

Cole looked at Ryan as if he resented the question.

Then he said, “Maybe I was wrong.”

My heart gave one hard thump.

Ryan glanced at me. I was still staring upward, which was becoming uncomfortable for my neck but seemed preferable to missing any of Cole's face.

“About being straight?” Ryan asked.

Cole's gaze dropped to mine.

“Apparently.”

I forgot how my hands worked.

He frowned slightly, as if my silence worried him, then remembered that I was generally silent and looked even more uncertain.

Ryan, who was enjoying this far too much for a man Cole had just told to get lost, folded his arms.

“So all the times you interrupted us, you were jealous.”

Cole's jaw tightened.

“Yes.”

“You could've just told him.”

“I didn't know.”

For once, there was no sarcasm in his voice.

Ryan's expression softened a fraction.

Cole looked down at me again. His arm loosened, though he didn't take it away.

“I knew I didn't want you going with him,” he said. “I didn't understand why it felt like that.”

I could feel his heartbeat against my back. Or perhaps my own had become so loud that I was mistaking its location.

Ryan rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“Well,” he said, “I'm glad we cleared that up.”

Nobody answered.

He looked at his phone with the exaggerated relief of a man receiving a call from an imaginary emergency.

“I need to go. My grandmother's dropping something off.”

I blinked at him.

He gave me a tiny, triumphant look.

The liar.

Before he left, he turned to Cole. “Tryouts are still Tuesday, right?”

Cole stared.

Then, despite everything, he laughed once.

“Tuesday. Six.”

“Great. See you there.”

Ryan walked away at a pace just short of running.

Cole watched until he rounded the building.

Then he looked at me, and the confidence he'd had while telling another man to leave vanished completely.

His arm fell away.

“Jamie.”

I turned to face him.

He glanced at my hands, checking they were free, and shoved his own into his pockets.

“You heard all that.”

I nodded.

“Right. Stupid question.”

He looked over my shoulder, then back, searching for a comfortable place to put his eyes and failing.

I had never seen Cole Bennett struggle this much with a conversation.

It did something dangerous to me.

“What do you think?” he asked.

I swallowed and signed, “I'm surprised.”

“I can see that.”

“So are you.”

His mouth twitched.

“A little.”

Wind stirred the maple branches above us. Somebody laughed on the path beyond the building, and Cole took half a step closer, putting himself between me and the breeze without seeming to notice.

That familiar movement nearly undid me.

“Since when?” I asked.

He looked at my hands, then up at my face.

“I don't know the exact day.”

I waited.

“I liked you from the beginning,” he said. “I liked being the person you looked for. If something happened in class, I wanted to hear about it first. If you bought something you were excited about, I wanted you to show me.”

Heat spread into my cheeks.

He saw it and seemed to find enough courage to continue.

“When you said you wanted a boyfriend, I thought you were going to start looking at somebody else that way. Coming back later. Spending weekends somewhere else.”

“That happens when people date.”

“I know that now.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I knew it before. I just thought I hated the idea because you're my best friend.”

“And today?”

“Today you were telling him you liked him, and all I could think was that I wanted you to say it to me.”

I stared at him.

He gave a helpless little laugh.

“That's a fairly strong clue.”

I covered my face.

“Oh, don't do that,” he said, alarmed. “Is it that bad?”

I shook my head behind my hands.

“Then look at me.”

When I did, he was watching me with such open hope that my knees felt unreliable.

“I like you,” he said. “I should've worked that out before I became an absolute nightmare about your dates.”

“You were a nightmare.”

“I know.”

“You insulted my taste.”

“I was wrong about your taste. Apparently, you like tall basketball players, which seems excellent.”

I made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan.

There he was.

His smile returned, small and tentative this time.

“Ryan and I aren't dating,” I signed.

Cole went still.

“We decided we'd rather be friends.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

His eyes narrowed with dawning comprehension.

“The confession.”

I bit my lip.

“Was an experiment.”

He stared at me.

I stared back, increasingly pink.

Then Cole looked toward the path Ryan had taken and let out a disbelieving laugh.

“You two are going to kill me.”

“You kept saying you were straight.”

“I thought I was.”

“So did I. Mostly.”

His attention sharpened at that last word.

“Mostly?”

I refused to elaborate. He had enjoyed enough victories for one afternoon.

Instead, I signed, “I didn't know what to think about you.”

He nodded slowly.

“I made that difficult.”

“Yes.”

“Can I make it easier?”

“How?”

He took a breath.

“Let me take you out. For real. No interpreting for anybody else. No pretending I'm only there to keep you out of trouble.”

My hands hovered between us.

I had imagined a boyfriend waiting for me to finish a sentence. I had not imagined that boyfriend already knowing how I took my tea, or having a spare charger permanently plugged in beside my bed.

I had certainly not imagined him looking nervous about whether I would want him.

“You want to date me,” I signed, because I needed to see him answer it again.

“Yes.”

“As my boyfriend.”

His eyes warmed.

“If you'll have me.”

I looked down. My shoes had become fascinating.

He waited.

The patience was familiar. Everything else was wonderfully, terrifyingly new.

“You can ask me out,” I signed at last.

Cole exhaled as if someone had just let him breathe again.

“Dinner tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“Just us?”

I rolled my eyes, smiling now, and nodded again.

He reached toward my face, stopped halfway, then let his hand fall.

The restraint made my heart beat faster than the touch would have.

“All right,” he said softly. “Just us.”