Page 83 of Unfix Me

Like this one.

“Get on my back,” I said.

“What?” he laughed. “You’ll definitely drop me. We’re almost the same size.”

“I amverystrong.”

“Christ. Fine.”

I grinned and crouched in front of him. Once he had his arms and legs around me, I started walking toward the football field. When he started to ask, I shushed him.

As we approached the field, I felt a little nervous. It was the good kind, though. I sped up, not stopping until we reached the sideline. He dropped to the ground and looked around.

“Are you just obsessed with this place?”

Rolling my eyes, I crouched and pulled out the Bluetooth speaker I’d stashed underneath the bench. I ignored his curious stare while I set up the music on my phone. When I held my hand out to him, he eyed it warily.

“No fear, baby,” I reminded him.

He shook out his shoulders, then took my hand. I led him to the middle of the field and pressed play on my phone. Pulling him closer, I threaded our fingers and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“We’re… dancing?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“One, it’s our first Thanksgiving together. Two, nobody has ever done anything romantic for you and if I don’t claim that privilege, I’ll literally die.”

With a smile and flushed cheeks, he tightened his grip on me. “I should’ve dressed nicer.”

“Dressing up is overrated. I want you in your most comfortable state; the person you are on a normal day. That’s the perfect version of you.”

“Do you sit around reading romance novels or something?”

“No,” I laughed. “I just don’t bury the things that come into my head. Even if they might embarrass me and come out cheesy, I think those kinds of things deserve to be said.”

“So, you’re saying that you don’t want to miss a thing,” he said teasingly, referencing the song that was playing.

“Exactly. I don’t want to miss a single thing with you, Sen.”

Dipping my head, I kissed him while we continued to dance. I didn’t think either of us knew the proper way to do it, but we were somehow in sync and hadn’t stepped on each other’s toes yet. With only the smaller lights in the stadium on, the ambience was pretty damn perfect.

I kept my eyes on his soft smile as we danced through song after song. He looked more than content. Even though he hadn’t come out to more than Brooks and West, he exhibited a new sort of freedom. His careful composure from before had begun to fracture and I’d been seeing more of him underneath it.

Looking at him now, I knew without a doubt that I loved him. We may have only met two and a half months ago, but the things we’d weathered together had brought us closer and given us glimpses into deep parts of each other that we might not have opened up about for a long time if the circumstances had been different.

I wasn’t going to tell him yet. I couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same way and I was a little worried about scaring him off. He’d fully accepted that he was gay, but that wasn’t the extent of it. He had a lot of healing to do and what he’d gone through was going to affect him along the way.

This was Sen’s journey, so I was going to let the love conversation come up organically and while I waited, I’d just show him how I felt about him. Movies in my room, ice cream with a shared spoon, dancing on the field, and romantic words that made him blush. Love was just a word, a series of mouth movements that differed based on where you lived. What swelled in my chest right now was the real thing and I didn’t think there were adequate words for it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Serious and intense.”

“I’m just thinking.”

---