Page 44 of Stand By Me

As he listened to Clay making the call, Mario took his mug and settled on one end of the couch, sitting sideways and pulling his legs up.

"What is it?" Clay asked, taking a seat on the opposite end when he finished placing their order.

Mario tilted his head. "What's what?"

"You look like you're gearing yourself up for something, so..." Clay voice halted at the end, leaving space for Mario to fill it out.

If only he knew where to start.

"How do I say I think we should talk without making it sound like I'm going for a break-up speech?" he asked at last, grimacing before he even finished.

Wow, that was terrible.

Clay raised his eyebrows, but at least he didn't seem spooked. He leaned his head on his hand, with his elbow resting on the back cushions, and held Mario's gaze.

"Does the conversation need that intro in the first place?"

"I thought so, but I obviously don't know what I'm doing here, so now I'm not sure," Mario said, glancing down at the space between them—small but there.

Then Clay breached that space, bumping his calf against Mario's feet.

"Come on, say what's on your mind."

Everything, Mario wanted to tell him, but that wouldn't help.

"I'm thinking about us, and how I consider us to be in a relationship already, and I hope you don't think it's too fast—"

He cut himself off, but it was already too late. So much for holding himself back on that topic.Damn it.

"I don't," Clay offered, saving Mario from spiraling. "I know it's fast, but I'm not interested in keeping up a pretense of not committing when I'm ready to commit."

Mario's heart soared in his chest at the easy admission. He wanted to kiss Clay for that, but kissing would lead to sex, so it needed to wait.

For now.

"I'm ready, too," he admitted quietly before speaking up louder. "I want to spend weekends like this with you, and do all the other things people in relationships do. But there's an elephant in the room we need to address or this whole thing will blow up in our faces."

Clay slumped against the cushion and lost his smile. "Ben."

"Yeah." Mario bit his lower lip. "I know the two of you aren't close."And wasn't that an understatement. "But he's important to me. I don't want to hide this from him."

"It's not going to go over well, I can tell you that already." Clay shook his head when Mario opened his mouth. "I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just stating the obvious. Ben doesn't want anything to do with me, so for you to date me… He's not going to take it well."

"But we can't not tell him, either, so we don't have a choice."

Mario knew better than Clay how difficult it was going to be for Ben, but he hoped they would get past it. He couldn't imagine losing that friendship, but he also wasn't going to preemptively back out of a relationship he wanted. He had to believe he could keep them both.

He had to.

"No, we don't have a choice," Clay agreed. "How do you want to do this?"

Mario sighed. "He's supposed to text me tomorrow to let me know when he's free over the weekend. I'll do it when I see him, since the sooner we do this, the better."

"Okay. I'd offer to take one for the team, but we both know it would make things worse," Clay said with a sad half-smile.

This time it was Mario who reached out, resting his hand on Clay's knee. "Yeah."

They were silent for a minute as Clay stared down at the couch.

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