Page 11 of A Totally Platonic Thing
Was that the only time? Lucas had picked me up from Aeon…twice. Right? Except that I didn’t remember talking to Aidan about the porn. Which meant there was another time he’d picked me up, probably getting out of bed and losing sleep to do it, that I didn’t remember.
And maybe more than that. How would I know, since Icouldn’t fucking remember?
Shit. Shit. I was freaking out, and I realized I’d sort of doubled over in my seat, hyperventilating into my arms and knees. I didn’t usually get panicky like this, but the hangover plus the stress had my heartrate all screwy and my head trying to fall off my neck.
A big, warm hand landed on my back, right between my shoulder blades.
“Hey,” Aidan said, his voice so incredibly gentle it didn’t sound like it could’ve been able to come out of someone that size. “Breathe, Chris. In and out. It’s all right. No harm done. Nothing’s wrong. In and out, count to five.”
I was too far gone to do anything besides what he told me. So I breathed, in and out, while he rubbed little circles on my upper back and kept talking, low and slow, about how everything was all good.
After a couple of minutes I lifted my head, and Aidan immediately pulled his hand away and leaned back against his door, giving me space. Like an expert in this kind of thing.
Right. Because his fiancé suffered from crippling panic attacks—which had not so coincidentally gotten a lot less frequent since Aidan came along, and a lot less debilitating when they did.
“Sorry,” I gasped. God, this was going to go down in history as the most embarrassing day of mylife. I mean, hopefully. No guarantee I wouldn’t somehow manage to top it somewhere down the line, which would be totally ironic since I never topped anything else…I choked on a little bubble of inappropriate laughter and tried to cover it with a cough. “Sorry. I’m just—” Shit, I couldn’t bring myself to admit how worried I was about blacking out. But I had another reason for freaking out, and that I could say out loud. “Lucas is straight. He’d be, like, so upset if anyone thought he and I…”
I couldn’t quite finish that thought or sentence. Lucas was as far from a homophobe as a guy could get. Partly based on, you know, the way he watched porn with his gay roommate.
Anyway.
But he wasn’t gay, he wasn’t bi, and he simply…wouldn’t want anyone to think that. Just like I wouldn’t want someone to think I was dating a girl. Like, it wasn’t me, and it would disturb me for everyone to have that idea about me, to misunderstand me so fundamentally even when I told them who I was.
“I think he’d shrug and laugh it off, personally,” Aidan said, still very gently. “Especially since that’s already what he does.”
I glared at him in instant offense. “Please tell me you don’t tease him about this! Like, oh my God, Aidan, that is so un—”
“Jesus, no, of course not. But you know everyone in his department thinks you’re his boyfriend, right?”
That hit me like a hand grenade. I blinked, again and again, trying to clear the flashes out of my eyes.
Lucas’s boyfriend. Me, as Lucas’s boyfriend. He had to hate that. I mean, I’d hate that if I were him. I’d totally hate it, so much. Right? Worst idea ever. I squirmed a little in my seat.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “They don’t—they can’t—oh myGod, Lucas is probably so embarrassed!”
“Dude, they’ve thought you’re his boyfriend for years,” Aidan said, shaking his head. “Why would he start worrying about it now? Lucas is pretty chill, and anyway, look, it’s not like having the people around you think you’re gay is such a big deal for a straight guy who isn’t a dick.”
I stared at him in total disbelief. Of course he would think that—he might be bisexual with a strong slant toward women, from what I understood of his dating history and his preferences, but he was also, you know, in a relationship with another man. Openly. A kissing in public, holding hands, engaged to get married kind of relationship with another man. It wasn’t unreasonable if people who didn’t know him that well assumed he was gay.
But a totally straight guy might very well get annoyed with people assuming he was gay simply because he had close male friends.
Because Lucas didn’t do any of the stuff Aidan did to make people get that idea. He dated women. He’d been seeing some girl named Emily or something for a few months until they broke up a day or two after we started classes for the quarter. She must’ve come around his lab to see him sometimes, right? I mean, I dropped into the lab between my classes to say hey, or bring him coffee when I knew he’d had a late night, or get a hug and a pep talk if I was having a shitty day, or ask him what time he was going to be home and what he wanted for dinner, or…
Oh.
Fuck.
I felt sick again, sicker than the hangover could account for. And I couldn’t deal with another human being right now while I was processing this. I couldn’t believe it. I’d fucked up Lucas’s life, and stomped all over the boundaries he was too nice to me to set but that I should have figured out for myself, way more than I’d thought.
The rides home from the bar, some of which I apparently couldn’t remember.
The making everyone think he was gay.
God, who knew what else he might be secretly hating about me right now.
“Thanks for the ride,” I stammered, shoving my sunglasses back on my face and fumbling for the seatbelt release and the door handle at the same time. “Thanks. Again. I’ll see you Monday. Okay? Um, give Sebastian my love. Okay?”
I finally managed to unclick the belt, which got hung up on my arm while I shoved at the door, and at last I tumbled out of the car, tripping over my own feet, with Aidan’s voice calling out behind me.
