Page 72 of A Totally Platonic Thing
The pretzel guy handed me the pretzels in their slips of waxed paper, and I took them mechanically and started walking toward the door Chris should have come out of.
When I’d gotten about fifteen feet away, half hidden behind a planter full of miniature palm trees, the door opened again. My chest squeezed. Chris, my Chris, perfect from the top of his messy dark hair to his bright-red-framed knock-off Wayfarers to his black tank top, the one that showed off his shoulders and his smooth skin, down to a pair of skinny jeans that hugged every molecule of his legs. I wanted to fling myself at him and hold him and never let him go. Or maybe strip the jeans off of him and fuck him bent over the planter. Either way.
I stepped forward around the planter right as he got all the way out the door—with someone else. A guy, medium-height and decent-looking if you were into standard-issue college bros, I guess. And he was walking right next to Chris, tipping his head and leaning down to smile at him in a flirtatious way no one could’ve missed.
“…didn’t want to lose my chance, since it’s the last day,” the guy was saying. “So I’d love to call you.”
My hands tightened around the pretzels. They’d be squished.
I didn’t care, because I was about to stuff one of them down that asshole’s throat and the other up his ass if he didn’t step the fuck away.
I cleared my throat.
Both Chris and his jerk wannabe date stopped and looked up.
The jerk stared for a second, and then he said, in a tone that he probably meant to be coy, “Hey, look, Chris! Someone brought us pretzels.”
I made a sound that wasn’t quite a growl, but close. Christ, I’dbeathim with one of these fucking pretzels.
Chris stared too, his lips parted, but with his sunglasses in the way I couldn’t see his eyes.
And then he made a startled little noise and reached up, pulling them off his face.
Now I could see those beautiful green eyes, all wide and shining. And fixed on me. Like the jerk from his class didn’t even exist.
I held out the pretzels, like a fucking moron. “No mustard,” I said. Oh, Christ. My brain had broken. Chris had broken my brain. “I’ll never bring you mustard, okay? Because I know you, and I want you the way you are, even when you’re wrong.”
The asshole next to Chris made some kind of incoherent sputtering sound. I ignored him. Chris ignored him. Nothing mattered but the way Chris was looking at me, the way he’d taken a slow step forward, and then another faster step—and then he pelted at me and flung his arms around me, slamming into me hard enough that I staggered back a step. It felt like every cell in my body had been withering away and they all came back to life at once. Like Chris was life itself for me, and I hadn’t even realized how much of myself I’d lost without him.
He lifted his face from where he’d buried it in my chest and tilted it, pushing up on his tiptoes but still not able to reach.
So I leaned down and kissed him, still holding the damn pretzels off to the sides like an idiot, but kissing him so deeply I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
I lifted my head at last. Pure, brilliant green, shimmering with something that looked a lot like love.
If I hadn’t been holding the pretzels, and hadn’t had Chris wrapped around me like an octopus, I might’ve gone down on my knees then and there.
“Please come home,” I managed to choke out. “Please. I should never have left. If you start jonesing to go out and get drunk, I’ll tie you to the bed and keep you distracted until you forget about it. I don’t care what it takes. I need you.”
Chris gazed at me for a moment, blinked, and said, “You were totally right to leave.” He swallowed hard. “Did Aidan tell you—I mean—I’ve been seeing a counselor. I’ve gotten my shit together. You know, for me. Not for any other reason. I won’t need to be tied to the bed, because there won’t be any more nights like that. I’m so sorry, Lucas. Did he tell you? Aidan must have said something or you wouldn’t be here.”
He sounded so pitifully, desperately hopeful that it almost broke my heart all over again.
I gazed down into his eyes, nearly lost in them. “He did tell me,” I managed, my voice hoarse. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’d have come back anyway. Nothing could’ve kept me away, okay? Nothing. You’remine, Chris.” I could feel all the blood draining out of my face, and I went a little dizzy. Here went nothing, but I couldn’t keep it in a second longer. “And I—I love you. So much.”
Chris froze, mouth open, eyes so wide they took over his whole face. His body went tense against me.
“Love me? Like a friend, love me? Or, like, like a roommate? Like someone you want to have sex—”
He had to be fucking kidding me.
“Chris, are you fucking kidding me right now? I fuckingloveyou. I can’t function without you, I’ve probably been in love with you for years, and you’re fuckingarguingwith me!”
“Oh,” he gasped. And then he smiled, the kind of smile that lit up the entire courtyard, that outshone the sun pouring down through the trees. “You love me? Lucas? You love me,” he said, sounding awed and a little choked up. “And you brought me a pretzel.”
“Forget the pretzel, Chris! Are you going to forgive me or not?”
Chris gasped again and snatched one of the pretzels out of my hand, cradling it against his chest like something precious. “How dare you! This is the most romantic pretzel in the world!”
