Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Danny’s head had fallen to my shoulder—again, like it had done numerous times before. Danny was a cuddler, and he had been for as long as I could remember. This time, he was asleep. Nothing new there either, but as I looked down at him, at the way his lashes fanned against his light, smoky-quartz skin…the way his onyx hair tickled my chin…it hit me, like this jolt of lightning straight to my chest. It fried my nerve endings and my neurons and whatever the hell else I had inside me. My heart had swelled, and I realized I was in love with my best friend; that I’d always been in love with my best friend. Danny was my movie ending dream come true. I’d just never let myself acknowledge it before.
Now that I had, I couldn’t unacknowledge it. My feelings for him were in every thought about him and every night out, and it was making me a little crazy and stupid, because I was fairly certain there was some golden rule about falling in love with your best friend.
It wasn’t a straight thing either, because Danny was as gay as me, and I was pretty fucking gay. The issue was, I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. If you asked me, there was nothing better than falling for a friend, but love complicated friendship and made me feel at risk of him running as far away from me as he could get. I didn’t have the best luck with guys, and well, Danny wasn’t the same rare breed of early twentysomething I was.
The odds weren’t in my favor of Danny feeling the same. I mean, stranger things had happened, but Danny was the type who always said how he felt, and since he hadn’t said he felt some kind of way about me? Yeah, that led me to believe he didn’t.
A quick knock came from behind me, followed by the sound of a key slipping into the lock. Danny had a key to my apartment, which was on the eighth floor of the Renaissance Palace Apartments in Midtown Atlanta.
“What’s up, hermano?” Danny shook his wet hair out of his eyes and smiled. He sometimes called me brother, which I used to like, but now that I wanted to have sex with him, it was weird.
“Hey, you.” We’d gone to the same high school. Danny had always been more “straight passing” than me. He could have gotten through school on the down-low if he’d wanted, where I…couldn’t. But Danny had been out, and fucking great at football, which meant he was still accepted when I hadn’t been. Society was shitty that way. Give a guy a ball, and that made you more acceptable. Forget that I was as good with balls as he was; it just wasn’t the right kind to make me popular with the dude-bros, unless it was our little secret and they wanted some head. Even my own community shamed fem guys sometimes, but I didn’t need to go there at the moment. The best thing about Danny had been that he’d never hidden our friendship, even when people could pretend he didn’t like cock as much as I did.
“Damn, that smells good.” He closed the door behind him. The apartment was open concept, the kitchen off to the left of the door, the living room in front of us, with large windows looking out over the city. Dining room to the right, and a hallway on the left side of the living room.
“Thanks.”
Danny kissed my temple and said, “I brought wine. I think it’ll go well with Italian.”
“Will you get me a glass?” I asked, then went to the fridge to take out the salad.
“Yep.”
We used to go back and forth between my place and his, having dinner every Tuesday. Whoever hosted, cooked. It was this cute bestie thing that I would basically die if I ever lost, which again, scared the crap out of me and kept me from telling him how I felt. Lately, we’d been at my place more than his, and on Danny’s weeks, he brought takeout. Whatever. It was still fun.
I looked over the fridge as Danny grabbed the glasses. His hair was cut short, and messy, as always. He never combed it. He was bigger than me, his muscles larger and, you know, that was really hot. Not that I wasn’t proud of my body. I taught Pilates, and grew up in dance because I had the best mom in the world who’d always accepted me for who I was, but I was smaller-boned, and while my body was defined, it would always be littler than his. So essentially a twink, but I wore my twink badge proudly.
“What?” Danny asked when he caught me staring at him.
“You have a booger.” He covered his face just before a laugh tumbled out of my mouth, and he flipped me off.