“Um, yeah. Me too. I made an appointment with the therapist I used to see, so...yeah. Working on it. I guess it usually feels like I can barrel through it if I try hard enough, but I couldn’t this time. And Mase told me he’d kick my ass if I had a panic attack again and didn’t mention it.”
“Maybe the ideal would be not feeling like you needed to, uh, ‘barrel through’? Which was probably Mason’s point.”
“I think his point was I better fucking not.”
They smiled. “He’s a good friend. I really like your friends. The, uh, Motherfuckers.”
“Me too. They all want you to come back to drinks, by the way. Mia was basically like, ‘Even if Sidney doesn’t want hot monkey sex anymore, tell them to come to drinks again.’ Paraphrasing.”
“I’d like that.”
“Um, Sidney?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t know what to do and I hid, which was shitty of me.”
“It’s okay. I mean, yes, I agree, it was really shitty. It made me feel ugly and alone and like I shouldn’t have even tried to be close to other people, but—”
“Omigod I’msosorry.” I leaned over and pressed their hands to my forehead because I didn’t quite dare to kiss them. “I hate that I made you feel that way. You’re so amazing, and so smart, and everyone your whole life has totally missed out on being with you because you’re one of my favorite people on earth and I know we haven’t known each other that long but I think I can say this with certainty I totally love you.” I shrunk deeper into myself and tried to disappear. “That was the absolute wrongest time to say that, sorry. But it’s true.”
They squeezed my hands. Again. “I have very deep feelings for you too. Arman assured me that if something happened between us it was your loss, but Declan, you’re...also really amazing. Please, um, sit up again?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, knowing I was blushing.
“So I think we’ll have some times like this, when we’re trying to figure out our individual stuff and how that...goes together with our mutual stuff. Like gears, you know? Your gear and my gear and our friendship gear and when a gear jams we’ll have to work it out.”
“Except for the sex gear. I don’t think anything’s gonna jam that.”
They shook their head. “It really might. Sometimes I get dysphoric and that makes sex harder.”
“Oh. But you’ll tell me if that happens? And if I can help?”
“I’m going to try. It’s not an easy thing to talk about, but we have that communication project going, so I’ll try. Maybe we should have called the show The Communication Study instead. That might be more accurate.”
“But not as good for keywords or whatever.”
“True. The SEO on The Communication Study would not recommend its use.” They pushed up their glasses. “So just to put all the cards on the table, I would like to continue seeing you, and having sex with you, and texting you, and talking to you about random podcasts for no reason other than I enjoy hearing what you have to say.”
“Ditto. Same. Amen.” I worried for a second that I wasn’t acting serious enough, but then they kissed me, and I decided not to worry about anything. “I really missed kissing you. And also talking to you. And I had all this stuff in my head and you were the only person I thought would understand it.”
“Same.”
We reheated our dinner and curled up in their bed with an archaeology documentary. When we’d put our plates aside it seemed kind of natural to do a sitting-closer-together thing. Which morphed into me asking if I could put my arm around them, and them asking if they could put their head on my chest. And then I was playing with their hair and snuggling in closer and...it was all so warm and felt so good. We didn’t have sex, we didn’t even make out. But this space felt...more important.
Being able to share food and lie in bed together, to laugh a little, to talk in low voices about ethical practices on dig sites (super fascinating stuff) was more vital in that moment than anything else we could have done. Then I went home, so they could get good sleep before work the next morning.
I felt so much lighter. Like I was walking on layers and layers of down comforters and if I stumbled, it would be okay, I’d bounce right back up.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Here’s how my friends introduce me to new people: “This is Declan. He left his last boyfriend at the altar, but he’s reformed now.” They think it’s hilarious.
If Sidney happens to be in earshot when someone says that, we look at each other like we’re sharing a secret, like we’re getting away with something. Other people assume we’re dating in some conventional way.
When really?
We’re just doing everything we enjoy and nothing we don’t enjoy.
We have better things to do for two hours in the dark with each other, so we don’t go to movies.
I’m still wigged out by which fork to use, so we don’t go to fancy restaurants.
Sidney still hates all the culturally dictated romantic stuff like flowers, so I don’t send them flowers.
We love watching movies together, though, so we do that in one of our beds, or we buddy watch when we’re both in the mood to be responsible and not stay out late on a work night.
We love eating fancy dinners (we even get dressed up sometimes), so when we want to do that I make an elaborate meal and they work in the background, or they sit on the counter and talk, or we listen to podcasts.
When we go to drinks we always sit together, even though we don’t need to, because we like being just that close.
We love coming up with our own forms of romance. Sometimes one of us leaves a note on the other’s car while they’re at work. We have more than once exchanged sex toys just for fun, on an arbitrary day we picked a few weeks ahead of time. Sex toys are the gift that keeps on giving: you buy them once and then can use them in a variety of applications and combinations for years to come! Get it? To come?
Sidney laughs at most of my terrible jokes. And every now and then makes one of their own.
I dropped off breakfast-in-a-basket after they’d worked a few really long inventory days, even setting my alarm for oh-dark-thirty to get to their apartment in time for them to eat. Except they were so happy to see me we may have spent that time...doing other things. Oops. It wasn’t a gift fail, so much as a...gift success in an unexpected direction.
They always say they’re not that sweet, but I totally disagree. Sometimes they bring me a cup of coffee and we sit with the armchairs close together, our legs all intertwined, and when I look up from my book they’re just kind of smiling at me. Whenever it happens they blush and look away real fast, but it makes me feel warm and gooey. In a good way. Melty. Like we could sit just like this for a long, long time.