“
I don’t like Remy,” I blurt.
He looks back quickly.
“I mean, I like him. But not like that. Just in case … you thought that. I mean, Aubrey thought that. I don’t know who else was under that … misconception…”
He nods. “I’m not with Alice,” he says.
“I can see that. Unless she’s gone invisible.”
That brings a small smile to his lips. “You know what I mean.” A pause. “We weren’t ever … We just hung out, really. She liked having someone to go with her to the Jade Coast parties and stuff. And I liked…” He looks away. “I didn’t know her before my mom passed away. So. I guess I kind of liked hanging out with someone who wouldn’t … look at me the way everyone else does sometimes.”
I nod. And I can’t help it, but it just slips out—“Is that why you hang out with me?”
“No,” he says, fast enough to dispel any doubts. “God. No.”
“So…”
So what is it? If it’s not because of Remy, or Alice, if there’s no barrier, no obstacle, no mistaken anything, why is there still distance between us? But maybe that was never the reason. Maybe he just doesn’t …
When he looks at me again, it’s with uncertainty.
“I thought maybe you just didn’t … you know.”
“Lust after you with the heat of a thousand suns?”
“Maybe not a thousand,” he says, eyes shining. “Maybe just one. One really big sun. And maybe not just lust, specifically, but like lust and all the other stuff.”
“With, like, the brightness of a star and the speeding intensity of a meteorite and the … diffuse energy … of a gas giant?”
“Yes.”
It’s not a thunderclap. Or a lightning bolt straight to the chest. It’s not a magnetic pull toward my heart’s true north. It’s just … natural, to step off the porch and step up to him, the painting still between us. It’s a little bit like breathing, like what Remy was saying—something you just do without conscious thought. Something that is because it is; it exists because there’s no other way than it existing.
The realization is all at once stunning and at the same time, somehow, not a surprise at all. I must’ve loved him all along. I just didn’t realize it.
“I gas-giant the shit out of you, Gabe,” I say, and I kiss him.
I kiss him very briefly but with great feeling, and then I pull back a little and look at him, his eyes wide, lips parted, and when he gives me the most radiant smile, I can’t help it—I go back twice as hard, pulling him closer and kissing him like I mean it, because God, do I mean it. And as he threads one hand through my hair and kisses back with just as much feeling, I send a silent thanks up to Frank for not letting me kiss him that night on the porch, because he was right—this is so much better. That kiss would’ve been fun, no doubt. But this is one to cherish.
“Really?” Gabe says, when we break apart for a moment. I can’t help but snort.
“No, you’re right, I changed my mind.”
“Wait, really?” he says, and I take his face between my hands.
“I like you,” I say. “I lustful-sun like you, I meteorite like you, you are the fucking pink Starburst to me.”
He grins. And kisses me again but then eases up, shifts the painting to one side, wraps an arm around me, and just hugs me, and I think I like that just as much. It’s at the very least an incredibly close second.
”
”