For about three seconds, Jackson said absolutely nothing, just staring at me as if there was something on my face and he was too afraid to tell me, but then he blinked a few times and said, "Really?"

"Really."

"You ain't pulling my leg?"

I squinted at him. "No... I'm not pulling your leg, Jackson. I'm serious. I really am bisexual."

"Oh, okay. I didn't peg you as the type, is all."

"And what type is that?"

"Well, you know..."

"Jackson, you know what we think of stereotyping in this house."

"Stop quoting my mom!" he screeched, before tossing a handful of M&M's at my face (which hurt like a bitch, if you're wondering) and whining about his mother's wisdoms and me repeating them whenever convenient. As I vigorously rubbed my eye and grumbled under my breath, he added, "I'm sorry, I guess. Whatever. I don't fucking know. I just didn't see it coming."

I rolled my eyes.

"It's okay, though. That's what say, right? Being gay is okay?"

"I'm not gay."

"But nothing rhymes with bi!" he complained, and Jackson being Jackson, he actually took out his phone to look for a rhyme dictionary and found 'bi is high' so he turned it into a drugs joke. Suddenly, sucking dick was the same thing as snorting coke.

"Anyway," I cut in before he could make this even weirder than it already was, "I wanted to tell you because I was with a guy yesterday and... well, I didn't want to lie about it for no reason."

"Oh, I see," he said slowly. "So what's that like?"

"You actually want to know?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, I don't wanna try it out myself, but of course I'm curious to know what it's like. Come on, tell me."

Okay, really didn't expect that one...

I leaned back and put my feet on the coffee table, because Mrs. Prill wasn't here to tell me off and her son advocated rebellion. "It's, uh... different. Maybe even more difficult."

"Ugh, effort."

I burst out laughing and I could feel the tiny bit of stress I felt earlier leaving my body like air. As if I even had to worry. This was Jackson. Of course he wouldn't give a shit. "Jackson, you know girls take effort too, right?"

"Not for me, my friend," he said with a wink. "One look at my smoking hot body and gorgeous face and they're already so dripping wet that I have to get a mop to clear the way."

I could only stare at him. "You are just... embarrassing."

He actually looked offended. "Uh, excuse me, I am hot and if you can't see that, you're a defective bisexual."

"Or just a bisexual who doesn't want to bang their best friend, which has nothing to do with you being embarrassing. That is a given."

Jackson kicked me.

I screamed.

Mason yelled from upstairs that he was trying to study, and I instantly shut up, because I was a pathetic human being who would do anything for the man I loved. Jackson rolled his eyes at me, unaware of my undying love for his older brother, and I gave him an awkward smile, aware of how disastrous it would be if I told him about that.

Speaking of him, I wasn't sure if I wanted Mason to know about my sexuality, since it wasn't really that part that I wanted to hide from him, but... Well, if Jackson told him, so be it.

"Who'd you hook up with?" Jackson asked. "Do I know him?"

"I don't think so. His name's Jamie."

"Nah, never heard of a Jamie." He shrugged, then shifted on the couch and pointed an orange M&M at me. "Show me what he looks like."

"Why?"

"Because I need to know if my best friend has good taste in men, too. You always manage to snatch the hot chicks away! It's not fair! Like, dude, Tessa is one fine lady."

"You can ask her out if you want. I don't mind."

"No, that'd be..." He wrinkled his nose. "That'd be weird. She's your ex and now our friend. It'd be like dating a sister."

"I don't think she would have said yes anyway."

"Rude," he scoffed. "Show me this Jamie dude."

"What makes you think I have a picture of him?" I asked.

"You're a picture-hoarder. You have pictures of everyone and everything, so I'm sure you have one of him."

"After one night."

"Yes."

"No."

"But you have his number."

I sighed. Of course. "Fine, I'll ask him to send me a picture."

He gave me his 'sweet' smile and leaned over to look at my screen when I took my phone out, but I pushed him away, because I obviously didn't want him to see what Jamie and I had been talking about before I walked into this room. Mason. I hadn't even opened Jamie's reply to my 'hands off' yet, so I kept Jackson at an arm's length while I read, my heart beating so hard I could hear it in my ears. If Jackson read this, I would scream.

Jamie: Don't worry, I'll keep my hands to myself

Jamie: Or you 😉

Me: Is that an invitation?

Jamie: If you want it to be

Me: Ok

Me: Send me a selfie

He did so without question. I wasn't quite sure if this was a Jamie thing, or if all guys were so much easier to interact with than girls, but I sure liked the easy-going attitude he had. If I randomly asked Tessa if she could send me a picture, she would have asked me why. Jamie immediately turned on his camera and took a picture of himself with his mom in the background, whom he casually flipped off with a smile. What a great guy.

"He looks cool," Jackson said when I showed him. "I approve."

***

A while later, Mason came down to get something to eat, and just like every other time Mason came in my vicinity, I felt utterly and foolishly blessed by his existence. He merely said hello and smiled and I melted and became one with the furniture. But with years and years of experience with useless crushes such as mine, one learned all the tricks to hiding those feelings, and that's why nobody had a single clue. I merely said hello and smiled back and everybody went on with their day.

Mason grabbed his lunch and joined us on the gray couch, adorned with black and white pillows to match Mrs. Prill's colorless scheme, and I pretended not to notice that his leg pressed against mine and that it felt so nice and warm, and everybody went on with their fucking day.

He even crossed his legs and consequently laid one of his knees across my thigh, and I had no choice but to shut my mouth and aggressively bite my tongue, because one way or another, mentioning it would ruin it, and I liked to think that this was what it'd be like to be with Mason. To just sit next to each other and casually lay our limbs across each other, because touching was part of being in a relationship, and not because he saw me as his little brother whom he could use as a leg rest.

"Do you want some?"

I looked to the side to see him holding out a plate full of food. Because it was far too much to eat on his own, and because I was still a pathetic human being who would do anything for the man I loved, I helped him finish his plate. Secretly being in love with someone was absolutely exhausting.

"What are you guys up to today?" he asked.

Jackson also stole some of his food, and replied, "Nothing."

"Productive."

"You spent a whole year doing nothing, hypocrite."

"I worked," Mason argued, even if we all knew he only worked part-time during his gap year and spent the rest of his time researching God knows what, because he was interested in just about anything that wasn't useful to him. "I'll have you know that taking a gap year is not only useful to earn money, but also really healthy for the mind."

"Your mind is infested with nonsense."

"And yours is infested with sex, sex, sex and sex."

Jackson shrugged. "Which is worse?"

"Yours," I said without hesitating.

Mason snickered while I got viciously slapped by his brother, only for speaking the truth. I hated them both. I shielded my body and cried out, "Play nice! You have a guest over!"

But Jackson didn't play nice. He shrieked, "Stop quoting my mom!" and shoved me off the couch, so I made a mental note to snitch later and left.

***

A few hundred feet away from his house, I called Jamie. Mason offered to bring me home with the car, but I declined, because I didn't really feel like sitting in a small space with the love of my life who didn't know he was the love of my life. I'd had enough stress for one weekend. And that stress had been stacking up and stacking up for years. I kind of just wanted to talk with somebody about the things that nobody knew about—not even Tessa. I felt like Jamie could be more helpful anyway, since he was a guy like me, and Tessa didn't really seem to understand what it was like to have a crush on somebody who wasn't interested in you, or more specifically, your gender.

"Hey, what's up?" Jamie said when he answered the phone.

"Could I get that ride now? I ran away from my friend because he's an abusive dick."

"Uh... what? Are you okay?"

"I'm joking. He said you looked cool by the way."

It took him a while to get what I was talking about, but then he said, "Oh, that's what the picture was for," and laughed. I heard keys jangling and a door slamming in the background. "Text me where you are. I'll be on my way."

Ten minutes later, I was seated in the passenger seat of a cute, little, red car, and my head was literally touching the roof, so I rolled the window down and leaned out, feeling the air rushing past my face. It should be illegal to make such tiny cars.

Jamie turned the volume of the radio down and said, "Those aren't your clothes, right?"

"No, I usually don't get my shirts two sizes too small. They're Jackson's. The abusive friend."

"Dude, I actually got worried when you said that on the phone. You shouldn't say things like that."

"Sorry," I laughed. "I promise I'm not getting abused by anybody. Besides, I could probably punch Jackson unconscious if I wanted to."

"I can believe that," he said with a chuckle. "Why'd you need me to come pick you up anyway? Couldn't your friend bring you?"

I shrugged.

"It's not him, is it?"

"What?"

"The guy from the picture. Your crush."

"Oh, no," I said. "Plot twist... it's his brother."

Jamie whistled.

I sighed, and after a moment of contemplation, even if I barely knew him, I told him all about Mason. I wasn't sure if it was because I felt like Jamie was the only one who'd understand or because he was the only one who wouldn't judge me for it, but either way, I felt comfortable talking to him. I told him that I'd met Mason eight years ago and that he was all I could think about ever since. I told him that all my relationships had ended because of him and that I'd never felt for anybody what I felt for him, and how horribly frustrating that was. I even told him that I had dated Tessa for months and that, the day after we had sex for the first time, I just walked around for hours wondering why I'd enjoyed it so much but still longed for somebody else like an unfaithful asshole. I'd never even told her that. It felt so good to finally let everything out.

"Have you fantasized about him?" he asked eventually.

I glanced at him as he moved his car seat back now that we were parked in the mostly empty lot behind the mall. He even stuck his feet out the window and put on his sunglasses with a grin.

"Come on, you must've," he said. "I used to do that all the time with my crushes. I would stare at the window that belonged to the boy next door for hours and imagine him taking off his clothes, like in the movies. He never did, but..."

"Jesus. Well, I mean..."

"You have," he urged.

"Yeah, I guess. Sometimes."

"I once had a boyfriend who fantasized about people all the fucking time. It was kinda funny actually. He would tell me about the guys at his school and what he wanted to do with them."

"Didn't you get jealous?"

He waved a hand at me. "Nah, I didn't mind. Our relationship wasn't built on much to begin with. The sex was good, but he barely gave a shit when I... kind of... cheated on him. I'm pretty sure he's dating one of those guys at his school now."

"Why am I not surprised that you cheated on him?"

"Look, when you come across a hot guy, you gotta go for it."

I snorted and turned my head to look at him. "Is that what you thought when you saw me? You literally came up to me like two seconds after I'd arrived. I'm not that hot."

"Are you kidding me?" He took one of his legs out of the window to nudge me with his foot. "Believe me, you're really hot. You're like a tree that you just can't not climb."

I couldn't help but laugh. I knew it wasn't just a metaphor, but it was a nice compliment nonetheless. I always thought I was kind of average-looking, which was fine by me, because I already stood out from the crowd—literally—but maybe Jamie loved average guys. Or rather, maybe Jamie loved tall guys.

"You're also the silent, brooding type, which is a plus."

I squinted at him. "I'm not brooding."

"Yeah, you are."

"I smile and stuff."

With that, he grinned and said, "Not as much as you think you do. You only smile when you really mean it. Which is a good thing."

"You sure know a lot about a guy you met a day ago."

"What can I say?" He threw his hands up. "I'm observant."

"Whatever."

I suppose I had some things to brood over, like Mason, so maybe he wasn't that far off. Tessa had remarked a few times that I didn't say much because I was always thinking and observing, preferring to be in the background, but we couldn't all be Jackson. (I'm pretty sure he had ADHD.)

"Do you wanna go get something to eat? I'm starving."

"Sure," I said.

He put his chair back up and started driving.