by Noah Steele
I gestured around us, at all the photos of us together with our other friends over the years, at bookshelves and fridge magnets and memories.
“This wouldn’t be my home without you. I wouldn’t have learned more about myself without you. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose my best friend.”
Oliver stood up and walked toward his desk, where he opened his laptop and took a seat.
“I romanticized you, Aiden, and it was dangerous for us both. Every high was beautiful, and that made every low just as dark. I…I thought I needed you for my art,” he said, blushing. I wondered if he had ever said that out loud before.
“And now?” I asked, shifting to lay flat on the couch.
“Now it’s years later and I know ‘pain is art’ is total crap, but that’s not all I had to learn, I guess. I can love you without being in love with you. I get it, but it’s a lot to unlearn and I’m gonna need time.”
He stared thoughtfully at the computer screen in front of him for a few minutes before flipping it down again.
“You should just go to work, I need a shower to clear my head.”
“Olly…” I said weakly, turning my head to see him standing in the hall, arms heavy at his sides, eyes closed. He opened them when the couch rustled beneath me as I sat up, but his outstretched arm stopped me from standing.
“Don’t ‘Olly’ me. Don’t say anything. You love him, but I don’t want to hear about it right now. I can’t. I’m still your best friend, Aiden, but I can’t hear anything about you and Derrek right now. Just promise me you’ll be safe with him. Promise me he’ll love you back. I promise you things between us will go back to normal…eventually.”
My mouth hung open stupidly as made his way to the bathroom, and I didn’t close it until I heard the bathroom door shut and lock behind him.
I shook my head and took a deep breath in, pulling my phone from my pocket to hit Derrek’s number. I heard the sound of a shower and turned to sit on the floor again, leaning against the back of the couch. Derrek picked up after two short rings.
“Miss me already? It’s barely been an hour,” he joked.
“Are you still at home?” I said through a quiet sniffle.
“I’m at a red light on my way to the track to meet my team. What’s wrong?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear, listening to make sure Oliver was still in the shower before I stood up and made a hasty beeline for my bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind me. I had only been away for a night, but my bed already looked foreign.
I didn’t want to sleep in it without Derrek beside me, and I didn’t know if it was my feelings for him or if I just wanted to be near someone warm and comfortable.
“Aiden? Aiden, are you all right? Did something happen? I’m pulling over,” Derrek said.
I was quiet, but he could definitely hear my heavy breaths as I struggled to say the words.
“I think I just lost my best friend.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The little bell above the door to Bay Window Books jingled as I entered. Derrek hung up after I’d convinced him we could talk about my day later, and I could tell he was annoyed that I wouldn’t just explain what had happened with Oliver.
It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone.
I threw my things down on a box in the back room and leaned against the shelf next to it, bouncing my leg and biting my lip.
The sharp smack of wood on concrete made me take in a gasping breath as one of my recent hires barreled into the room, a tower of books cascading from the loose pile clutched to his chest. He quickly leaned over to pick them up again as I passed him to pick up the broom.
“Sorry! I’m so sorry,” he said frantically, eyes widening when he saw me. Some of my crew were still nervous about working so closely with the store owner. I was more hands-on with the store than the previous owner had been—apparently more than most business owners were. I propped the broom back up in its corner and turned to help with the remaining books on the ground.
“You don’t have to rush back here with piles, just make smaller trips,” I said, taking half the books from the frantic boy’s arms. He nodded slowly, ducking quickly behind a storage shelf to leave them with other books in the same series. “Did all of these need to be pulled to make room for the new holiday displays?”
“No,” he replied.
I circled to find him frantically scanning the wrong shelf for titles and tapped him gently on the shoulder. He wheeled around sharply and I took a step back to avoid being knocked on my ass. His eyes widened again, and I let out a long breath as I sat down and patted the floor beside me. He took the hint and sat cross-legged, burying his head in his hands.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Don’t worry about it. You just started here recently, right? Part-time?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled through his hands. “It’s my first bookstore job.”
“You, uh, don’t have to do so much alone. Besides, there are customers out on the floor right now,” I joked. His head whipped up, his face pale and terrified. “You won’t lose your job!” I quickly added. He exhaled into a slouch and leaned backwards to lie on the floor.
“Thanks. It’s been a hard morning.”
“Yeah, same here,” I said, leaning forward to rest my chin on an open palm. “Did you just bring all these back here to hide out?” I guessed, the thin line of the boy’s mouth telling me I was right.
I failed to stifle a quiet chuckle as I waved for him to sit up.
“I used to do the same thing when I started working here. What’s your name?”
“Theo,” he said as he lifted himself back into a cross-legged position.
I shifted to sit across from him, picking up one of the books from his pile and aimlessly leafing through it—a cute gay romance about witch boys who fall in love while fighting the forces of evil.
“I want this store to be a safe space for the people who work here. When I first got hired, Bay Window Books was a job I could lose myself in. Every book was different, and the rest of my life didn’t matter while I was making money and talking to people about books I loved. So forget about the customers out there and the pile of books in here. Tell me about your morning,” I said.
Theo uncrossed his legs and sat up straighter, a shy smile taking over his face. He was cute, his bright eyes almost out of place against his incredibly dark hair. I didn’t think he and I had worked together much before—unlike my parade of terrible dates, I was great with my employees’ names. We were a close-knit group, and Theo was one of our only recent hires.
“The thing is, I’m in kind of a fight with my friends,” he said. “We have this band we wanna focus on, but we’re all university students and part-timers.”
“So what was the fight about?”
“Some of us think we should focus on music full-time and some of us don’t.”
“Which side of the fence are you on?” I asked.
Theo grimaced. “I can’t afford school if I’m not working part-time. Our music isn’t making enough money because nobody knows who we are. The first two EPs weren’t exactly massive successes, and they cost a lot to release out of pocket.”
I offered a warm smile in return.
“My…friend,” I said with a heavy heart. “He’s been trying to make it creatively for a while, too. It’s hard, but you can do it while making ends meet. You’re barely younger than I am, right?”
“Twenty-two,” Theo replied.
“Yeah, it’s gonna suck, but if the music matters that much to all of you, you’ll find a way to do it without having to make sacrifices that will hurt you later. I fell into this job. It’s not exactly what I had in mind, but if I didn’t have some publishing experience to back me up, the previous owner would have handed it off to someone else, and who knows what would have happened to this place.”
“That’s…exactly how I feel about the band,” Theo said. He reached over to the pile and picked u
p a book, flipping through it idly the same way I had. “I read this one, it was good,” he said as he put it back down. “What did you want to do?” he asked.
“That,” I said, pointing toward the small collection of tables by the front window.
A group of friends sat chatting happily over cups of hot coffee, gesturing back and forth excitedly as they spoke.
“I wanted to create what I didn’t really have. A happy place where everyone’s having a great time hanging out, sharing what they love, feeling safe and welcome and loved. Like a cool cafe or something, maybe with a book theme. Then all this happened and it felt like the next best thing,” I rambled.
“Sounds sweet,” Theo said. “Um, you said your morning was kind of bad, too?”
“Yeah,” I said shortly.
“Does it have anything to do with the way you said ‘friend’?”
“Yeah, it does.”
I stood up and brushed off my pants, taking some books from the pile and turning to put them on the right shelf. Theo stood up and took the rest of them, watching me with his bright green eyes.
“My best friend basically just confessed that he still has feelings for me,” I blurted.
Theo’s mouth went round with surprise.
“I can’t say I was expecting that.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t either. The thing is, I think I’m in love with this other guy. We just met, but there’s…I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, it just is, and he feels it, too.”
A wave of heat rose through my body as I spoke, and I almost felt lighter for having said it out loud to someone.
“Boss—”
“Aiden. You can call me Aiden,” I interrupted.
“Aiden,” Theo continued. “You can’t force yourself to love someone, just like he can’t force himself out of love with someone. Just be there for him when he figures it out and have fun with the guy you do have feelings for.”
“What if I lose my best friend over it?” I asked quietly.
I couldn’t help the slight crack in my voice as I thought about it. There was no way I could love Oliver romantically, but I couldn’t imagine not having him in my life.
“Well…then that’s what will happen. But it hasn’t happened yet, and it might not.”
“You’re suspiciously wise for twenty-two,” I said, taking the remaining books from Theo to shelve them. “But I guess you’re right. I don’t want to do something to make it worse. I care about this friend a lot.”
“Life would be easier if we were all robot boys,” Theo said. “But for better or for worse, we have hearts and thoughts and feelings. Do you think he’ll ghost?”
“Never,” I said.
“You don’t sound like you believe that,” Theo said, handing me another book.
“I believe it. I just want him to believe it, too. If our roles were reversed, I want to think I’d still be his friend after putting some space between us.”
It was true, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
“All you can do right now is hope he’s thinking the same way,” Theo said.
I turned us back toward the door once the last book in his pile was shelved.
“Thanks. I still kind of feel like I’m about to explode,” I said as we walked slowly back to the front of the store.
“Couldn’t talk about it with your new guy?”
“He’s busy with work and I didn’t wanna do it over the phone. He has this…aura, I guess, that just makes me feel different in a good way.”
“You must be really into this guy,” Theo said, holding open the door for us both.
“You have no idea how much,” I replied.
I didn’t think I had any idea how much, either.
“For what it’s worth, I hope things with your band work out, especially if it’s something important to you.” I smiled as the door shut behind us. Theo seemed like a nice guy. I’d have to remember to ask about his band some other time.
“Thanks,” he said excitedly before walking off toward a pair of young ladies sharing excited glances over the bright covers of some graphic novels.
I’d barely made it to the register before a customer stopped me, both glad that the store was busy and annoyed at myself for showing up at all after Oliver’s meltdown. I couldn’t have stayed home with Olly there, but I wasn’t exactly in a working mood.
Bay Window Books wasn’t the escape I needed it to be after all of that.
I couldn’t leave, not with knowing how busy it was. Between the customer in front of me, the ten after her who absolutely needed to deal with a manager, and a few near-misses with piles of books and cups of coffee, two hours had come and gone.
My daydream of a quiet night in with Derrek was immediately interrupted by a gentle tap on my shoulder. I spun to find Theo, his eyes darting between me and some space off to my right.
“Hey, I wasn’t sure if I should mention this because he’s not in the store, but there’s a guy who’s been walking back and forth by the window for the last twenty minutes,” he said, trying to keep his voice low.
“What?” I said.
Theo nodded to the place he’d been darting his eyes and lifted an arm to point.
“Yeah, he—oh, shit!” Theo exclaimed. “He ran when I pointed!”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He’d be dumb to try anything with the store this busy. Grab your phone and type your best description, send it to me, and I’ll forward it to everyone. Things like that just happen sometimes, he’s probably harmless.” The store had never been robbed while I was an employee; it was probably just someone nervous to walk in with so many other people around.
I patted Theo on the shoulder and sent him on his way before making another slow lap around the store. It was a colder fall than last year, and I tried to be as nice as I could about letting people use parts of the store as a library to escape the chill and the rain. I kept my eyes on the front window whenever possible, but no one on the sidewalk stood out.
Theo had described the person he saw as a tall, bulky man, but admitted that he couldn’t make out any features under layers of outerwear to fight the weather. By six o’clock, the sun had set and the store was getting emptier. I wrote Theo’s description down on a pad by the register, made my way to the back room, and told my team to close the store later.
When I opened the door, a violent chill gripped me. Frowning, I darted through the small room until I came to the back door. It rattled back and forth against a strong wind on the other side until I pulled it properly into place, locking it.
It shouldn’t have been unlocked, but the building wasn’t exactly new, and it wasn’t the first time the door had given me trouble. I scrawled a quick reminder to keep it locked at all times and stuck it alongside the man’s description on the scheduling board before turning to gather my things.
My jacket was on the floor, away from the pile I’d left it on.
I picked it up and put it on, reaching into a pocket for my phone to text Derrek. In the excitement of a busy work day, I’d completely forgotten to keep an eye on messages, and I hoped to find one from Derrek about being finished with practice early. My conversation with Theo had helped calm my emotions, but there was no substitute for Derrek’s comfort, despite how short our time together had been so far.
But aside from my bus pass, my pockets were empty.
“Huh,” I said aloud as I leaned forward and began rummaging through my bag.
A notebook, seven pens, an extra pair of gloves, a phone charger—but no phone. I had just been talking to Derrek this morning and couldn’t have left it at home. Had someone broken in to steal it? I quickly dressed for the outdoors and found Theo near the register.
“Hey, has anyone been in and out of the back since we left that room earlier?”
“Just a couple other staff members,” he said.
“The back door was unlocked and my phone is gone. Stolen,” I said quietly.
Theo crossed his arms as he t
urned toward the front windows again. I followed his eyes, but nobody on the sidewalk was lingering. It was too cold, and despite the store being much less busy than it had been in the afternoon, there were enough people around to make trouble for someone trying to rob us.
“I wonder if it has anything to do with that guy from earlier,” he said sternly.
I bit my lip, not wanting to admit that I was thinking the same thing after I’d made such a big deal about that guy being a harmless stranger.
“Just tell everyone to keep it locked. Can I borrow your phone?” I asked, accepting it as Theo handed it to me.
I quickly punched in Derrek’s number and sent a text explaining what had happened and that I’d be waiting at his place to avoid another confrontation at home.
“Thanks,” I said as I handed the phone back and made my way to the door.
I needed to see Derrek before my bad day got any worse.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Derrek turned the corner to his apartment door just as I was starting to doze off on the floor in front of it. He grinned down at me, making a show of puffing out his chest and putting his hands on his hips.
“We’re not even inside yet and you’re already on the floor in front of me,” he said, and I could already feel the stress of my day melting in the aura of his comfortable heat. He extended an arm to help me off the ground and unlocked the door, gesturing for me to walk in ahead of him.
“We’re not even inside yet and you’re already trying to get a good look at my ass,” I retorted.
He rolled his eyes as he gave me a playful pat, pushing me forward faster.
“How was the track?” I asked as I tossed my things to the side. I turned to find Derrek peeling off his coat with a slight twist to his mouth, and he looked at me with a quiet thoughtfulness.
