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It is a January evening when I end up having a long-overdue conversation with Monty. He’s walking me home from orchestra rehearsal, wrapped in six or seven jumpers, his cheeks flushed from the cold, and my arm is linked in his, our elbows crossed. The sun has long since disappeared, but I can see the smirk spreading across his face in the light of the streetlamps. We’re pressed together, and there’s plenty of reasonable explanations for the way his shoulder keeps brushing against me (the cold, the narrow sidewalk, friendly affection) but I let myself believe there’s an ulterior motive.
And it’s so nice, just the two of us, perfectly in stride with each other, with the matching hats I’ve made us crammed onto our heads. Monty’s laughing as I tell him about the way the conductor fell off his podium because he was so overenthusiastic in his gestures.
“I wish I was there to see it,” he says ruefully. “Do you think they’ll ever let me come to rehearsals?”
“Probably not. Maybe if you learned the violin.”
He wrinkles his nose. “No. God no. That thing is a torture device, Percy. I will not subject myself to that kind of pain.”
“Not even for the satisfaction of making music?” I ask, grinning at him.
“ Music .” Monty rolls his eyes. “Not all of us get a hard-on to Handel’s Dixit Dominus .”
I huff and nudge him with my shoulder. “I do not get a hard-on to Dixit Dominus . The fact that I like it better than Anaconda just means that I have taste.”
He laughs, and while he’s busy mocking me, he slips on a patch of ice. I go to catch him with my free hand and end up with my arm around his waist like we’re dancing. Monty’s clinging to the collar of my coat, and I indulge myself in a passing fantasy of leaning down to kiss him. It would be so, so easy to do it. To press my lips to his and let his hands drift to my hair and get caught up in the absolute sea of emotions that threaten to claim me whenever he’s this close. I don’t actually know much about the semantics of kissing, since my only previous experience is a rather stiff and awkward one with Johanna Hoffman that left the both of us very pointedly not looking at each other, but it wouldn’t be anything like that, because I’m actually in love with Monty.
I realize I’ve been staring at him and flinch backwards, letting my arm drop to my side. “Don’t split your head open.”
“Not what I was aiming for,” he responds with a smile, continuing on. We stop at a crosswalk, and we’re waiting for the light to change when he looks over at me with an odd look on his face. “Although if it’s not Dixit Dominus , who owns your heart? That Tchaikovsky song with the cannons in it?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“No, seriously! When am I going to have to start telling girls that if they hurt my best mate I’ll steal their kneecaps?” There’s a wry smile on his face. “I’ll break out Felicity’s old softball bat.”
“Monty, it’s not even a proper softball bat. It’s plastic and less than a meter long.” The light changes, and he starts across the street. I follow, pulled by the invisible string that keeps me close to him.
“You’re not answering my question,” he says, elbowing me in the ribs.
“Actually, I—” I stop. I meant to plan this out. I’ve been meaning to plan this out for months now. “I don’t think you need to worry about that, actually.”
“Oh, stop it Perce. You’re a catch. Anyone who can’t see that is an idiot.”
My face burns. Don’t read into it . “No, I mean, I’m not—I’m not interested in girls.”
“Really?” Monty stops and wraps his fingers around my wrist so that I’m forced to stop too.
I turn to look at him. He’s got a mix of confusion and surprise written across his face, his chin tilted up so he’s looking me in the eye. “Well, no,” I say. “I mean, not… not romantically.”
“Is this you telling me you’re gay?” Monty asks bluntly, dropping my wrist.
“No!” I say, without thinking, and he winces.
“It’s that unthinkable to you?”
“No, no, no. I just—I’m not. Sorry, I.” I can barely look at him.
“It’s fine ,” he says, and he stretches out the word fine for so long that I can tell it is definitely not fine.
“Monty, wait.” I catch his hands in between mine. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t like boys.” Which is technically true. I don’t like boys. I just like Monty .
“Okay. And you don’t like girls?”
“Right.”
“So…” He hesitates, letting me fill in the end of the sentence. A businessman brushes past us, and I realize that with Monty’s hands in mine, the two of us standing face to face, we’re taking up most of the sidewalk. His breath puffs out in white clouds of mist that hang in the air between us. When I don’t say anything, he finishes, “You only like people who aren’t either?”
“No.”
“So, you don’t like anyone ?”
And there it is, the question that I can’t answer. I can’t possibly explain this to Monty without giving up the game, because Monty might be oblivious, but he’s far from stupid. How am I supposed to have figured out that I’m demi without actually having fallen for someone? And how am I supposed to pass it off like that someone is anyone other than Monty? I don’t have any other close friends, and we both know it. We’ve only really got each other, or we will, right up until I tell him and scare him off.
“Well, not exactly. I mean, most of the time. Most of the time I don’t like anyone. Romantically, I mean. I like plenty of people non-romantically just fine,” I babble, stalling for time.
Monty quirks an eyebrow at me. “Are you alright, Percy? You’re shaking.”
I am, I realize, as he grips my hands tighter to stop their movement. “Just lovely.” Another pedestrian shoves by us, and Monty pulls me underneath the little awning over a coffee shop window. We sit side by side on the sill, my fiddle case between us, and I play with the latches as he studies me, his face drawn and serious in a way I rarely see. It reminds me of the way he looked at me the week after he found out about my epilepsy, and I hate the pity that’s so clearly written all over him.
“What’s wrong?” Monty asks, so quiet and soft, and maybe last summer he would’ve brushed this off like it was nothing, but he’s grown. And normally I’m so, so proud of him, but right now all I can think is that I wish he would just go back to dragging me out to parties and letting me sulk in peace. Better that than the way he’s looking at me now, a crease between his eyebrows, mouth slightly open, cheeks still pink, looking so goddamn gorgeous. “It’s not a fit, is it?”
I choke out a laugh. “No. Not a fit, just — ” And if I don’t say it now, I’ll be sitting here in the cold trying to get it out for hours. “ — I’m demisexual.”
“Oh.” He’s not looking at me anymore.
I don’t know if he knows what I mean, so I continue on, trying not to trip over my words. “So I’m not really attracted to anyone — ”
“ — Unless you’re emotionally connected with them,” Monty finishes. I must look surprised, because he smiles a little and says “I did some reading after Feli came out.”
“Oh.” And now I can’t look at him. It’s just a matter of waiting for him to put together the pieces, and seeing whether or not he’s going to flip the table once he sees the finished product.
“It’s fine. I mean, more than fine. I don’t c- wait, no I do care, it just, doesn’t matter to me. Unless you want it to.” He moves his hand to rest it on the violin case, letting our fingers overlap.
I ignore the little jolt feeling his skin against mine gives me. “Thank you, Monty.”
“No need to thank me, darling,” he says, winking. And then, his expression softens. “How long have you known?”
Here we go. “Since August.”
“It’s been five months?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
He looks like he’s been slapped. “You thought I wouldn’t be okay with it?”
“No, it’s just — ” I heave out a sigh. “I just didn’t want things to change.”
“Things don’t have to change, if you don’t want them to. It’s not like I spend that much time trying to set you up anyway.” His hand closes around mine. “How did you know?”
And God, he must sincerely be trying to kill me. “Well, how did you know you were bi?”
“I realized that both lads and ladies are fit, but what does that— oh .” His eyes are wide and flashing in the light from the streetlamp. “You didn’t like anyone. And then you did. Wait, who is it? Is it Johanna? Because I know you said that you kissed her, and it didn’t go well, but honestly, I think she’s still a bit moony for you, and I think that if you patched things up quick—”
“It’s not Johanna,” I half-shout, before he can get on a roll and text her to come meet us or do something else to make this all more awkward than it already is.
“Well then who is it?”
He’s going to end up making me say it. “Why does it matter?”
“Because I want you to be happy, Perce,” Monty says, a soft little smile on his face, and his hand is warm in mine, and I can’t even bring myself to admire him like I normally do.
I tip my head back so that I have something else to look at besides my feet. “You’ve got to know by now. It’s been ages.”
“I really don’t.” His voice is tight. “How am I supposed to know who you’re in love with?”
“It’s you ,” I croak out, without really meaning to. I look to Monty, who’s as shocked as I’ve ever seen him. I’ve caught him in the middle of processing what I’ve said, so I get to watch in excruciating detail as he sucks in a breath, wide-eyed, and flinches away from me, withdrawing his hand from mine. And then, without any more prompting, I can feel pressure building behind my eyes as tears begin to cram their way out.
“Percy—”
“I’m in love with you,” I say, because this is probably the only time I’ll get to. “And I’m sorry, I know that it’s going to be weird—”
“Percy.”
“—And if you want space, or to stop staying over at my house, or to just pretend this never happened—”
“Percy!”
I stop. He’s shaking from the cold, his knees tucked up to his chest, and has his eyes fixed on me so intently, I think I might shatter to pieces under his gaze. “Yes?”
“Stop saying sorry.”
“Sorry, I—” I cut myself off. “Wait, no not sorry, just—I apologize.”
He laughs a little bit. “That’s still being sorry.”
Damn these tears that seem so intent on escaping. I swipe furiously at my face with my sleeve. “Right.”
“Percy,” he says again, shifting so he’s facing me, and extending an upturned hand to me. And that’s when I realize that this is not the customary reaction to being told that your best friend who you are decidedly uninterested in is in love with you.
“Yes?” I ask, hesitantly reaching over my fiddle case to rest my hand in his again. I still can’t quite look at him, afraid that if I do, I’ll scare him off, or see that this is all just a laugh to him.
“I love you too,” Monty says, and it’s like the world has turned to smoke and mirrors, leaving him as the only sure thing left. I grip his hand like it’s a lifeline, because surely, any minute now he’ll leave. After several quiet moments of staring at our intertwined fingers, I make myself lift my gaze to his face.
And God, he’s looking at me like I’ve hung the moon and stars. Like I’ve created whole goddamn galaxies for him. Like I’m something holy.
“Percy, can I kiss y—”
I don’t even let him finish asking. He’s warm, so warm, (or maybe that’s just my own happiness radiating off of me and bouncing back) and our noses brush as I close the gap between us.
He freezes for a moment, and I worry that I’ve somehow misread this, but then he leans into my touch and moves his lips against mine, so soft and sweet. I let my free hand drift to his waist, and goddamn I could have a lifetime of his hand in my hair and his eyelashes brushing my cheeks and never grow tired of it.
“Wait,” Monty says, jerking backwards, his hands suddenly flying up. “You’re okay with this?”
I’m grinning like an absolute fool. “Incredibly okay. I am the okay-est.”
He tips his head back in a laugh. “God, Percy. You’ve been in lo— you’ve— since August ?”
“No,” I say, and I press a kiss to his cheek. “I’ve known I’m demi since August. I’ve been in love with you since—“
And I stop. Because even though we’re on the same page about our affections ( we’re on the same page about our affections, holy fuck ), there’s a certain level of humiliation that’s associated with having been in love with someone for five years and having never said anything.
But Monty just smirks and pokes me in the ribs. “Oh, come on, don’t get shy now. Since when?”
I press my face into his shoulder. “Remember when I hit Richard Peele in the face with a mini golf club?”
“Obviously. It was magnificent.”
“Well, that was when I figured it out. I mean, not that exact moment, obviously. That exact moment I was mostly just panicking about how much trouble I was going to be in. But after that, when you pulled me aside, and you were giggling like mad, and you had those stupid light-up sunglasses on, and you wouldn’t stop thanking me for knocking his tooth out. That was it for me.”
Monty is quiet, and I look up to see him staring at me with a shocked little smile. “Percy, we were thirteen. You’ve been in love with me since we were thirteen ?”
I nod, suddenly very close to crying again, and swallow the lump in my throat. “Yes. I thought it was obvious.”
“And here I was thinking two years was bad.”
“Two years?” And now my face is splitting open in a smile again. “I think that’s a new record for you. Two whole years to make a move.”
“Well, it’s you ,” he splutters. “Best friend, love of my life, et cetera. Forgive me for not being in top form.”
I kiss him again, because how could I not, pulling him close and putting my hand on his chest to feel his heart pounding through the layers of jumpers he’s got on. He scrambles to push my fiddle case out of the way, and his ankle hooks in mine as the case clatters on the ground, and God, it’s nothing like kissing Johanna. Monty smiling against my lips is warm and gorgeous and the most natural thing in the world.
I could slip my hands under his jumper. I could take him back to my dorm room. I could tumble headfirst into his touch and cement this as the most eventful night in my entire life. But I don’t need to, and I know he won’t mind, so I pull away and cradle his face in my hands like he’s precious, because of course he is.
“Of course, darling.”