I lean in to shake his hand. “Uh, yeah. That’s right.”
“We’re dating,” Seth says.
My stomach flip-flops, and I pull back. “Wait, we are?”
“We’re not?” Seth blinks up at me. “What would you call it?”
“Hanging out, having se—uh”—I glance at his parents and rephrase—“spending time together? Other … stuff.”
Seth laughs. “And you don’t think that’s dating?”
Oh.
“Well, how am I supposed to know? I’ve never done this before.”
Seth’s mom clears her throat because, oh yeah, we should probably have this conversation in private.
“Uh, we’ll leave you two to talk this out. We just came by to check in on you seeing as we haven’t heard from you for over a week. We thought you could be dead.”
Oops. My bad.
“Dramatic, Mom.”
“Anyway, we’re super happy you’ve come to terms with your sexuality.” She gives Seth a thumbs-up. “Good job. Like with your brother, we don’t care how you identify. We love you no matter what. Right?” She turns to her husband, whose gaze keeps darting between me and Seth. “Right?” She elbows him this time.
He nods. “Uh, right. Yes. Love you and all that crap.” He leans on the kitchen counter. “Does Foster know?”
Seth rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, no, not yet.”
His dad frowns. “Didn’t he tell you up front when he started dating Zach?”
Seth hangs his head.
“Tell him,” his mom says. “It’s better to be done sooner than later.”
“I know,” Seth mumbles.
“This …” She pauses and darts a quick look at me. “This isn’t a way to get back at Foster over Zach or anything, right?”
My gut twists for half a second before I remind myself Seth didn’t know who I was when we started talking.
Seth shakes his head. “I’m not even going to answer that.”
“Okay, we’re out of here,” she says. “Next time we’ll knock.”
Seth smiles. “The key you have is for emergencies.”
“A whole week without answering your phone, Seth.” Mrs. Grant points at him. “It was an emergency.”
It’s true he hasn’t returned any of her calls. He keeps saying he’ll do it, and then we get distracted, and again, oops.
Seth walks his parents out, and then he approaches me with a wary look in his eye.
“So, I have some slightly disturbing news,” I say.
“You do?”
I nod. “I think I’m kind of dating everyone I’ve ever slept with? And, we didn’t break up. So, I’ve cheated on all of them with you. A lot.”
Seth bursts out laughing. “You didn’t realize what dating was?”
“I thought dating was being like, boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn’t realize that sleeping with people and hanging out with them is dating. It’s not like we’ve been on an actual date. How is that dating?”
He reaches for me and runs his palm over my cheek. I turn my head and kiss it.
“You’re so cute, but you might have a point. Should we go on a proper date today?”
“As long as we can do laundry first or swing by my place for more clothes.”
“You can borrow mine? We’re about the same height.”
“Yes, but you are stick thin and don’t have this bubble butt of an ass. All your baggy pants will be tight on me.”
“I won’t complain at all.”
I really think about that. “Okay, I’m in.”
19
Seth
We do end up stopping by CU so Richie can run to his dorm and swap out his bag of dirty clothes for some clean ones and get something warmer to wear to the Ice Festival. When he gets back to the car, he’s wearing a heavy coat, scarf, and wool hat that looks like a gray version of my green one.
He drops into the passenger seat and reaches up to flick his beanie’s pom-pom. “Look, we’re one of those couples who match.”
“This morning you didn’t know we were dating, and now we’re a couple?”
His face crumples. “Isn’t that what it means?”
“Jesus, you’re cute.”
And he really is. The way his face lights up at the compliment sends a ripple of warmth through me, especially when he doesn’t try to deny it. I’ve never dated anyone like him before. Normally my girlfriends are … kind of like me, actually. Meticulous with planning and keeping my apartment a certain way. Either into science, or high fantasy, or reading.
Richie is … not.
Reading gives him a headache, and when we tried to watch Game of Thrones, he fell asleep within the first fifteen minutes. He leaves cups everywhere, his heavy footsteps are loud, and he’ll have a conversation with me from another room, shouting through the wall.
And when we’re sitting on the couch or lying in bed or trying to cook toast, his hands always find me.
Like now.
Richie reaches across the center console and squeezes my thigh as I drive. We’ve kept busy for most of the day so I don’t have to think about the way we were accidentally outed to my parents.
Because if I’m not thinking about it, I can’t think about the way it came as zero shock to them. No matter how much I stressed that I was straight, they clearly never believed me, so now I’m having a mini identity crisis.