Two long-term best friends turned distant over one kiss… a kiss that started something that might just mean a little more...
Dylan Holland
"Oh my god!" Molly exclaimed, but I just rolled my eyes as I drove us. "So this is you? All you?"
"Yes," I answered for the billionth time. "Well, until my dad decides he wants to drive again. And considering he hasn't decided to for years... I'd say my odds are pretty good."
It was a possibility, sure, but I didn't see him driving unless Carson had to go visit his mums on a whim. Otherwise, Carson was quite literally our chauffeur.
"I cannot believe he let you have it! No offense, but your dad is both charming and absolutely terrifying all at the same time." Molly noted. I simply shrugged, for I was more than used to that old man and his tendencies.
"He means well," I assured her before turning us into the street where the Alpines was located on. I wondered what time my dads would actually be getting off tonight, but the only thing they requested while I was at school was that glasses of wine would be poured upon their arrival.
This meant that tonight was another toss-up for dinner.
"Hey," I asked Molly, turning my head her way for a fraction of a second before I looked towards the road again. "What... when did... when did Isiah start hanging around Ryker? Like when exactly?"
I sounded awkward. I knew I did, but I couldn't fucking help myself. Isiah had dismissed himself on that field to go chat with Ryker, leaving me to head back inside on my own. And while this was by far the most stupid thing for me to get hung up on... I didn't like Isiah hanging out with him.
He wasn't good for him... though I knew I had literally no fucking place to speak my thoughts aloud. If Isiah wanted him as a friend, I knew I needed to accept it... but I couldn't reject the emotions it left me with. I hated every fucking bit of this.
"Maybe like a month after you left. I don't think you should be too hard on Isiah for it, though," she spoke as I pulled the car around towards the underground parking. "He was struggling without you. Hard. Everyone could sense it, and he just needed someone. So if you're gearing up to chastise him, keep that in mind."
"I'm not," I answered her quickly. "I... I won't. I understand, it's just... I'm back now, you know?"
Molly slowly shook her head no. "That doesn't... erase things Dyl. I'm so fucking happy that you took this trip and got to know your family more, but for Isiah, it was honestly a harsher adjustment. And we didn't even know how long you'd be gone for—none of us did. You called me almost every day, but you and Isiah didn't communicate at all, and yes, that was fully on him, but I think he was just searching for anything that could resemble what you two had. Those are big fucking shoes to fill."
I remained silent as I slowly drove this car into my dad's assigned slot before shutting the thing off.
I didn't know how to handle this. How to deal with Isiah having a friend so destructive. I had said nothing today, yet I watched as the guy slung an arm around Isiah's neck as they walked off the field together. He had called him Izzy, which was a nickname Isiah hated because it reminded him of his great aunt on his father's side... yet he allowed that from Ryker, of all people.
"Come on," Molly insisted, picking up on the quiet. "Let's head inside, then you can mope."
And I nodded, following the kind girl's wise words.
-
"Every time I come here, I forget how absolutely stunning the place is," Molly mumbled to herself as I opened the front door of the penthouse fully for her to step through.
"Well you've only been here a handful of times," I reminded her. Her parents first had to be looked into by my dad, and he didn't quite care for the fact that both her parents were journalists, but they met for drinks, and my Pops soon came around. Whether he threatened them or not was still a mystery, but I knew for damn sure that not a single article was written about him.
And they were the most welcoming whenever I visited.
"Hey, Molly," I spoke, setting my backpack on the couch next to hers. She had already plopped down right on the plush carpet near the coffee table and was searching through Netflix for something to watch.
"Yes, my sweetums?" She answered with her eyes still fixated on the mounted flatscreen TV above the fireplace.
"Are you a lesbian?" I more or less blurted out. That got the young gal's attention immediately.
"Pardon?" she asked as her head whipped in my direction. I knew this was her giving me a moment to rephrase that rather blunt question but I didn't really have that many options swimming around in my brain on how to reword it.
"My... my dad and Carson mentioned something about you maybe liking girls. I just... I thought I'd ask."
"Oh," she replied, nodding her head like her sexuality was a topic of discussion for everyone. "I think I might be. I keep moving the goalpost when it comes to men, and I'm sick and tired of that shit. You're the only guy I tolerate these days."
I simply nodded, understanding what she meant. "Well, I support whoever you love," I told her, and that got her cracking up.
"Dylan, judging by your parents, I knew that already. Let's just keep this between us for now, okay? I'm still working out how to break the news to my parents."
I gave her a quick, firm nod before leaving her in the living room to find something on Netflix while I entered the kitchen, deciding on what the hell I was prepping for dinner tonight.
-
Molly stayed for a solid four hours before I ordered her an Uber. Carson and my dad were just getting home, and Carson offered to drive Molly back, but I refused his offer. From the looks of both him and my dad, they needed sleep pronto.
Instead, I plated them each some soup and bruschetta I had gone ahead and made for dinner before heading towards my bedroom. It was the sound of my phone going off that made me scramble for it quickly somewhere on the mattress.
Once I found it and saw who was calling, I answered immediately.
"Hi."
"Hey," Isiah replied. "Is now a bad time?"
"N-No, no, no—" I rushed out as I sat up more in bed. "I'm just relaxing. About to start some homework."
"Molly's gone then?" He asked, to which I almost only nodded, forgetting I was on the phone.
"Yes. I... I didn't expect you to call. I saw Ryker picked you up after school and thought..." My voice trailed off once I realized how fucking insane I sounded.
You have no right, I reminded myself. None at all.
"Why..." I still started, overstepping boundaries I knew should've been in place between Isiah and I. "Why are you two so... close?"
Isiah took a second before replying to that. "We've got... a bit of a friends-with-benefits relationship going."
That almost made me drop my fucking phone. "You—wait, you what?"
"You can't tell anyone," Isiah rushed out quickly, "but... yeah."
I couldn't even stop myself from asking this follow-up question. "When did this start?" To which Isiah paused yet again. I was trying so fucking hard to keep my voice sounding leveled but fuck, the strain could be heard from a mile away.
"Recently," Isiah admitted. I remained quiet for a good, long while as I processed that. "Dylan?" Isiah called into the line after some time, making sure I was still on this call.
"Do you love him?" I blurted out, just fully uncensored, making my body want to shrivel up and fucking die. Isiah started coughing immediately at my insanely invasive question.
"L-L-Love?" He then asked me. "No—no, no, no, this i-is more of like a casual thing—like we're more friends—like it isn't..."
"You'd..." I started, thinking of how to word this insanity. "You'd tell me, right? If it was... if it's like... more?"
"Y-Yeah," Isiah replied almost immediately. "Yeah, you'd... you'd be the very first to know. Especially now that we're... but, I mean, you must have been crushing hard on some Irish women on your trip to worry bout lil old me."
"Not... not really," I spoke honestly as I sat up further in bed. In all 18 years of existing, I hadn't really crushed hard on anyone. I was always more focused on school and stuff, that those type of feelings didn't really ever develop for me.
"... oh," Isiah replied far more quietly. "Well, you must have someone in school in mind, right? I'm sure a year away had to have changed some things for the girls."
I didn't even know how to reply to that... besides slowly shaking my head as I all but whispered, "No..."
This was new territory for Isiah and I. We had never asked each other about crushes, and up until now, I assumed he and I never had any.
That was when Isiah's confession hit me like a ton of bricks.
He had been crushing on me, I reminded my stupid, stupid self.
"Well..." Isiah's words were a bit more hesitant now. Far more hesitant, really, and so much so that I worried I might've been the reason. "I'm sure whoever you set your eyes on will be one lucky lady."
And I couldn't for the fucking life of me decide what it was that had me saying this next sentence, but words were already falling past my lips before I could stop them. "What if... what if it's not a lady."
Isiah started coughing up a storm immediately. "S-Sorry—I'm eating some soup right now—b-but what... w-what do you mean?"
What did I fucking mean? I thought quietly.
I knew I hadn't really ever felt like that towards a girl... but what in the hell could've propelled me to even insinuate I could develop feelings like that towards a man?
"I..." I started, unsure of how to dig myself out of the hole I had fully landed myself in. "I just... I don't really do crushes, so it might... well, it might not be so far left field to think if I were to have one, it could be with a boy."
"Have you... have you had a crush on a boy before?" Isiah asked me quietly. "Like—.... Like ever?"
"I... I don't think so?" I offered quietly. Honestly, I think the only person I ever developed those kind of feelings for while growing up was Danise. And that was because she baked the best snickerdoodles.
Obliviously, I was now too old to realize that not only was she too old, but wanting to marry someone because of snickerdoodles was a tad bit unhinged.
"O-Okay," Isiah replied. "So you haven't... you haven't liked anyone before?"
"Well, I like you," I started, not fucking thinking at all before I rushed out "I-I-I-I mean—as like—as in like a best friends way, like—"
"I-I, y-yes—yeah, n-no I got that—" Isiah explained as he struggled to clear his throat. "I- I meant like... romantically, Dylan."
"R-Right," I replied as I worked to soothe my heart rate. It was through the fucking roof right now, all thanks to the lack of a filter my mouth had on it. "I... I guess I haven't. I dunno. I spent most of my trip just missing you—" I cut my own words off there, still not realizing what it meant to shut the fuck up for once.
"... oh..." Isiah all but fucking whispered that, further shifting the entire trajectory of this conversation. How the complete hell did I bomb my way through this conversation so horribly? "S-So during that whole year—"
"Let's forget I said that," I rushed out quickly as I worked to do some damage control on the mess I opened up by asking him about Ryker. This conversation almost had me out of bed pacing the fuck out of my room in an effort to calm down.
"Nah," Isiah replied, forcing my posture into the best fucking position it's ever been in.
"W-W-What?" I ask incredulously.
"Nah. You can erase it from your memory, but just know I'm not erasing it from mine. And because I can literally feel you completely spiraling from here, let's change the subject. You think about my pitch?"
Somehow, someway, that shit pivoted my entire mood, and I found myself laughing. "The Richard Reed one?"
"Yes indeed," Isiah answered quickly.
"While I absolutely love that mind of yours, I'm thinking we pursue either the Applications of Le Chatelier's Principles or maybe the Percent of Copper in Brass." I countered.
"That sounds boring," Isiah protested.
"Chemistry is, for the most part, very fucking boring," I then argued.
"It's our first project together in years. I refuse to have it be boring," Isiah insisted.
"Oh, so we're reaching superhero heights then?" I asked him, to which Isiah hummed in agreeance.
"We also gotta do well enough to get you in that tourney this year, remember?" He asked me over the phone. "And while we're on the subject of the fall months, what are you gonna be for Halloween?"
"Halloween?" I asked, my brain not even working fast enough to process that that was in fact coming up.
"Yeah, I'm thinking of being Beast Boy from Teen Titan... you'd make one hot Raven, now that I think about it."
"Deal," I whispered without even fucking giving it a second thought, still hung up on the fact that Isiah had called me hot. Well, sort of called me hot.
"For real?" He asked me, but I was so far past explaining what the hell was going on in my brain that all I could do was hum a yes.
Raven was a solid character... even if I did ship her with literally no one else but Beast Boy...
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