Hearts Right Here by Yolande Kleinn

Author:Yolande Kleinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: friends to lovers, short story collection, romantic short stories, mutual pining, only one bed, slow burn romance, sweet romance
Publisher: Yolande Kleinn
Published: 2023-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

Anticipation

All of the most awkward conversations of Jason's life had happened on this couch.

Coming out to his parents when he was so young it almost hurt to think about. Breaking up with his first girlfriend, the puppy crush of his youth, around the same time. Telling his best friend Max that he was leaving town—that he might never come back—because there was a school out of state and a full-ride scholarship. There was a bigger world; there was any excuse at all, as long as it got him out of the tiny-minded town that was slowly strangling him.

Fifteen years and nine apartments later, he still owned the damn couch. It was bulky and gray and had followed him through more living rooms than he cared to fathom, though it never quite matched the décor in any of them. It was too nice for some of the hell holes he'd landed in over the years, too old and clunky for the pricier places he could afford now.

More surprising than the couch, Jason still had Max.

Max was still his best friend, although that could turn around in the next ten seconds or so.

"You want to fuck me," Max echoed, as though he couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea.

Jason wanted to crawl between the couch cushions and hide there until Armageddon. He settled instead for shrugging and slumping tiredly, staring straight ahead so he didn't have to acknowledge the gawping disbelief on Max's face.

Max was too close a presence, sitting with one leg folded on the cushion, his knee pressed against Jason's thigh. It was as though he didn't realize how distracting his proximity was, even though they'd already stumbled into... whatever the hell this conversation had become.

A moment ago the air between them had been quiet and easy. Max might've been too close, but that was fine. That was nice. Jason liked it when Max sat too close. He'd always been able to appreciate his friend's proximity without opening his stupid mouth before.

"You want to fuck me," Max repeated. He was starting to sound less dazed. A shift of movement in Jason's peripheral vision was followed by the soft click of glass on wood as Max deposited his barely touched beer on the end table.

"Forget it." Jason had no idea where his own drink had gotten to, but he wished it were still in his hand. He hadn't yet swallowed even a sip of it, and he could really stand to be less sober right now.

Silence settled stiltedly around them, and for a moment Jason allowed himself to hope this conversation would end as abruptly as it had begun. Max could be tenacious—about feelings, about secrets, about everything really—but maybe this time he would simply let go. Maybe he would decipher the anxious plea in Jason's voice and, for once in their lives, leave well enough alone.

Then Max murmured, "You never said."

And just like that Jason knew he was fucked. He wasn't getting out of this with any of his secrets intact, let alone his dignity, and he might as well surrender to the inevitable.

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