What If We Didn't Know

"Frankie?" I called when I got back home. He didn't answer, so I wandered into the kitchen and found him eating a bowl of cereal. "Hey, Frankie, sorry about that."

He sighed. "Why are you sorry?" He asked, glancing up at me briefly with his dark chocolate eyes. "Gerard and I were the ones fighting over you like three-year olds."

I sat at the kitchen table across from him. "Yeah, why were you fighting over me anyway?"

"I don't know," Frank mumbled, slurping milk from his spoon. "It was stupid."

I frowned; annoyed that neither of them would tell me what the hell they were fighting about. They were both terrible liars so I knew that something was up, but I didn't know what. "Alright, well if you need to talk then I'm here," I smiled, knowing that he wouldn't bother.

"Thanks, Mikes," Frank replied, a soft grin spreading over his face.

"Welcome, Franks. Hey, wanna go play Left 4 Dead or something?" I questioned, knowing he wouldn't say no to his favourite game.

"When would I ever not want to go destroy zombies?" Frank countered, standing up and dumping his bowl in the sink. "Let's go."

We played the video game for a couple hours, and soon the two of us had pretty much forgotten about the weirdness of the afternoon. When Mom got home, we helped her make dinner, and ended up getting in a bit of a food fight (which Mom had started after Frank told her about his most recent tattoo idea). Once we had cleaned up, Frank and I went upstairs to our bedroom and played guitar until we got tired around one in the morning and decided to go to bed.

"Hey Mikey?" Frank whispered across the space between our beds a few minutes after we'd turned the lights off.

"Yeah, Frankie?" I answered, rolling on my back and looking up at the ceiling covered in glow in the dark stars.

"Do you like Gerard?" He asked quietly.

Startled by the seemingly random question, I turned to look over at him and saw that he was already staring over at me. I blushed heavily and said nonchalantly, "Well yeah, I like him; he's our best friend."

"No," Frank sighed impatiently, "I mean do you like him as more than a friend. I saw the way you were blushing when I made that crack to him about fucking you."

"Oh," I muttered. "Uh, well... yeah. I do like him as more than a friend. But it's stupid; I'll get over it soon enough."

"It's not stupid," Frank disagreed instantaneously, and I saw him sit up in bed. "It's been pretty much inevitable for years that you guys are gonna get together. I'm not blind; I can see the way you look at each other."

"Really?" I inquired, feeling slightly excited. "You think he likes me?"

"Of course he likes you," Frank murmured, settling back in bed. "What's not to like?"

I grinned and closed my eyes. Right on the back of my eye lids was Gerard's smiling face, and I smiled even wider. If he liked me too...

"Thanks Frankie, I love you," I whispered to him.

"Love you too, kid," he returned, and after that it was quiet. I slowly drifted off to sleep, thinking of Gerard and how Frank thought we were destined to be together...