Collide With This Guy

“Well, that’s good … I kinda like you, too,” I said, biting at my bottom lip. He smiled up at me, though he still looked sort of uncomfortable, but he looked happy. Anything was better than seeing him cry. I reached my hand up to his face and brushed away a stray tear with my thumb. “See? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Y-yeah,” he muttered, letting out a sigh as he relaxed. “I didn’t think that you would feel the same way.”

“Why not?” I wanted to know? If anything, it was the other way around to me. He shrugged, looking down and playing with the fabric of my shirt where his hands were.

“I thought you didn’t like me, like … at all, actually,” he chuckled. “I thought you just tolerated me.”

“I was just mad because you’re really cute,” I shrugged, loving that I could finally be flirty with someone without the fear that I would get punched for it. His face reddened a bit, which was even cuter. “But I do like you, in all seriousness.”

“Well, that’s great … but we can’t like … we can’t date or anything,” he said, lowering his voice and breaking eye contact with me once again. I was leaning against the wall near my door now. I sighed; what was the deal now? Didn’t he just say he liked me?

“And why not?” I asked, probably sounding a little more agitated than I should have. “Oh, let me guess, your parents are homophobic, too?”

“No, I don’t know. I mean, they act like they’re okay with it, but I really don’t know how they’d take it if I told them that I was interested in a guy …” he said, his voice trailing off. It was like it was the first time he was realizing that he liked a guy, not a girl, and this meant he wasn’t straight. “And not only that, but I’m um … I’m not allowed to date.”

“Not allowed?” I asked, my eyebrows going all the way up. Was there anything this boy was allowed to do? Jeez.

“No … I mean, the only time I’ve ever ‘dated’ anyone was a couple years ago with this girl that went to my church. But that was only because my parents were good friends with her parents, and all of our ‘dates’ were supervised.”

“Supervised?”

“Yeah, like if we went to dinner, my parents went with us … if she came over, my parents were always in the room,” he explained. Jesus Christ, this was insane. “It’s ultimately the reason why we were so quick to break up … that and she was a bitch.”

I was ready to challenge him on everything, until he got to the last part of his sentence. I just started cracking up.

“Did you just say bitch?” I asked, chuckling. I had never heard Kellin ever come close to swearing, so hearing him say something like ‘bitch’ just sounded funny coming from his mouth. He gave me one of his cute little death glares. That just made me laugh even more, so I leaned forward and boldly pecked him on the lips once more. “You’re cute.”

He blushed a little at that, breaking eye contact with me and looking at the ground instead.

“I’m serious, though, we can’t … “ he sighed.

“Well … what if we kept it a secret? Like, honestly, school is going to be a hell of a lot easier for you if no one knew about us, you know? I would hate to see Rian and Jaime start picking on you as badly as they pick on me,” In all honesty, it already killed me that they gave him a hard time. I didn’t want to find out if Jaime would go as far as to hitting Kellin if he knew we were going out … if that’s what we decided we were. “And if no one knows that we’re together, then our parents won’t have any reason to say that we can’t hang out any more … so that means you can still come over as much as you want, and we can have sleepovers and stuff.”

“I would be in so much trouble if they ever found out though … “ he said, looking worried. I brought my hand up to the side of his face again, caressing it gently.

“Hey, no one has to know. Maybe one day we’ll let everyone know, but they don’t have to know right now,” I said. I took a deep breath, trying to pace myself as I went about this. I was already talking like we were together and we hadn’t even defined anything yet. “So … what do you say?”

“I, um … okay,” he said, finally, looking up at me and smiling. “If you’re sure.”

“You can trust me,” I assured him. “I’ll admit I can be a bit of an ass, but I really do like you, Kellin.”

“That makes me really happy,” he said softly, suddenly clinging to me in the form of a hug. I hugged him back as he buried his face against my shoulder. I wanted to kiss him again, but before I could, I was interrupted by a knock at my door.

Kellin and I jumped apart before I turned to answer it. My mom was on the other side, in the middle of raising her fist to knock a second time.

“Oh, okay, good, you’re up,” she said, with a shrug. “I just wanted to let you know that Mrs. Quinn is downstairs, ready to take him home.”

“What do you mean take him home, he lives right there!” I sighed. My mom shot me a stern look before flashing a smile at Kellin.

“Watch your tone, mister, you know I’m covering your ass,” she said, before turning on her heel and walking down the hallway towards the stairs. I was about to walk out as well when Kellin suddenly grabbed me by the arm.

“Wait, what was she talking about?” he asked, sounding a little frantic. “Does she know about last night?”

“Uh … yeah, but don’t worry about it, she’s not going to tell your mom,” I assured him as I closed my bedroom door once more. I took one of his hands in mine and kissed his cheek quickly. “I made her promise.”

“Will she actually listen though?”

“Yeah, totally,” I shrugged. “I mean, she said she was impressed with how responsible I was or whatever.”

“You’re responsible?” he asked, jokingly. I rolled my eyes.

“Hey now, I was the one that got your drunk ass home in one piece,” I shot back, playfully.

“Oh, god, that’s really embarrassing,” he moaned, going over to put together his duffel bag and sleeping things that he didn’t actually need.

“Nah, it was funny,” I said, grinning as I watched him. “Did you have fun at least?”

He took his bag over his shoulder and just looked at me before answered, a satisfied grin displayed across his face.

“I think so,” he said, before stepping closer, “Because if I wasn’t intoxicated I never would have done this.”

And then he pressed his lips against mine, moving them quickly as he tried to fit a kiss in before he had to go. I stole another quick good-bye kiss before walking him downstairs and to his mom, who cheerfully thanked me for being nice to Kellin while he stayed over. I said goodbye to him and watched as they simply walked over to their house. It was pointless for her to have to walk him over, but whatever.

I just really hoped that things would work out.