Chapter 19 

Jedidiah smiled politely at the journalist; he was sure that no matter what he said, the woman would find some way to wrangle it negatively so that he sounded suspicious and like he was still involved in questionable affairs.

It was fairly well known that the Hargraves did some possibly not legal things, but that this had never actually been confirmed. It was all rumours, even if a good 70% of the old ones were true.

Now, they were almost exclusively untruths; the Hargraves were earning an honest living running a hotel whilst just getting on with their own lives. 

After the interview, Mateo led the journalist back to the reception whilst Jedidiah sighed, rubbing his eyes. Mateo was acting slightly weird with him, ever since he’d taken Mateo to the park last week and told the man about what had happened there.

But, Jedidiah just tried to ignore it. Mateo was just his assistant, and had made it fairly clear that he didn’t plan on being friends with Jedidiah. He’d tried, he really had. He wanted to be friends with Mateo, and was slightly upset to learn that even Lesedi was closer with Mateo than he was; just the other day he’d been hanging out with his best friend only to find that she was texting his assistant.

And there was absolutely no way they were talking about work related things; Lesedi didn’t even work in this field at all; she owned a successful beauty company.

So what was he doing wrong that his best friend was doing right? Normally it didn’t bother Jedidiah if he met someone who didn’t want to be friends; it was fair enough and he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that everyone would like him.

But for some reason, it really bothered him that no matter how hard he tried to get close to Mateo, the man never showed any interest back. “It’s not like he has to, but I don’t get why this is even bothering me so much,” he said aloud with a groan. 

Moments later, he received a text from Mateo saying that James had asked him to get something, so he would be a little later back to the office than anticipated. The whole message was composed like a formal letter, and half of Jedidiah wanted to laugh; the other half wanted to cry.

Mateo was more formal and professional than anyone Jedidiah had ever met before.

When his office door opened shortly after, Jedidiah’s smile at the hope of Mateo’s swift return was dashed to pieces when he saw his best friend instead. Lesedi snorted, coming over to sit at the armchairs opposite Jedidiah’s desk.

“Don’t look too thrilled to see me now why don’t you,” she said with a raised eyebrow. Jedidiah sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I thought you were Mateo.” He instantly glanced up, meeting Lesedi’s gaze.

“Because I need his help with something. Something work related. That’s why,” he clarified, but Lesedi had seen through the lie instantly.

“I don’t know why you’re so interested in Mateo - I mean he’s a nice guy, and pretty interesting and easy to get on with, and he’s talented in many areas, and he’s also attractive - but apart from that, I don’t know why you’re so determined to be friends with him,” Lesedi said with a slight smirk.

“Unless of course, you don’t want to be just friends with him, and there’s actually something I’m missing here. Talking of, have you given what we talked about the other day any more thought?” Lesedi asked, one eyebrow still raised.

Jedidiah sighed, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat. “If I’m gay? Maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t had feelings for anyone since Rebecka, and I genuinely don’t know if I actually liked her or if I just thought I should like her,” he said honestly. 

Jedidiah had only dated one person before, a girl named Rebecka when he was fifteen or sixteen - and he still, to this day, didn’t know if what he’d been feeling back then were actual romantic feelings for the girl, or if he wanted to be friends with her.

She’d approached him first saying she liked him, and she was a pretty girl. All his school friends said he would be mad not to date her, so he asked her out. And Jedidiah got on with the girl, she was very friendly and easy to talk to. 

She lacked a bit of common sense, but it was kind of cute; or at least that’s what all Jedidiah’s friends had said, so he started saying it too.

And then Rebecka broke up with him, saying he didn’t like her enough. Which fair enough; he just didn’t. And since then, Jedidiah had never had feelings for anyone, or thought about it much. There had been a time when Lesedi brought up maybe being aromantic to him, but Jedidiah wasn’t sure.

And then Lesedi brought up being gay to him. She wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t for how much Jedidiah talked about his new assistant, and how her best friend looked when he talked about Mateo.

“Jed, I’ll be honest with you. I think you’re having a gay crisis. I think you have a crush on Mateo Montero and you don’t know how to deal with that, so you’re channeling it into ‘wanting to be friends’ and then you get upset when Mateo doesn’t make any move to get closer to you.”

Jedidiah went to shake his head adamantly, to deny it; deny that he was gay and that he had feelings for Mateo. But then he stopped, and just thought about it. 

“How- how will I be able to tell? Is there some kind of test I can take to work out if I like him or not?” He asked in all honesty.

Lesedi smiled kindly, standing up from her seat and coming around the desk to hug her friend. “Can you imagine holding his hand?”

Jedidiah scoffed; “why would I ever want to hold hands with a man- oh,” he said more quietly. He quite liked the idea, actually. “But that’s ridiculous, Mateo would never want to hold my hand. But I- I wouldn’t hate it,” he whispered.

Lesedi’s smile grew and she squeezed his shoulder. “Ok, so hand-holding is nice. What about…a kiss?”

Jedidiah abruptly stood up from his seat, striding over to the bookshelves on the walls and inspecting them intently. After a five minute silence, he very slowly turned back around to look at his best friend.

“Lesedi, I think I might be gay.”