After the weekend it’s time for one of our study sessions, Wyatt meets me at my place as usual. I have yet to ever visit Wyatt’s home, he’s always the one who comes to my place. I actually don’t even know where he lives now that I think about it. It’s just become our habit to meet at my place since it’s conveniently close to campus and I’m always late to everything, so I figured I couldn’t be late if I’m already at home. 

I thought I would feel confident about bringing up my recently organized feelings for him, as I usually feel good as soon as I have a plan for how to move forward with something, but as we study I keep fidgeting with my clothes and I’m having trouble keeping my leg still. I feel a bit restless and nervous, which means I’m not focusing very well. Suddenly, self doubt creeps in, what if he doesn’t like me? Like he hasn’t outright said that he does or that he wants to date me…

I’m so in my own head that it takes me by surprise when Wyatt gently touches my arm. I look up at him, there’s concern in his eyes… his beautiful, warm eyes… stop it Audrey, I think to myself, this is not the time to get lost in his eyes! Be confident, damnit!

“You okay? What are you thinking about so deeply?”, Wyatt asks, his hand is still gently resting on my arm. It’s warm and big, and I want to hold it. 

“I like you”, my eyes widen as the words slip out of my mouth. For a moment we both just sit in silence looking at each other; Wyatt’s mouth slightly open and me with a deer-in-headlights expression on my face. 

“You what?”, Wyatt says breathlessly after opening and closing his mouth a couple of times. He looks so cute, I shake off this weird shyness that doesn’t fit me. 

“I said I like you”, I say confidently this time, “so date me”. I say the last part with more bravado than I actually feel at that moment. It kind of sounds like a demand, I resist wincing, and instead nonchalantly add; “if you want to or whatever”. I can’t meet his eyes at that last part, I clear my throat and I feel myself blush which is very unlike me. I can control my expression very well but I can’t stop myself from blushing, that’s just not possible. 

I feel Wyatt’s hand move from my arm to my hand. He’s holding my hand. This is not a drill! Wyatt is holding my hand! My breath catches. My gaze snaps to him. Wyatt’s blushing too now, here we sit both just blushing as we hold hands. He nods and then we both can’t stop smiling, too shy to keep eye contact or say anything more right away. Why does this hand holding feel more intimate than when we literally hooked up, I think to myself, I wasn’t feeling shy back then. My eyes flit down to his lips, then back to his eyes, then down again. It seems like the right moment so I just go for it. I give him a quick peck on the lips. Our hands never letting go, our smiles making our cheeks hurt, our faces flushed. We bask in this glowy feeling for a while, and just being close to each other is enough. 

-

When I’ve calmed down a bit and my head clears, my concerns about dating openly reenter my mind. It’s a bit of a downer to bring up realistic things like that but when I suggest that we keep our relationship private, not really wanting to outright call it “secret” but needing to get the point across, Wyatt agrees easily and confesses somewhat shyly that he actually had similar concerns about the attention we would surely gather if we were to date publicly. 

“Yeah exactly, it’s a bit much to date openly on campus, so let’s just keep it between us for now and like see where it leads”, I summarize our agreement casually. It’s good that we are on the same page. 

After Wyatt leaves my place, I call Eve excitedly to tell her about it. When I said we should keep it between us to Wyatt, I meant it, but Eve’s obviously an exception, I have to tell her. She’s my best friend. We talk for hours, Eve shares all her tips for secret dates, as in the beginning her and Irene dated in secret too. They had to keep it a secret for other reasons, like their actual safety, which is sad but a precaution they had to take as a lesbian couple. After Mr. and Mrs. Montfort found out about it they fortunately were very supportive and even got them private security to keep them safe, maybe going a bit overboard, but better safe than sorry. 

“When you come from money like us, everything is bigger and more dramatic”, Eve laughs, but I know she’s grateful to be able to buy her safety, to some degree, as it’s something not everyone can do. 

At night I go to sleep with a smile on my face, excited for what’s to come.