Rendez-vous pour l'intimité

"I want you to promise that later tonight when we can get a little privacy, we can talk this over like the actual adults we are, for as long as I need us to. Okay? And if we can't tonight, promise me we still will. Because otherwise I swear to god, my head is utterly wrecked about your whole kiss and flee thing."

"Yeah, all right," he says reluctantly. "That's fair enough, I guess."

"And don't you dare pretend like this didn't happen or something, or gaslight me acting like it didn't mean anything." You snake out your hand and press your palm on his bare chest, over his heart. He stands there, staring at you, with his heart thumping steadily against his ribs and your hand. "It did mean something, to both of us."

Dex gives you a long, searching look, as if you might have Dan Brown novel scale secrets lurking inside you. "Bridge?" he asks after a moment, then continues when you look questioningly at him. "If you need me to act normal tonight, my brain's gonna need some of its blood back." He glances significantly downward, and when you track where he's indicating, you jerk your eyes back upward from his lower half to where your best friend for the last twelve or thirteen years keeps his face (the top part of him), because a person's face is an appropriately platonic place to look if they probably aren't on the spectrum, and the huge hard-on currently straining to escape Dex's boxer shorts and oozing something wet—pre-cum, you think that might be?—well anyway, fuck!

You really want to look again.

You jerk your hand away from his chest, when you realize it's probably at least thirty seconds you stood there still touching him and trying to will yourself not to be so warmly, excitedly turned on, by the fact that this you-think-maybe-impressive-looking penis has been here all along, and he liked kissing you so much that he's about to shred his boxers Hulk-style. And all it took was you touching your hand to his chest.

Has Dex been carrying some kind of torch for you? you wonder. Or is it all just teen hormones and any guy would get hard the same exact way so you're crazy if you think it makes you special?

When he hooks your chin with one finger and raises it so your eyes meet his, Dex resumes his consideration of whatever he was getting from looking into your eyes before. "Do you wanna talk about something like math?" you offer. "Help knock that mighty redwood down?"

Dex busts out laughing.

It's nice knowing you haven't lost your gift. The tension evaporated just like that, and you got to compliment his penis, to his face, but in a satisfyingly we're cool, everything's totally cool and fine and normal way.

"I'm going to walk in front," he tells you. "If this tree needs felled, I can't be watching your nominally-clothed ass bounce invitingly all the way up the hill."

Fair enough.