Felix Ever After(85)
The float’s paused. Everyone’s watching now, people all around Ezra looking from him to me and back to him again.
“I love you!” I yell.
That gets the loudest cheer of all. People start clapping, shouting, blowing their whistles. Ezra pulls his shades off, and for a heart-stopping second, I think he’s about to turn away, to disappear into the crowd—but he hops up onto the barricade and leaps over, into the street, ignoring the shouts of the police officers. He jogs up to me, and I stand on the edge of the barricade so that we’re the same height just as he gets to me. I haven’t seen Ezra this close up in over a week, and just having him right here, right in front of me, makes my heart pump harder and harder, so hard that I can barely breathe, and I just want to throw my arms around him, hold him and kiss him—
“Sorry,” he says, breathless, grin on his face. God, I’ve missed him so fucking much. “What’d you say? I don’t think I heard you right.”
I bite the corner of my lip, trying to stop myself from smiling. “I said I love you.”
He squints at me. “Say that again? Just one more time.”
“I love you.”
He leans in, hands on my cheeks as he kisses me. I know the screams have gotten louder. I know people are cheering, and that the float behind us has continued moving, music loud—I know all of this, but only distantly, vaguely. Ezra hops over the barricade, taking my hand and pulling me through the crowd—people are literally throwing glitter right at us, clapping and patting us on our shoulders. We burst out from the crowd and onto a side street that’s emptier than all the others. Ezra turns to me, and I can’t help it—I almost die laughing. He looks like a glitter bomb exploded on him. From his grin, I know that I don’t look much better. He reaches down, wiping glitter from the corners of my eyes and my cheeks. He pulls his hand away, but I wish he wouldn’t. I haven’t spoken to him, haven’t touched him, haven’t even stood this close to him in almost two weeks, and—
“You mean it?” he says. Another blast of music, another cheer.
I force myself not to look away from him, even if nervousness and embarrassment make me want to hide my face in my hands. “Yeah. Yeah, I mean it.”
He pulls me in for a hug, holding me close, his chin nestled on the top of my head. He holds me so close I can feel his heart through his chest, and I know that he can feel mine, too—pumping hard and fast at first, but becoming steadier the longer we stand there together. Before, when Ezra would hug me, I never thought much about it—but now, there’s a pinch of nervousness overshadowed by excitement. Pure joy. Amazement, that I could’ve been with Ezra like this the entire time, if I hadn’t been so oblivious—to both his feelings, and my own. If I hadn’t been so afraid of letting myself feel a real love like this.
Twenty-Five
EZRA USUALLY SPENDS THE ENTIRE DAY AT PRIDE, BUT HE takes my hand and walks me to the train so we can head back to his apartment in Brooklyn. I text Leah that I found him, that we’ve made up and we’re going to hang out, and she sends me a bunch of heart and crying emojis.
The silence between me and Ezra on the train is strained, a little awkward—but not necessarily in a bad way. I can tell that we’re both just so excited to be next to each other, to have the chance to speak, and that we both have so much that we want to say, but we’re waiting for the moment we can finally be alone. He takes my hand, intertwining our fingers and rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I nod, biting back a smile. “Yeah. This is okay.”
We get off at the Bedford-Nostrand stop, still holding hands as we climb the stairs and cross the street, walk past the park and toward his apartment. I would’ve thought it’d feel awkward after a while, still holding his hand—like I wouldn’t know if he’d want to let go, or that I’d want to let go and not know how to tell him, but right here and now, I kind of hope that he never lets go again. He squeezes my hand a little, as if he read my mind and wants me to know that he feels the same.
He has to let go to get out his keys and unlock the front door, and we stomp up the stairs until he opens his apartment door. When it closes behind him, we stand in front of each other, staring at one another. Maybe this would’ve felt awkward or embarrassing once upon a time, but right now, I just want to paint this moment in my mind, something that I can always look back on and remember. I stare at his face as though I’m trying to commit every angle, the darkness of his eyes, the twitch of his smile to memory.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
“God, yeah.”
He laughs and leans in, kissing me softly. It feels like we’ve got all of the rest of time to kiss like this, to be together, to love one another. I take his hand and pull him to the couch, and we just sit there together, his head in my lap while I play with his curls.
“I can’t believe things turned out this way,” he says with a low voice, eyes closed, his fingers rubbing up and down my arm.
“Me either. I thought you were going to hate me forever.”
“I never hated you. I could never hate you.”
“Even after everything I said?” I internally flinch, remembering that night on his stoop, telling him that I didn’t want him to love me. I’d been too afraid to let myself feel this way. That feels like centuries ago now.