Behind the Scenes Ch. 09

'Of course I did. I don't know it though, the song?'

'That's because you only listen to noise with a beat and shouted, autotuned lyrics about big butts, smoking weed and money.' I grinned with a feigned sadness. 'You have no class or taste. No passion.'

'I do too have passion, grandpa. And I'm not a kid!' Connor exclaimed, seeming hurt by my comment. But I could easily see that smile creeping at the corners of his lips.

'Oh yeah? Tell me about it then.' I said.

'About my passion?' He asked.

'Yes, about your passion, you know romance, lady-skills. The whole shebang. How does Connor Dexter woo the chicks?' I asked boldly, grinning at his blush.

'Well, I have only actually ever dated one girl to be honest. And you know how that went.' He said in a boring tone. 'There were a few others along the way... but nothing serious.'

Con and I had spoken to each other loads of times, but we never really touched that pparticular subject: girls. Caytlin was the only one to speak of. Even if Connor had inquired me about my own love life, which I always tried to brush off a little. Now that the cat was out of the closet, so to speak, I had expected him to try and find out about any conquests I had made though.

It was strange though, that the last few weeks we had never really spoken about relationships and all. Isn't that the only thing us guys talk about? Girls and sex? Yet we never did. I definitely hadn't expected that he'd only had one girlfriend in his life though. That seemed remarkably unlikely for someone like Connor.

He was the ultimate catch. How could he not have had a million girls? Hell, I'd had more girlfriends than him. And I'm gay. I wanted to ask so many questions, and say so many things. But I only spoke one word.

'How?'

Connor simply shrugged his shoulders, popping a piece of bread in his mouth, collecting his thoughts as he chewed on it. Then he swallowed, put his elbows on the table, rested his head on one hand leaning towards me, and answered. 'I just never felt something for anyone but Caytlin, until that went to shit. And then, uh.. then I...'

'Then what?' I asked curiously.

'Nothing.' He sighed. He hadn't looked me in the eye when he said this. He appeared to be particularly interested in his cutlery.

'Oh, come on Con. What happened? Did you meet someone last week?' I asked, trying to sound excited for him, but I felt my heart sting painfully at the thought of Connor being involved with someone else.

And then, before he could continue of course, a waiter came back with our food. It was a different man than the person who showed us to our seats and brought us our drinks and the bread. The black-eyed one must have not been very keen to return to our table, fearing Connor deadpanning him into the ground.

Connor took a deep breath, thinking he was off the hook now that the food had arrived. That was not going to happen.

The waiter muttered a few incoherent words, which I realised must have been the dishes. Then he said: 'Bon appétit.' and left us.

We dug in, I didn't realise I was so hungry, until I saw the delicious food in front of me. And it tasted amazing. I moaned a little at my first bite of the chicken. Connor shifted, looking up at me uncomfortably. No doubt anxious that I was going to continue where we'd left off.

He was right.

'So?' I asked.

'It's really good.' Connor said immediately. I raised an eyebrow at him. He threw me a defeated look.

'Fine. I did meet someone some time ago, actually. And well... I was still dating Caytlin at that point.' Connor added nonchalantly, keeping his full attention on the food he was pushing around on his plate.

Inspite of my exasparation and failure to understand why Connor was so reluctant to talk to me, I had to admit he looked completely adorable sitting there in front of me. I almost didn't register what he had said, but when I did I felt a small pang in my chest.

Still, I asked, 'Oh really? When? Where? Do you love her?'

Connor looked at me and blushed furiously.

'I-I do. Yeah.'

My heart felt as heavy as an anvil, and it dropped straight to my stomach. Eventhough it was not a surpise at all.

It was clear he didn't want to talk about this anymore, but somehow I felt like he owed me a little. He had just found out about the one single thing I wanted to keep a secret, but now, he knew I liked guys. And he didn't even feel comfortable telling me about his feelings for another girl? Why?

And why was I so insistent to talk about it anyway? Did I actually want to know anything about Connor and his interest in girls? No. Maybe not. But I didn't want him to not tell me either. That was somehow even worse. So I pressed on.

'Okay then. So... tell me about her? What's she like?' I asked, my food long forgotten. Connor looked to be in worse discomfort than ever before.

'She uh... she's great. She's sweet, smart, incredibly funny, strong, independent, mindblowingly sexy...'

Okay, maybe I didn't want to know after all. Who the fuck was this girl?

What was even worse was, that apparently now that the floodgates had opened, Connor couldn't seem to shut up about her.

To my astonishment, now that we had arrived at the topic of the lady in question, instead of Connor's feelings for her, he seemed unable to shut the hell up. He was clearly over the moon and every fiber of hope in my heart dissolved into nothingness. All the while keeping a pained grin on my face. What could I do? This is what I was aiming for, for him to finally talk like he usually did. Right?

And how had I not noticed it before? Connor was describing this girl as if he'd done nothing but study this girl from top to bottom for the past month. To the point that I almost started to feel a little bad for Caytlin. Connor apparently, was that into this bimbo.

Even as all of this passed through my thoughts, he was still rambling on about her. It sounded quite ridiculous too, I had never seen Connor this pathetically soft and sweet. He looked like a dreadful character in an awfully written and unbearably cliché romance movie. Seriously, who was this woman?

'...but, the best thing about her is not that I think about her almost every minute of every day, or that a simple glance at her lips makes me want to smash my face into hers. Not her perfect body that I want to see so badly in person that I struggle not to rip her clothes off when I'm too close. And not even the fact that I've been so damn horny that I'm practically always trying to hide the painfully rock-hard pole in my boxers!' He whisper-yelled that last part. I almost laughed, whether because Connor's speech was ridiculous or because I had practically pressed the "Play" button myself, I wasn't sure. Jesus, he was completely hooked on her. I was sitting there, open-mouthed, shocked and hurt. Eventhough Connor did nothing wrong.

'The best thing, and also the worst, is that she's my best fucking friend. And she opened my eyes completely. I admire her and she's completely out of my league.'

Hold on.

Hold. The fuck. On.

I couldn't stop myself from saying, barely keeping my voice down; 'She is your what? What do you mean your best friend?! That's me, I'm your best friend!'

I had to keep it together, I wasn't actually angry at him. Just at everything he just said. No, no I was angry at him. He told me we were best friends. And that was both the only reason I hadn't made a massive move on him, and the reason I could live with not making a massive move on him.

Eyes were drawn to our table for a moment, a hard glare from me turned their heads back to their own tables.

'Leo, look I didn't mean-' But I wasn't having it.

'Do you know what I feel for you? Do you have any idea what you've been doing to me?! I've been trying to push back and ignore the biggest crush I've ever had in my entire life. I've been pretending that I haven't had feelings for you that go a long, long way beyond friendship. I've been working every day and night to get you out of my head to keep everything between us as professional as possible so that we could do our job and nothing dramatic could come between us. I've been acting all this time, because I knew that if I couldn't have you, I sure as hell wasn't going to accept anything less than being your best friend. And now you tell me I'm not even that!?' My voice cracked at the end, but I didn't care.

During my rant, I hadn't at all paid any attention to how Connor was taking it. I gasped in surprise when I looked up at him.

For the second time that evening the sight of Connor took me completely by surprise. This time however, I wasn't sure whether it was a happy surprise as much as a shocking one.

A single tear was slowly trickling down his cheek from the corner of his eye. Yet, he was smiling.

'But Leo... You are my best friend.'