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It’s the Friday after finals and Alex is at a party that June is throwing to celebrate being done. He hadn’t realized that lit majors could party quite as hard as they are partying tonight, and he’s pleased that June’s friends are all such fun people. Plus there aren’t any freshmen puking into bushes, which makes this a huge step up from the time Liam dragged him to a frat party.
June’s apartment is decked out for the holidays, and they are all drinking wine and boozy hot cider. There are a few sprigs of mistletoe hanging in doorways. Alex hopes he ends up under the mistletoe with June’s friend Amber.
Then one of June’s classmates grabs an empty wine bottle and suggests spin the bottle.
June’s friends are pretty diverse in terms of sexualities and gender and the party goers quickly decide that gender doesn’t matter where the bottle is concerned.
Alex has a nice buzz on and everything is delightfully fuzzy. He can deal with a gay kiss if it comes up. It’s not a threat to his heterosexuality. He’s an ally for fucks sake!
Alex avoids thinking too hard about how much Nora had laughed when he said that once in front of her.
Alex gets assurance from the group that he won’t have to kiss June even if the bottle suggests incest and then finds a place in the circle next to June and takes a big sip of his cider. This is fine. Totally fine. Not weird and not at all exciting. Alex ignores the frisson of anticipation in his stomach when he looks around the circle.
Amber is the first one to spin and tragically she does not end up kissing Alex. A few more people spin. Then the bottle lands on Henry, June’s most annoyingly attractive male classmate. Look, he’s objectively perfect looking, and so Alex thinking he’s hot isn’t gay. Alex has eyes and no human with eyes could deny that Henry is stunning. It’s dumb how hot he is. Alex kind of hates him. Alex also kind of wants to touch his hair.
Henry kisses someone named Susan without ceremony and then it’s his turn to spin. He spins hard and Alex gets a little dizzy watching the bottle. He blames the dizziness for the fact that he doesn’t notice that the bottle lands on him until June starts laughing and elbows him in the side. Then he notices. And he notices Henry who is sitting back on his heels in the middle of the circle looking uncomfortable. Maybe Henry is straight too and is worried about this kiss threatening his heterosexuality.
Alex decides that must be what’s going on and he resolves to demonstrate to Henry how this doesn’t have to be weird. He crawls confidently into the center and goes up on his knees.
“Hi,” he says quietly and is surprised at how rough and unsteady his voice sounds.
Henry says hi back and then takes a deep breath.
“This doesn’t have to be a big deal,” Alex says and Henry makes a face.
Alex decides he’s going to have to make the first move and so he cups Henry’s face in his hands and guides his mouth to Alex’s.
Henry hesitates for half a second and then he kisses Alex back. And it’s good. It’s so fucking good. The kiss is electric and every place their bodies touch feels impossibly alive. Henry opens his mouth and Alex opens his and then Henry’s tongue is sliding against his and things get even better.
They kiss for what feels like years but also like seconds. Alex hears Nora’s hysterical laughter and June’s muttered ‘ew’ but it’s just faded background noise. Henry’s hands are in his hair tugging gently and Alex really wants to know what would happen if he pulled a little harder.
Alex is vaguely aware that someone is calling his name but he doesn’t pull away and Henry doesn’t either. They kiss until a pillow hits Alex in the back of the head and the shock of impact causes the two of them to separate.
They stare at each other. Henry’s lips are wet and kiss swollen. He’s flushed and panting, eyes unreadable.
“Okay,” June says, “That was distressing. Maybe we should take a break from spin the bottle.”
“Yeah, I need to splash water on my face,” June’s friend who might be named Zachary says quietly. Alex doesn’t know what he means, but he’s glad the game is breaking up. He feels like the kiss with Henry changed something fundamental in him, like it re-wrote his DNA somehow and he needs to figure out what changed, why he feels like that. Plus he maybe doesn’t want to kiss anyone else ever again, so that’s a thing that would make continuing the game awkward.
An hour later, Alex decides that autopiloting through casual conversations while he replays the kiss in his head isn’t really working as a party strategy. He needs to go home and sleep off the cider and the kiss. He hopes after a long rest he will feel more like himself.
He goes into the kitchen to put his mug in the dishwasher and he finds Henry having what looks like a very intense conversation with a guy whose name Alex remembers is Pez. Pez looks up and gives him a broad smile but Henry shifts uncomfortably and starts to excuse himself.
Without thinking Alex grabs Henry’s arm to stop him. “Wait.”
Henry stops moving and meets his eyes briefly and then looks away.
Poor guy. Clearly still feeling like his heterosexuality is being threatened. Alex’s duty, as an ally, is to comfort him and help him see that it’s okay to be a straight dude who really enjoyed kissing another straight dude.
“Look, Henry, that kiss was amazing.”
Henry meets his eyes again, and Alex wishes he has some sort of user’s guide that would tell him what was starting to bloom in Henry’s eyes.
“It was amazing, but it doesn’t change our sexualities.”
“Yes,” Henry says tightly, shutting his eyes, “I know.”
“I mean. We’re both still straight.”
Pez chokes behind him.
“We can just say ‘no homo’ and move on with our lives.” That hurts to say and not only because he’s picturing all the ways Nora might kill him if she ever finds out he said “no homo” unironically.
The thing is, Alex would love to kiss Henry again, maybe a lot more, maybe with fewer clothes, but it’s really clear that Henry is having a sexuality crisis and Alex has to respect that.
Henry looks offended. “I have never said ‘no homo’ in my life.”
Alex’s stomach sinks, he was sort of hoping that they could come out of this friends, but that isn’t looking likely. “So you haven’t done anything like this before?”
“What, had an earth-shaking kiss with a straight man? No, I’ve never done that before.”
Alex nods. The coldness in Henry’s voice is overwhelming and it causes Alex’s brain to skip right past the ‘earth-shaking’ part of the statement. Alex figures he should just cut his losses and try to escape this without being yelled at because of someone else’s sexuality crisis. “Okay. Just…I’m really sorry.”
Henry sighs, “No apology necessary, we can’t very well change who we are.”
Alex nods again and turns to leave the kitchen.
As he goes he hears Pez saying, “Haz, you are, without doubt, the stupidest man I’ve ever met.”
Alex walks faster so that he doesn’t have to hear Henry’s response.
Alex wakes up the next morning feeling almost unbearably sad. The previous night is a little fuzzy, but he remembers the kiss vividly, and he remembers the conversation with Henry after. He doesn’t remember every detail but he knows the basics. Henry had some sort of gay panic freakout and they had a really shitty, really short conversation about it.
He tries not to think about either the kiss or the conversation but that proves impossible. It was the best kiss of his life and Alex can’t help but obsess.
What he doesn’t obsess about is his sexuality. No seriously, he doesn’t. Not at all, not even a little.
Except he does. Constantly. Every second not spent reliving the kiss in surround sound is spent obsessing about what it means for Alex’s life. What it means about Alex as a person. What it means for Alex’s ability to ever be satisfied kissing anyone other than Henry.
Alex has always been an overthinker and this is no exception. He turns the issue over and over in his head. After four days he comes to three conclusions. 1) He’s bi and was really dumb not to realize sooner. 2) He is stupid into Henry. 3) Henry is straight and Alex needs to fucking get over him.
He drunkenly confesses it all to June and Nora the night before Nora goes to Vermont for Hanukkah and June and Alex go to Austin for Christmas. His head is in June’s lap and his feet are in Nora’s and he cries a little.
“Oh honey,” June says, “Henry is…”
“June. Not now,” Nora cuts in, “Let him get there on his own.”
Alex is drunk enough that her statement makes no sense and he can feel himself drifting toward sleep.
“Nora, that's mean.” June says.
“It’s not mean! He actually said the phrase ‘no homo’ in complete seriousness, let him stew a little as punishment.”
Alex is asleep before he hears June’s response.
The four-day trip to Austin is wretched. Alex goes through the motions but he feels like he’s operating at half power. His family is obviously worried but Alex can’t bring himself to care. Alex doesn’t understand why he’s so upset about losing one guy after one kiss but he really, really is.
On Christmas Day Alex tries really hard to be present with his family. He sort of succeeds and can see the relief in all three of his parent’s eyes every time he manages an approximation of a smile.
Returning to New York and his tiny studio apartment and June and Nora’s slightly larger apartment is depressing, but Alex tries really hard not to sink into it. He mopes, but he makes an effort to leave his apartment every day. It’s sort of touch and go but every day at the end of the day June makes him report on his out of the apartment activities. The check-ins are annoying but effective. He’s trying.
June invites him to a party for New Year’s and Alex decides to go.
“No spin the bottle, right?”
June laughs. “Absolutely none.”
He gets ready at June and Nora’s apartment and looks pretty hot if he does say so himself. Before they leave, Nora hands him a small box. “We have a present for you. You should open it before we go to the party.”
Alex takes the box with a quizzical look at Nora.
“Open it,” June says with a huge grin on her face.
“But Christmas and Hanukkah are both over.”
“We know,” Nora says, “It’s a New Year’s gift. Open it.”
Alex opens it slowly, more than a little concerned about what it is. Under the snowflake print wrapping paper is a white box and when Alex takes the lid off he sees a small slip of paper folded in half.
“This is really weird you guys.”
“Read the fucking paper Alejandro, this is getting boring.”
Alex snorts but he picks up the paper and opens it.
The paper reads, in June’s loopy cursive, “Henry is really, really gay.”
Alex’s jaw drops. “Wait, what? Is this real? If it’s not, it's mean.”
June smiles. “It’s real. Henry is gay.”
“Super gay,” Nora chimes in.
“Fuuuck,” Alex breathes. “Why did he tell me he was straight?”
“Think back on that kitchen convo, did he ever actually say he was straight?” Nora asks.
Alex thinks hard. “Well, no. But I said he was straight and he didn’t disagree.”
“Did you give him a chance to?” June asks gently.
Alex thinks for a few moments. “Oh fuck.”
June and Nora laugh.
“WAIT! Why did you let me freak out for so long?”
Nora rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t that long.”
“It’s been two weeks since I told you I was upset! And I was upset for a week before that!”
“Pssh! Ten days since you told us. Don’t exaggerate.”
Alex looks at June. “You saw me in Texas. I was miserable.”
She looks down, “Yeah, I know you were.”
“June!”
“I just wanted you to be sure.”
“What?!”
“I wanted you to be sure about Henry, because I didn’t want either of you to get hurt. Nora convinced me that letting you stew for a while and seeing if it stuck was the best way to make sure.”
“Also,” Nora interjects, “You said the phrase ‘no homo’ and meant it. What the fuck Alex?”
Alex ignores her and keeps looking at June. “Bug, that’s really, really, mean.”
She keeps her eyes on her shoes. “I know, I’m so sorry.”
Alex shakes his head.
Nora shoves him, “Look, be mad later. We’re going to this party and you are going to have a fairy tale moment with a kiss from your true love at midnight.”
“Mad later? I’m mad now. I just…wait, is he going to be at the party?”
“Well Pez is throwing it so it would be shocking if he wasn’t.”
“We will definitely be discussing this later but first, June, I need to borrow some hair product. I don’t look cute enough to see him tonight.”
“You just said that you looked ‘smokin hot,’ you need a level beyond that?”
“Yes! I need to look perfect! But I don’t have any nice clothes at your apartment! What am I going to do? I can’t…”
Nora slaps her hand over his mouth to stop the spiral and June pulls him out of the apartment.
He sees Henry as soon as he walks into Pez’s apartment. Alex starts to walk across the room toward him and then he sees Henry see him. He sees Henry blanch, excuse himself from the conversation he was having, and fade into the crowd.
“Shit.”
Alex spends the next hour trying to connect with Henry but he only gets glimpses because Henry is always on the move.
At ten minutes to midnight he admits defeat. He tells June and Nora he’s taking off and goes to find Pez to thank him for inviting him and to tell him he’s leaving. His mama raised him right, he would never leave a party without thanking the host.
Pez grins at him and says, “Alexander! You can’t leave, it’s almost midnight! And we’ve barely spent any time together!”
Alex smiles tightly, “Rain check? I’m not feeling great.”
Pez gives him an appraising look. “Have you seen my bedroom yet? There’s something in there I think you’ll enjoy. Go on in, down that hall, second door on the right.”
Alex is confused as fuck but Pez seems set on the idea and he really isn’t in the mood to argue so he goes.
He opens the door slowly and hears a familiar voice from inside, “Is he gone yet, Pez? I’m not leaving this room until he goes.”
Hope bubbles in his chest and Alex opens the door all the way.
“Rude!” he says to Henry who immediately stands looking very very anxious. “Is that any way to talk about someone who has spent the whole evening trying to find you?”
Henry looks down. “Oh, did you? I didn’t realize…”
Alex raises his brow.
Henry sighs, “Fine. I realized. What do you want, Alex?”
“I’m pissed at you,” Alex says.
Henry’s flinch tells Alex he said the wrong thing. Alex takes a deep breath and tries being gentler. “Maybe more confused than pissed.”
Henry doesn’t relax.
“You’re gay, Henry.”
Henry lets out a ragged breath. “Well spotted, A+ observational skills.”
“You let me think you were straight.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well, I was trying to avoid the inevitable punch that comes when a straight man kisses a gay man and then likes it.”
“You thought I would punch you?” Alex is aghast.
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s done it.”
“Jesus. Who the hell have you been spending time with? You thought I would have some sort of gay panic and punch you because I liked the kiss so much?”
“Well you seemed so intent on making sure I knew you were straight.”
“I thought you were having a gay panic!”
“Well, I thought perhaps you were somewhat homophobic.”
“Hey! I’m an ally! Was an ally? Thought I was an ally?”
Henry sets his shoulders, juts his chin out, and finally looks Alex in the eye. “You’re an ‘ally’ in the past tense?”
“Well I’m not sure you can really be an ally when you are part of a community.”
Henry looks like someone has just hit him in the face with a fish. “You’re…”
“Bi, yeah. I mean, I didn’t know it at the time we talked, and I don't have much experience with men but I had a really hot kiss a few weeks ago that made me stop fooling myself about it all.”
“That kiss…”
“Was my bisexual awakening, yeah.”
The anxiety falls from Henry’s face, replaced by smugness that Alex finds stupid hot even though it should be annoying. “Well, it was an excellent kiss,” Henry says.
Alex steps into Henry’s space. “It rearranged my entire universe.”
Outside the room Alex can hear the party start counting down to the ball drop.
Henry puts one hand on Alex’s chest and cups Alex’s cheek with the other. “Mine too.”
This time Henry’s the one who guides their mouths together and when their lips touch Alex feels something click into place. He pulls Henry impossibly closer.
It’s well into the new year before they break apart.