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My parents will be here in the , and my belly is full of nerves over it, but they’re happy nerves I don’t kno I’ to introduce Nate, but I know my mom and her intuition, so I don’t think I will have to say much I just hope they love him as much as they always loved Josh

Josh was a part of our fa He spent ti baseball But there was a love there, a connection I desperately want them to feel that with Nate

"There, s His hair is wet and twisted in all directions I love the way the ends are golden fro him to toss his wet towel froain tonight I think that’s the real reason Ty wanted us toone of his McConnell baseball shirts over his head I’oing to happen tonight, Nate is going to need to be the aggressor I’lad to end the fussy fuss," I laugh

"Oh god, I swear, him and fussy fuss! He used to make fun of me ere kids with that damned phrase He’d puncha fussy fuss"

"That’s ht? I’m such a victiether and leans forward to rest theainst his knees His smile is shy and uncolances, then looking away as soon as we’re caught It’s funny how putting your feelings out in the open can add this whole new layer to your world We both see what to do with one another or how to act And I wish like hell he’d just kiss

"You wanna get hi to erase the aardness in the air

"Huh?"

"Ty You wanna get him back? You know, for the years of abuse?" I raisesmile

"Uh, yeah I do What’d you have in e that I a at his chest He pulls me in for a quick kiss

"You had uire"

I spend a fewopen a feers and looking for just the right point of attack

"He has a Playboy in here We could pull solue theest

"No, Ty would actually like that In fact, I think he’s done that before," Nate says, joining h drawers and look under Ty’s bed

I’et to the bottom drawer and I move a few balls of socks to the side "Uh, Nate? What…is this?" I ask holding up the small, brown teddy bear with twoit fro it once "Unbelievable! I can’t believe he still has this thing…and he brought it, to grad school!"

"Nate…we have our target," I s it in the bottoe, and Ty is about to be our bitch for the next few days"

"I LOVE it!" he says, laughing and picking enius! An evil genius--an evil, sexy genius!"

He kisses s off of the ground, and the ed I don’t even hesitate with he finally setsme backward toward his bed, all the while his lips on mine I pull my shirt over my head, and he folloith his It was only on hiet real when he reaches for the button on his jeans, unsnapping and kicking thes And all of the absoluteness--the sureness and confidence I had felt lad he’s not, because Nate is who I love now But he’s not some sixteen-year-old inexperienced boy It’s clear in the way he looks, in the way heme now

"We don’t have to do this, you know," he says, sensing my nerves How could he not, I’ht of stopping--of not getting to have him completely--makes e his mind