Now, after palling around since summer, Gabriel and Simon were best friends. And Gabriel privately hoped that maybe they were on their way to becoming more than that. They would often stay up, long into the night, whispering their secrets to each other across the small distance between their beds. At school, they sought each other out above all others. And last week, Simon had blushed when he walked into their bedroom while Gabriel was changing for bed. He’d been standing in only his briefs when Simon had burst into the room talking about something that had happened earlier that day at school. However, his point had been seemingly forgotten as he stumbled over his words and quickly looked away.
They hadn’t yet openly discussed their s****l orientation, but Simon kept dropping other little
