Meet Me in the Blue (Hemlock Harbor, #1)

by A.M. Johnson

His skin looked soft, the brown color of it almost matched his eyes. I didn’t know if thinking a boy’s skin looked soft was a normal thing to think, but I didn’t care.

“Then this will be our blue hour, Rook.” His smile spread wide as he turned to look at me. “This will always be our time.”

had been five years since I’d seen Luka Abrams. Five years of feeling lost without a compass.

But friendship was a funny thing, and like the miles between us, he grew more distant with every missed text, or phone call.

I could feel him there waiting, and as I broke through to the small clearing, I saw him. A man I didn’t recognize stood with his back to me, his eyes on the sky. The tattoos peeking out from under his damp cotton t-shirt were new, his bleach-blond hair was new too. My heart drummed inside my chest, but I was surprised to find it wasn’t in anger, but relief. So much relief. “Meet me in the blue,” I said. “I’ll always be here.”

He’s straight, Nora. He’s just a friend. He’s not into me like that. I can’t keep hoping. He loves you. He’s waiting. He’s confused. He’s here. He’s yours.

“You don’t get to do this,” he said. “You don’t get to come back and act like everything is fine. Like nothing has changed.”

Rook used to know when I needed him. He didn’t anymore.

But you… you’re like the sun, I can feel you from millions of miles away.”

“And I don’t care about whatever sexuality is what. Sometimes love is just love.”

“I love you too,” he said, but it wasn’t like that. Like I love you. Those three words for him meant growing up together, camping, s’more sticky fingers, Magic the Gathering, and awkward teenage angst. They meant forgive me and I’m sorry and I missed you. We were years together and years apart, and somewhere along the way, in the loss I’d felt in his absence, the lines had blurred for me, and I wished like hell they had for him too.

“Luka…” he called my name like he’d forgotten something. “I… I’m yours too.” “Even when you’re mad at me?” I asked, my heart dropping in my stomach, and his full lips pulled into a crooked smile. “Yeah, Luka. Even then.”

“The point to this entire story is that love isn’t easy. Love is sacrifice, son. It hurts, it’s messy, and shit, it will tear you up. At the risk of sounding like one of those greeting cards your sister loves to torture us with, I have to say it’s worth it. Love is worth every single hurt it gives. It’s worth it because it’s fucking living, and you deserve to live it.”

Luka and I were like two rivers, raging toward the same open sea, and there wasn’t a thing in this world, not death or distance or time, or even my own naivety that would keep us apart.

“I like sex. But I love you.”

All those years and memories, it was a turn on.

There wasn’t another person in this world who knew me better than him, and I wanted him in every way.

“I don’t think there’s a timetable that fits us, there isn’t a list of things we need to check off. I don’t know a lot of things about relationships, but I know you, and I know I’m in love with my best friend. And I’m ready, Luka… if you are.”

What we have… it feels boundless. It feels like forever.”