Tin-Foil Hearts

"I have a delivery for a 'Mr. Eric Grant'?"

A delivery?

"Uh, sure. That's me. Come on up."

I buzzed through disembodied delivery man, and curiously awaited him until five knocks on my apartment door announced his arrival. Opening it, I was surprised by the sight of two dozen long-stem red roses and a velvety red gift box with a gold bow and ribbon.

"What the- I'm sorry, these can't be for me," I stammered as he started to shove the flowers into my arms. He flipped through a clipboard for a moment, then presented me a paper with my name and address on it.

"Is this information here correct, Mr. Grant?"

"Yes... I just, I can't imagine where they're from."

"I'm afraid I don't have the sender's name, sir. However, there seems to be an envelope in the bunch of roses - perhaps that will help you."

Indeed, there stuck out a gold envelope with my name scrawled in fancy writing. I fumbled to manage the flowers and the flat red box, then turned back to the delivery man.

"Do I need to sign for these or anything?"

"No, sir," he smiled at my obvious confusion.

"Alrighty, then," I struggled. "Thank... you?"

"You have a nice day, Mr. Grant. And just so you know," he added. "That's a nicer bouquet of flowers you've got there than I've seen any lady with this past Valentine's Day."

"Thanks," I mumbled as he walked away.

I let out a sigh as I closed the door behind me. Four steps away, I sat down on a stool in the kitchen and set the flowers and box on the counter. I plucked the envelope out of the roses and hoped it would glean some insight as to who the sender might be. As I extracted the sealed letter several pages long, I recognized the familiar, careful writing of my best friend and a chill ran through my veins.

Eric,

I know this is too late for Valentine's Day, but I saw these at the grocery store (remember the one we worked at when we were fifteen? You pretended to flirt with the girls, and I pretended I didn't care?) and they made me think of you - but, then again, I'm always thinking of you. Also, they were on clearance.

I love you.

You know that, of course. I say it all the time. You even say it to me. I can almost hear you, seven-years-old, saying 'I love you, Jonah' in Miss Kingsley's second grade class during nap-time, where we huddled beneath the quilt your grandmother made. And I said 'I love you more'. And you smiled so wide I wondered that your face didn't split right in half. You still smile like that, you know - like even the smallest thing, whether a passing compliment or a shared half of a Twix bar, has made your entire week. With those huge, deep chocolate eyes of yours, you sure know how to make a person feel like a million bucks. I still don't know how you do it.

You're my best friend. We tell each other everything. Right? You're a hopeless liar, and cannot keep a secret if the world depended on it. I can count on one hand how many times you've managed to surprise me with a birthday present because you'd always give it to me early, too excited to wait. You just about combusted when I made you keep Pat's twenty-first birthday party we planned for him at the strip club a secret. And after all that work, you didn't come to celebrate with us. The so-called fairer sex has never appealed to me, but even I went - and the strippers were very much female. Oh, right, you had to work. You were covering for Laura at that awful casino you guys worked at. What I found odd about that, though, was Laura was with us that night. And good old Mr. Facebook had you located at your house.

But maybe you forgot your phone there. You'd always had a habit of leaving it on the table after you'd eaten breakfast, before school. I should know - how many times did we end up late to class because we had to go back for it? Every time you did, I threatened to leave you behind so at least I would be on time; I never did. Of course, your mother would have killed me if I had, and that would've been the end of our constant sleepovers.

Oh, the sleepovers. Remember how we used to beg our parents to have sleepovers? As elementary-school kids, the only way they were allowed is if we both kept our rooms cleaned, and our parents would call each other to decide whether or not we deserved it. Eventually, though, we were permanent fixtures in each other's houses. God, so many all-nighters full of junk food and video games. We had so many great conversations in the early hours of the morning, from gossip about our friends to debates over the creation of the universe.

Even as we grew older, though, we still huddled beneath your grandmother's hand-made quilt. That was our safe place. There was no judgement there, no matter what the topic was. Always just you and I. So what if we sometimes didn't wear our pyjamas? Or if we woke up in each other's arms? Nobody had to know that I liked to rest my chin on your stomach while you ran your fingers through my hair. And maybe you liked to stroke my back, and I liked to caress your chest. Sure, our touches occasionally went to more intimate places, but they were no less innocent. A few flitting touches, that was all that ever happened. It was okay. I was just you, just me.

Your first girlfriend sure thought our closeness was weird, though. And she didn't even know about the sleepovers. Oh, well, Chelsea was a bitch anyway. You lost your virginity to her, didn't you? You were so nervous to tell me! That was the first time you ever purposely tried to hide something from me. And then I hugged you, and you let out a big breath, glad I wasn't mad at you. And I wasn't. Not really.

You, though, you were mad when I got my first boyfriend. Augustus Yarnold. What was I thinking, going out with a guy named Augustus Yarnold? But puppy love knows no bounds, and it was hardly a month before I slept with him. Boy, if I thought you were upset about me and him before that, you were downright furious after I told you. You yelled at me on and on about how he didn't deserve me, but got very, very quiet when I asked you exactly who you imagined would. You got over it, though. At about the same time we broke up, coincidentally. And by 'broke up', I mean 'I caught him getting a blowjob in a closet from a freshman'.

Yeah, we definitely had a sleepover that night. I needed to cry, to mourn the death of my first relationship, and you were there to help me through it. You held me in your arms and whispered in my ear about how one day I'd find someone who loved me so much they would move mountains if that's what it took to make me happy.

And then I tried to kiss you.

We'd never kissed.

You got this panicked, choked look on your face and shook your head slowly. You said you couldn't kiss me, that you didn't think of me that way, that you weren't into guys, and that I was only doing that because you were being nice to me while I was in pain. That in the morning, I would realize you were right. We went to sleep. I didn't bring it up again.

We still haven't kissed.

But you still love me. And I, most assuredly, still love you, and the way you smell like honey and lemon. We still huddle together beneath that tattered old quilt, all these year later. We're two grown men at twenty-three years old, and it's our business and nobody else's about how I trace your lips with my fingers, or how you hug me to you in your sleep.

I see things, though.

I see the girls that talk to you, that push themselves onto you, that flutter their eyelashes at you, that may as well have a tattoo across their forehead reading 'take me home tonight'; but you don't see them. You give them a polite smile and shuffle around them. You don't even see the guys with the tight, bright tank tops that pet along your arms in admiration and giggle at everything you say.

I see you, Eric.

I see how you stare at my behind when I walk in front of you. I see the way your hand twitches towards mine when we walk alongside each other. I see how when you're not paying attention, you end up staring at my lips as if they were the most fascinating image on Earth. I see you lick your lips when you do. I see you take an endless amount of pictures of me, of us together. I see you steal glances at what could be beneath my jeans. I see you swallow whenever I take them off in front of you.

Never my underwear, though. No, that's the one barrier we've always kept between us: our underwear. That's okay, too. I understand.

I understand.

I understand... but I think I'm done feigning ignorance.

Because I love you, Eric.

I love you in the I-want-to-kiss-you-on-the-lips way. I love you in the I-want-to-hold-your-hand way. I love you in the I-want-to-show-you-off-as-mine way.

I want you, Eric. I want to know you, even more than I do now. I want to worship the scar that runs through your left eyebrow. I want to memorize the gentle arch of your feet. I want to touch you, and never, ever stop. I want free reign over your body, to lick every inch of it, to know the feel of your skin against mine. I want every part of you against every part of me, moving together as one body and one soul.

I want not only to love you, but to be in love with you. The kind of 'in love' that's wholly requited, not the Nicholas Sparks crap. I want you to take me in your arms and look me in the eyes as you bring your lips down onto mine and give me a kiss that makes my entire world spin, and go upside down, and even rock from side to side. I want to hear you tell me you love me in a voice that makes me shiver and quake like a leaf in the wind. I want you to give me a look that shows me you want me in every possible way.

But I don't want you to be my Valentine.

I don't want you on the supposed day of lovers, dressed up in your Sunday best - I want you on Monday morning, in your suit and tie and clear contacts; I want you on Friday night, in your tight t-shirt and torn-up jeans; I want you on Saturday afternoon, in your Superman boxers and dorky wire-rimmed glasses you wouldn't be caught dead in outside of your apartment. I want you every day, not once every February 14th.

Quite simply, I want you to be mine.

I always have been one for theatrics, haven't I? Here I am, writing this at three in the morning, spilling my soul onto a few scraps of dried up tree scraps. The roses were a nice touch, weren't they? Of course they had to be red. The velvet wrapping paper on the box matches them perfectly, doesn't it? And the gold really adds a nice highlight to it all, don't you think? It took a lot of work to get your name to look all nice on the envelope, but damn if it didn't pay off to have it all come together so well.

Have you opened your present yet? No? I hadn't thought you would. Open it now.

Chocolate.

Flowers and chocolate - I never claimed to be original.

Dark chocolate, to be specific. Your favorite, is it not? Because you read some study that claimed it's better for you than milk chocolate. You know, that doesn't work if you take it to mean you should then eat 10x more of it than you did before.

And the crème de la crème, they're all shaped into perfect little hearts and wrapped in tin-foil.

Symbolic? Or horribly clichéed?

This is my confessional. That is all, my love, if I may be so bold. Or sweetheart, if you'd prefer (get it? Chocolate hearts, literal sweet hearts?). I suppose this may very well be the last time I speak to you, all things considered. If I've severely misread every signal you've put out, if it was nothing more that wishful thinking on my part, then I imagine you wouldn't want anything to do with me ever again.

Please don't let that be the case.

Yours, whether you'll admit it or not,

Jonah.

My tears flowed freely to dot the ink-stained paper as I read the letter over twice more. Each word, black swords as they were, made tiny tears into the tissues of my heart. They were weapons, carefully crafted to locate every chink in my armor and leave me not only wounded, but absolutely defeated.

He knew me well, that much was obvious. Hell, he knew me better than I knew myself. Was he right? Did I really not notice women, or even men, throwing themselves at me? Did I really stare at him so much? I didn't have to look through my phone to know he was right about the pictures that used up most of the memory. He even knew my rationale about dark chocolate.

I couldn't deny that I loved him. But did I

love

him? Before I could even finish the thought, every part of me sang out

yes!

How did I love him?

I'd known him for as long as I could remember - there were no memories I could recollect that didn't involve Jonah in one way or other. What's more, I couldn't imagine anything I'd want to do without him. Whenever I thought of something I wanted to do, it was second nature for me to call him and invite him along. When I saw something that I knew he liked, I made plans for us to do it together rather than just tell him about it. My entire life, it was understood that he and I were a package deal - if we couldn't do something together, we didn't do it at all. We were best friends.

Best friends.

Could best friends be meant for more? Should they? Should we? We weren't your average pair - we were

us.

We were closer than any couple I knew, had more history together than any of our married friends, and got along better than should be possible. In short, we were perfect for each other. At least, as friends we were. That's what we knew. That's what we'd always done.

But...

Was he right? The lines of our relationship had always been blurred; I didn't know any other guys who would tell even their best friends that they loved them. Let alone as often and with as much real sentiment as we did. And especially not while sharing a bed, a blanket. That had always been us, though, and we weren't about to change our ways just because it was outside of the ordinary. We had never felt the compulsion to have rigid standards of propriety with each other. Or any, really.

There was one glaring problem with all of this, however: I wasn't gay. He was. I dated girls, I had sex with girls... then again, the more I thought about it, the less convinced I felt. I'd only been on a handful of dates with women, had what could be labelled a relationship with just four, and had sex with exactly two. And as much as I tried, I couldn't make myself enjoy it with any one of the poor girls.

Did Jonah and I date? What we did together - everything, that is - would those be considered dates? To some passer-by, when they saw us laughing together over dinner, or leaning on each other at the movie theater - did they see a couple of good friends, or a couple? Were we dating but by a different name?

I loved him. I loved being with him. I didn't know a life without him, and I couldn't imagine one, either. I didn't want to imagine one.

Now, could I be what he wanted? That was a terrifying prospect. The question of whether I was willing to make an entire shift in the way my life worked. I wouldn't be your average single guy with an awesome best friend; I would be a man in a homosexual relationship. I would have to come out to everyone I knew, my family, my friends, my co-workers. Could I stand that? What would they say, what would they think? I could only imagine our parents - God, I cringed to think of what they'd say. They would think back on all our sleepovers, and undoubtedly look at them with tainted eyes - when we were innocents, no less. For the most part.

He wanted it all, too. He made it abundantly clear, he wanted everything. He didn't want to be behind closed doors, or have something that was just between the two of us. I couldn't blame him for that - that's what we already had. What he wanted was loud-and-proud, in-your-face, over-the-top romance that he could parade around and show to people like a badge of honor. He wanted the chance to say I was his, to scream it out for all the world to hear. He wanted all of ther trappings and trimmings promised by Shakespeare's sonnets and altogether too many 80's love ballads.

And... maybe, just maybe, there was the slightest possibility that I wanted that too.

There was a chance that he was right - that I relished every chance I got to marvel his body, even fully clothed. That I did my best to glance at him from every angle when I thought me couldn't see, and to capture it when I could on a camera. That I fantasized about running my tongue over his plump lips. That I dreamed of running my hands all over him, unrestricted by my own fears and a pesky thin layer of clothing that ever obscured him from my view. That, beyond all of that, I just wanted

him,

for him to be

mine,

and even for me to be

his.

I loved him. And I wanted him, too.

Exactly the way he wanted me.

*****

"Eric."

"Jonah."

He stared at me with eyes the size of dinner plates, looking utterly shocked that I'd actually shown up. I stepped into his flat and closed the door behind me, getting nearer to him than he expected and making him stumble backwards a step or two.

"What are you doing here," he started cautiously, as if he was hoping I might not have read his letter yet and my passing by was mere chance. No such luck.

"I love you, Jonah," I declared in a raw voice.

"You do?" He sounded so unsure. I went even closer to him, so close I could feel his breath surround me.

"No," I drawled in an admonishing tone as I ran my hands down his arms until I reached his hands, which I lifted to put behind my neck before I curled my arms around his waist. "You're supposed to say 'I love you more'."

"I love you more," he breathed. Standing so close to him, his spicy-cinnamon scent was overwhelming and intoxicating. I could feel his warm body beneath the thin shirt he wore, his shallow breathing against me, and the slight shaking of his hands from where they rested on my neck. I brought my mouth to just a centimeter away from his.

"I love you, Jonah," I repeated, this time in a huskier voice.

"I love you more."

Staring into his eyes, I lowered my mouth over his and kissed him with everything I had to offer; I poured my entire heart into that kiss, I dumped my soul into it, I gave him every hope, dream, and fantasy I'd ever had. He was only too responsive to my fervor, not just meeting it but matching it, until we broke apart, gasping. We rested our foreheads together, and I pulled him tighter against me.

"Was that the kiss you wanted?" I needed to know, as I brushed my lips lightly over his.

"That was better. Beyond better. Life-changing, breath-stealing, heart-stoppingly better."

He looked at me with those crystal-blue eyes of his, lips slightly parted, cheeks rosy and flushed, and his golden brown hair looking like a halo. I never would have guessed he could look so beautiful from only the touch of my lips. Without meaning to, I wondered what kind of a reaction a more intimate touch could instigate. The thought had me licking my lips.

"We... should do that again," I suggested; he was already leaning in to meet my lips.

This time, he carefully massaged his fingers up my neck to my hair, that he gently pulled on with small grasping handfuls. I slid my tongue along the seam of his lips as we kissed, slowly prodding between before taking a chance and snaking inside. Immediately, he opened his mouth to me and moaned at the feeling, as he moved his own tongue further out to meet mine in a delightfully sensuous dance. Quickly, our kiss grew heated as time lost all its meaning, and everything was just me and Jonah - as it should be.

Before I knew what I was doing, I realized I had gradually turned us around in a small circle so that Jonah's back was to the door. I slowly pressed him against it with my hips, and as soon as I did we were grinding against each other and panting at the sensation. To my surprise, he dropped his hands from my hair to the top my jeans and started to undo the button. It made me yank my lips away from his, but he simply continued to trail kisses down my throat.