Midnight Sun

Chapter 4

"I wish someone could have kicked me in the head and told me I was in love with you. And how dumb I was for not seeing it. Looking back, it's so obvious. I spent years concocting one excuse after another for us to be together and rationalize why it wasn't what I really wanted."

"It's OK, Tanner. You had to figure it out on your own."

"It shouldn't have taken me as long as it did."

"Love is patient."

Tanner was momentarily in awe. He's perfect. Why does that keep surprising me? "I think you taught me everything I know about love. I just wish I'd seen it sooner."

"We're here now. And we have our whole lives ahead of us. I don't think you're supposed to have everything figured out when you're 17, let alone before that."

"You did. Way earlier."

"I've known I loved you for a long time, but that didn't help me with anything else. And I didn't know what being in love was like until recently."

"Exactly. We could have had that years ago. We should have had those years together."

"We did have them. You were everything to me, and growing up with you as my best friend was the best experience I could have asked for. And even if you did fall for me earlier, I think you still would have always wondered whether the grass was greener on the other side."

"You're probably right. ... So, where were we?"

Tanner pulled up his channel on his phone and scrolled back to the early months of 2017. "The roof jump. I feel like that helped a lot getting us back on track. You can tell Dylan was in a better mood a few weeks later when we got back into the bathtub."

He selected 'BATHTUB FULL OF EVERY SODA CHALLENGE! (FANMAIL OPENING)' and it started to play. "Mike, you gotta see this." Traffic was for the most part stopped, crawling along at a pace safe for video watching while driving.

Mike grinned as he saw how Tanner was holding the soda bottles as he poured them into the tub, making it look like a shooting dick.

"Wait for it."

Mike burst out laughing as he saw Dylan crouching down to drink while Tanner poured, still holding the bottle to his crotch. "You tried to blow him through a soda bottle?! You must have been really thirsty."

"You don't understand! It had been two months since he'd given it to me. I was beyond thirsty."

Mike jokingly scolded Tanner, "What kind of monster were you?"

"One with a girlfriend. Trying my best to keep everyone happy."

"He was trying, I'll give him that. That's not all that happened."

Mike let out an "aww" later on in the video when Tanner proposed to Dylan, and snickered when Tanner suggested the prize for their game of bottle flip should be "whoever wins gets to kiss the other guy."

"I didn't see a kiss," Mike commented as the outro played. "Did you claim your prize?"

"Oh yes. In the shower."

"Yeah, he tried to claim more than that."

[March 2017; Wichita]

"It's going to take forever to get this red dye off our feet."

"I don't mind a long shower with you." Dylan looked at Tanner expectantly.

"You won the game fair and square. Go ahead and kiss me."

Dylan leaned down and kissed Tanner passionately, pleased to find Tanner returning the kiss with equal intensity, and especially pleased to feel Tanner harden against him.