Not What We Expected

32: Being Normal

One week and two days have passed and nothing has happened between them. Dec hasn't dared to contact Anth. He doesn't even know if he has the right to do that... So that's been a bit shit. Or a bit is a bit of an understatement. For every passing day has he been feeling more and more shit about it and again it's started to feel like Jojo might be right...

Right that it was wrong of him to interrupt the things that were about to happen between him and Anth by saying the thing he said, instead of maybe just try to slow it down a bit and then convince him that they should just go to sleep. Maybe it had been better. Probably had that been better...

He's sitting there in her kitchen just staring out in the air, not really knowing what else to do or where else to be. He has been hanging out with his girls a lot the last days. Just hanging around them, maybe even when they have had planned stuff with other friends. In his sneaky ways has he invited himself along to not be alone. He misses Anth, he does.

"Dec, if I asked you what you think about it, would you even know what I am talking about then?"

"No...", Dec looks up at her and shakes his head slowly.

"You weren't listing, as I suspected or otherwise the reaction would have been stronger.", Jojo half laughs when she sits down opposite him with a cup of tea in between her hands. "Want more tea?"

"No thanks.", Dec shakes his head and looks away again.

"I had a talk with Rufus yesterday-", she starts and Dec just nods, not as interested as a best friend probably should be, but he feels a bit dead inside in general at the moment. "It's a bit connected to you... He's a bit worried about us...", his best friend says slowly to him.

"Worried?", Dec repeats.

"Wonder if there is something going on between us like-", she explains and he has to raise his eyebrows.

"But-", Dec tries to find something to ask, something that could explain why and why suddenly now? It has been Joanna and Rufus for a few months now and why would he now start to think that Jojo and Dec should have something more than friendship.

Everyone thinks they are a couple when they first seem them but Rufus must be over that, a long time ago, when he accepted becoming Joanna's boyfriend. He must have understood that he and Jojo only are best friends. (Because boys and girls can be that!) Why would he now start to feel jealous?

"What?"

"He's a bit worried... that we are a bit too close... And see each other too often."

"Yeah, you said that...", her answer doesn't really explain anything to be honest - or it doesn't explain anything about why.

"He thinks that I'm seeing you a bit too often and means it wouldn't have been a problem if you were a girl-"

"But we are like siblings, that's the thing with us!"

"Dec, I know! I tied to tell him but... What I wonder is if I have your permission to tell him that you are gay?", the question almost makes Dec choke on his biscuits and he raises up from the table with a lot of force.

"What?!", he exclaims, "No, of course not!"

"Dec let me explain before you scream at me please.", she tells him but Dec can't listen, everything he heard was that Joanna is going to tell Rufus that Dec is gay.

"Why? You've got no rights to do that, what's wrong with you?!"

"Dec, calm down, please?", she grabs his hands, "I know him, he wouldn't say anything, wouldn't tell anyone and it's only to make him understand that he doesn't need to be jealous because of you."