Stress Relief

Bravery

"Elijah, it's going to be fine." His mother assured from the kitchen counter, her afternoon tea in one hand and an open book pinned against the other.

"It feels like a date, but he never said it was a date, so is it or is it not a date?" Elijah had been pacing the living room for the past ten minutes, ranting to Clara about him and Chase's "arrangement," and how they started out calling it being friends-with-benefits but here lately things have felt a lot more intimate. By a lot.

He hasn't even told his dad yet. Granted, he's only ever free on the weekends if he gets his work done early. So Clara was his best bet right now and he needed some kind of outlet or he swore he was going to explode. The funniest part of it though, was that after his tangent and admitting to his mom that he was kissing the boy who keeps coming over for help with homework, all she did was swirl her tea around in her mug and ask in a slow, knowing sort of way, "so...you like him?"

Yes, yes he did. A lot.

All the while Clara just sat there, keeping her amusement to herself as she watched her stepson go through a gay crisis. "Sweetheart, he's been flirting with you. That should be a clear enough sign in itself." She dictated. Elijah just kept walking around the couch, shaking as many nerves as he could out of his hand.

Sure they've been flirting, but there's a very real possibility that he could be reading too much into it. It could just be a regular haircut as friends, but that begs the question; why was he so bothered about it not being intimate, when he wasn't sure if he even wanted to date again? Though that wasn't to say the idea of dating Chase was off the table as of now, he just didn't want to screw things up with him like he did with Braden.

God, it's been like four months and still, it's affecting him. Fuck him, seriously. "I don't want to get my hopes up." He breathed out finally, stopping his pacing to lean against the back of his couch.

Clara hummed, setting her mug down with a swallow. "Did you know it took your dad six weeks to ask me out?" His eyes bulged, and Clara nodded with a click of her tongue followed by a reminiscent sigh. "Yep. After we started becoming friends I was dropping him a lot of hints, and I kept doing it because I could tell he was into it," she explained, "but then I asked him outright after six weeks why he hadn't asked me out, and he said the same thing you just did."

Elijah shrugged while she took another sip of her tea. "That he didn't want to get his hopes up?"

Clara nodded. "Exactly. And if I hadn't kissed him right then and told him to grow a pair and ask me out, I wouldn't be having this talk with you right now." She set her mug down on the bar top, leaning against it with a soft smile. "You're a lot like your dad Eli, but that comes with some drawbacks of being too careful with other people." As if he hadn't noticed that already. "You're getting so worked up over what Chase is considering this haircut as, that you haven't decided what you want to consider it as."

He sighed, knowing deep down that she was right, and he was thinking too hard about something so simple. "Would you consider him buying me a suit for homecoming an obvious sign?" He asked rhetorically.

His mom raised a brow. A smile grew on her face just as one did on his. "Oh did he now?" She asked knowingly, going against her own logic and practically reading his mind. "Did he say anything when you tried it on?"

He still remembered the way he looked at him that day when he walked out of the dressing room. Like they were the only two people there. His eyes were wide, unblinking, lips slightly parted as he lost all form of speech. And then that dashing, glimmering, heart-throbbing smile sneaked its way onto his face as he uttered the words that made him feel like he was made of a rare, precious stone he knew was hiding beneath the rubble all along. "He said I looked perfect." And man, did that significantly aid his confidence.