Crazy little thing called love - Hardzello

- Thirty-eight . Pinky-promise -

Joes PoV

He didn't say a word.

Why the fucking hell didn't he say anything?!

He looked like he was frozen. I felt his eyes pointed at me, his lips slightly parted, his eyes big and I think he stopped breathing. "Ben, now it's your turn to breath."

Finally, he took a deep breath and started to move again. He scratched the back of his head and broke our eye contact, which I was relieved about because I started to panic again. "Ben, when you are planning to stay quiet, I'm going mad. Look, I told Allen about this and he talked me into telling you." I left the Gwilym-part out because I didn't know if this would make things weirder.

"Uhm... okay."

Okay?!

I waited for a while but it didn't seem like he would say much more than that.

"Okay, Ben, you gotta say more than that." I shifted  a little and scooted away. I said it and now I can't take it back anymore. Now it's in his hands what's going to happen next. And I was afraid. But I really tried not to get into panic-mode again.

"What are we gonna do now?" Ben broke the silence again and smiled a little. I let out a little laugh and shrugged. "That's what I tried to figure out in the last weeks, I'm sorry that I kept my distance from you. I missed you, you know?"

Ben sighed and cocked his head. "For weeks? Jesus, Joe, you should've talked to me." There was something in his eyes which I couldn't really tell.

"What are you thinking?"

He avoided eye-contact and I started biting my nails, because I got pretty nervous. He grabbed my hand and held it. "Don't do that. You always do that when you're not feeling good, so please, stop it, we're going to work this out. Please don't worry."

"Then tell me what you are thinking." - "That we should get up from the ground and sit down on the couch, come on."

Ben got up and reached out so that he can pull me up as well. I took his hand and let him lead me to the sofa. "Stop avoiding to answer and please, tell me what you are thinking. Because we need this topic cleared, that we can move on like nothing happened."

"I don't want to move on like nothing happened, Joe."

I saw a but coming.

"But..."

There it was.

"But I can't make the same mistakes again, Joe. I can't fall again head over heels for someone and get dumped again, followed by very awkward moments for weeks or even months, because we work together. Been there, done that..."

He grabbed my free hand again and finally looked me in the eyes. These damn green eyes.

His answer didn't surprise me, it was nearly the exact answer that I thought he would give. What surprised me was that he didn't say anything about not being interested, he just said that he can't do this because he didn't want this to fail. But I supposed that he didn't say anything like that because he didn't want to hurt my feelings.

"I didn't know you were gay."

"Me neither."

And now he pulled me into a hug. I let out a sigh, wrapped my arm around him and closed my eyes. "I wish you would have known sooner..." It was only a mumble but I could hear it, even though I knew it wasn't meant to be audible.

So I decided not to say anything about that. "What are we going to do now, Ben?"

We parted again and he shrugged his shoulders, running his fingers through his hair, leaving it a blonde mess. "We're gonna be best friends. We'll see how to get you through this. You'll tell me when you feel weird or when I'm making you uncomfortable and we'll see how to make this work for us. But you have to be honest with me. Starting with: would that be okay for you?"

As long as I would not lose my best friend I would accept any kind of solution to our problem. Even though it's not the solution that I secretly dreamt of.

Of course I thought about him telling me that his feelings were the same and that he wanted to be with me, that we would never split up so it would never be a problem for the work. That we would stay together forever, we would marry and have kids one day and live happily ever after. But that was only a dream and it would never come true.

He doesn't feel that way and that was okay. As long as our friendship wouldn't be affected by it.

"Please answer me."His voice was quiet and fragile. When I looked at him again he looked sad, but I tried to give him my sincerest smile. "That would be okay by me, let's try it. We can make this work. We're best friends, nothing comes in between us, not even stupid feelings."

I held out my hand and waited for the handshake.

Ben smiled and took my hand. "You really mean a lot to me, Joseph Mazzello."

"You know, I might be crushing on you, doesn't mean that I still hate it, when you call me that. And I WILL punch you if you keep doing it." We laughed, our hands still connected. "But you really mean a lot to me too, Ben."

We got up, because Ben had promised to call his parents this evening. "We're going to be okay - Pinky-promise.", I said when I opened the door and offered him my pinky finger. He laughed and did the same.

"We're going to be okay."
__________________________________

I'm so sorry
For the ending of this chapter and for being inactive for so long - my life is a rollercoaster right now, but writing is still fun and I do it as often as I can

I'm sure yall will love the next few chapters, don't you worry ♥️

Have a great day
~Kat