I Always Thought I Was Straight Until I Moved In With My Best Friend. Now Our Landlord Is Kicking Us Out And I Have To Decide. Should I Tell Him How I Feel Before We Lose Everything?

A Revealing Encounter

He reaches over and squeezes my hand once before letting go. Says he’s going to make more coffee. I watch him walk to the kitchen and feel this weird mix of excited and scared. Like I just jumped off something high and I’m still falling.

That afternoon, he’s on a work call in his room. I need groceries, so I grab my keys and head to the store down the street. I’m in the produce section trying to remember if we need more onions when someone calls my name.

I turn around and it’s our friend from the gym. The guy we both know from when we first met almost two years ago. He walks over with his cart and asks how I’ve been. Says he hasn’t seen us at the gym much lately. I tell him we’ve both been busy with work.

He nods and then gets this look on his face. This knowing smile. He says, “My roommate has been talking about me a lot lately. That every time they run into each other at the gym, my roommate finds a way to bring me up.”

He says, “My roommate seems really happy these days.”

The way he says it makes me think he knows something or suspects something. I feel my face get hot and I mumble something about us being good friends.

He just grins wider and says, “Yeah, he can tell.”

Then he says he’s happy for us and walks away before I can figure out what to say back.

Dealing with Feelings

When I get home, he’s off his call. He’s sitting on the couch with his laptop scrolling through apartment listings. I put the groceries away and then sit down next to him. Tell him I ran into our friend at the store.

He looks up and asks which friend. I say the guy from the gym. The one we both know. His face does this thing where he tries to look normal, but I can see panic in his eyes. He asks what we talked about.

I tell him our friend mentioned he’s been talking about me a lot. That he said you seem really happy. He closes his laptop and puts his face in his hands. Groans. Says he’s so embarrassed.

I ask why and he looks at me through his fingers. Says he hasn’t known what else to do with his feelings. That talking about me to other people was the only way he could deal with it without actually telling me.

Hearing him say the word “feelings” out loud makes my chest feel tight in a good way. Like something that was loose is finally clicking into place. I tell him it’s okay. That I’m glad he was talking about me.

He drops his hands and looks at me. Asks if I mean that. I tell him yes. We sit there looking at each other for a long moment. Then he goes back to the apartment listings, and I lean against his shoulder while we look together.

Christmas Eve

The next few days are strange. We’re in this space where we’re definitely more than friends, but we haven’t actually said what we are. Haven’t defined anything or said any rules. We keep almost touching. Almost saying things. Almost crossing whatever invisible line is still between us.

The tension feels different now though. Less like anxiety and more like waiting. Like standing at the top of a roller coaster right before it drops. We still work in our separate rooms during the day. Still hang out every evening.

But now when we watch movies, we sit closer. When we cook dinner together, our hands brush more often. When we say good night, there’s always this pause where it feels like one of us might say something else. But we never do.

Christmas Eve arrives, and I wake up feeling like I might throw up. We’ve been planning this dinner all week. Decided we need to actually talk about everything tonight. Put words to whatever this is. But now that it’s here, I’m scared out of my mind.

What if I say the wrong thing? What if he changes his mind? What if this ruins everything? I take a long shower and try to calm down. When I come out, he’s already in the kitchen starting to prep food. He looks just as nervous as I feel.

The Dinner

We spend the afternoon cooking together. Making too much food for just two people. We keep making small talk about nothing important. The weather. Work stuff. What movie we should watch later. Both of us dancing around what we actually need to talk about.

By the time we sit down to eat, I feel like my skin is buzzing. We make it through the first course barely saying anything real. Just commenting on the food. Asking each other to pass things. The silence gets heavier and heavier until finally he puts down his fork.

Looks at me across the table. Says we can’t keep dancing around this. I put my fork down too. Tell him he’s right. That I’ll go first this time. I take a deep breath and try to remember all the things I’ve been rehearsing in my head for weeks.

But none of it comes out right. I tell him I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out the perfect words. The right way to say this. But there isn’t a right way. So I’m just going to be honest. My hands are shaking a little, so I put them in my lap where he can’t see.

I tell him I’m falling for him. That it scares me more than anything because I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Let alone my best friend. Let alone a guy. I tell him I don’t have all the answers about what this means about my identity or labels or any of that.

But I know what I want. I want him. Want this. Want us to try to see what we could be together. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Just sits there looking at me with this expression I can’t read.