Two Straights Too Many

Elias is my best friend.

Two years at the same firehouse, same shifts, same couch on our days off. The guys have been giving us hell about it since day one, but we're straight. Both of us. Firmly, definitely straight.

I just told my mother we're dating.

In my defense, she ambushed me at lunch with the woman she'd picked out for me to marry, and I panicked. Now the whole firehouse knows, my mother is planning dinners, and Elias, because he's Elias, just shrugged and went along with it.

That last part should not be doing what it's doing to me.

I've spent my whole life being good at keeping people at arm's length. Elias is the one person I never had to try with. Which means Elias is either the best thing that's ever happened to me, or I'm about to find out what losing him actually feels like.

Possibly both.