Love, Hate & Clickbait: A Novel

in the light of Clay’s affection. All his terrible weakness, pushed to the surface. But that had been in the dark. Today, in the daylight, he tried to do that again.

Thom took a deep breath. He had already done the impossible last night, when they’d been in bed together. He hadn’t held back. He’d let it all show—everything he felt; everything Clay had drawn out of him; the things that had been there before and the things that had grown, slow and stubborn,

Clay looked at the pictures on the box, then back at Thom. He held up the gift, shook it at him, and said, “This is the shittiest fucking love declaration I’ve ever heard of.”

Thom jolted. He’d never heard Clay sound so sure about anything, not even his grudge against Derek. He felt rooted in place by the fury in Clay’s voice, but he still managed to lick his lips, saying, “Clay, it—”

He tried, he really did. He knew exactly what he was supposed to say, how this was supposed to go. But there was nothing in his life that had ever remotely prepared him for this moment. Clay was the strong one. Thom was weak.

Then again, maybe that’s what he’d been his whole life—the empty suit. Maybe what was happening now was him becoming someone else. He wasn’t sure who. The room vibrated and melted a little, and he felt more like himself—enough to stand, at least. Becoming someone new sounded terrible. But it also sounded better than staying the same person he’d bee

But it wasn’t political theater for Clay’s parents—they saw a politician’s stance on gay rights as critical to the literal physical well-being of their son, who lived all alone across the country. And the people like Lennie, like Thom, who were supposed to be looking out for him—they were using him instead.

He’d turned off his phone. The sight of the flat black screen staring up at him from its perch on his desk was the scariest thing he’d ever experienced. He was completely cut off—from Clay, from his job, from the world at large. Adrift in the open sea.

Maybe the ring being real would make up for the fact that everything else about them was a lie.