“Have you considered the possibility that Neil has chosen you, but believes you have not chosen him?” Renee says. "Have you ever explicitly told him what you want?” “Neil knows what I want,” Andrew snaps. This is not Andrew’s fault. “How do you know?” Because Neil always knows. He is as fluent in Andrew’s micro-expressions as he is in German and French. He knows which head tilts mean “go on” and which ones mean “shut up.” Without ever asking, he learned what it meant to see Andrew wearing double layers of long sleeves, or taking multiple showers in a day, and learned to hand Andrew the car keys. That has always been the most terrifying thing about Neil — his patience to wait, watch, listen, learn. The prospect that if Neil were given enough time, there would be no part of Andrew that was just Andrew’s anymore. “He has to know,” Andrew says. “Does he?” Renee says. “Have you ever known Neil to assume that he is wanted?” Five times Neil tells someone that he and Andrew aren’t dating, and one time Andrew uses his words to set the record straight.

The recorded number of times someone hit on Neil Josten and got nowhere, and the one time Andrew didn't even have to try.

„Darling?“ Andrew calls, still out of sight, and that gets Neil’s attention. Except for some very rare, very soft moments Andrew only uses pet names to be sarcastic. „Yes love?“ Neil retaliates in the same, slightly mocking tone. Andrew comes into sight, with an unusual mischievous glint in his eyes. „How much do you think you can horrify a whole bunch of conservative homophobes?“ or: What is a professional actor as a fiancé good for, if you can't terrorize your distant (and close) relatives with him?

Neil tries to get away from a boring conversation and accidentally ends up asking the most popular guy in school to dance with him at the winter formal.

“Andrew doesn't love me,” Neil said simply, “So if he has a love language, I don't know it.” “Oh, honey.” Allison drawled, “You don't actually believe him when he says he hates you, do you?”

Andrew and Neil switching phones by accident brings them closer together than either of them anticipated.

“I bet the monster will come alone again this year,” he says, his voice scratchy like the sound of a blender in the early hours of the morning. Aaron stiffens beside his brother, shoulders creeping up to his ears before he opens his eyes. He turns to Seth with a sneer. In seconds, Aaron had gone from asleep to fully awake, an anger simmering under the surface of his skin, water boiling over. “I’ll take that bet,” Aaron says, face a blank slate, anger cooling behind his eyes. If this were still college, Aaron would’ve let anger take over, let fists fly. With age, Aaron had learned that there are crueler things than violence. “Five hundred bucks,” Seth replies, eyes sparkling in amusement. He’s got the face of someone who thinks they’ve won. “A thousand,” Aaron counters. Andrew’s eyebrow twitches up imperceptibly, a feeling like a laugh bubbling up his throat. __ In which Neil and Andrew are secretly married.

"You paid for the deluxe package," Neil says as he scrolls through his payment history to find his client's invoice. His system is simple: Basic Package: Fuck you. A general statement of displeasure and a brief description of the wrongdoing. Intermediate Package: Fuck you, with passion. Everything in the basic package, but with additional insults. Customizable for an extra fee. Deluxe Package: Fuck you to hell. Everything from the first two packages, for an extended period of time, and with extra viciousness. And it looks like Andrew Minyard is the unlucky soul today.

Neil thinks sex with someone you care deeply about is great. But sometimes, something else is just more interesting, you know? Five times Neil gets distracted from sex and one time Andrew does.