“Exactly. Monsters and heathens.” I studied the coffee cup in my hand for a bit. “Anyway, I told Merry, of course, and I’d talked to her before about not being too interested in physical stuff, but always in a kind of joking way. Like, ‘Ugh men, they can never get enough,’ and we’d laugh it off, and I’d always just said they’d wanted more than I did, which wasn’t an untruth. But it all came out after I left Anthony—that was his name. And I admitted to her I’d never been too interested in anything sexual, ever, and I was expecting her to say something smart or funny. But she didn’t. She said asexuality wasn’t anything to be ashamed about, and I was like what? And we talked about it off and on, for a while, she was always asking me if I’d read up on it, but I hadn’t. I didn’t want another label to wear, ya know? Then a few months later she saw a flyer in the community centre next door about a meeting for asexuals, and she thought I should go.” I laughed quietly. “Would you believe I’d never heard of it? Well, I’d heard about asexuals and aromantics, but I’d never read the fine print, ya know?”

He nodded, because, yes. He ran the meetings. Of course he’d know.

I took a deep breath. “So I don’t know where you’re at or what you want, or even if you want anything, I don’t even know. God, this is embarrassing, but I think you’re kinda great, so I was wondering if you wanted to maybe talk about what you might want with me, or from me. Because you’re asexual too and I’m really hoping you’re on the same page.”

“I think you’re kinda great too,” he said, his gaze intense. “Truly, you walked into my support meeting and I thought to myself, He’s really cute, but it was inappropriate of me to be thinking that of a guy who was there for emotional support, but then you got on the bus and you asked me about the audiobook I was listening to, and you knew who the author was without even trying, and it’s one of my favourite books. I’m not gonna lie, I was kind of blown away and fascinated, and felt like it was fate or something.”

“I couldn’t believe it was you,” I said with a laugh. “Standing there all cute and shit with your clipboards in that meeting.”

“You looked scared as hell,” he whispered.

“I still am.” I let out a puff of air. “To be honest, right now I’m about five seconds away from freaking the fuck out, just so you know.”