“Oh. My. God.” Calvin’s voice got louder and higher with each word as he stood up from behind his desk in the small office of Second Chance Books. “I knew it. As soon as I saw the smile on your face when you walked through this door, I knew you had asked him on a date.”

Gage laughed because he knew it was true. He’d been smiling pretty much constantly in the hour since he’d left Newton’s apartment.

First, he had gone home to take a nap, but while before he’d been too worried to sleep, now he was too excited.

That was okay, though.

Excited felt a lot better than worried. A hell of a lot better.

“Well?” Calvin asked, arching both eyebrows as he waited for Gage to continue. “Don’t leave me in suspense here. Did he say yes? I assume he did, or you wouldn’t be grinning from ear to ear like that. So, when is it? Where are you taking him? Tell me everything. All the details.”

Gage laughed again, both because his best friend really was too much, and because Gage was literally bubbling over with happiness. And maybe a little loopy with exhaustion, too.

But ninety-nine percent of it was happiness.

“I don’t know where to start,” Gage confessed, shrugging a little as he pulled up a chair and turned it around backwards to straddle the seat. “It just sort of… happened.”

“No,” Calvin shook his head. “I’ve known you for my whole life, Gage Michaels. If you think I’m letting you off that easily, you’ve lost your mind. Thunderstorms just happen. Earthquakes just happen. Dates don’t just happen. Someone had to ask. Someone had to answer. There had to have been some other words exchanged…” With an expression that was half-excitement, half-desperation, Calvin lowered himself back down into his desk chair. “You have to give me more than that. At least a little.”

Gage knew Calvin wasn’t joking when he said he wasn’t going to let Gage get away with giving so few details. But there was only so much Gage was willing to share.

He decided it would be best if he just focused on the happy parts and left out all of the emotional anguish from the previous eighteen hours.

“Okay, so…” Gage cleared his throat and chuckled again at the way Calvin leaned in like it was story time. “I honestly didn’t plan on asking him out—not today, I mean. Eventually, yes. Absolutely. But today, I really just stopped by his place after work to talk.”

Calvin sighed and gestured for him to continue. Even though Calvin hadn’t said the words out loud, it didn’t take much imagination to hear his voice in Gage’s head.

Keep going. Hurry up. Get to the good part already.

“So he was there, and he wanted to talk, too,” Gage said, his throat tightening a little as he remembered how nervous and scared and broken Newton had looked when he answered the door. Gage hoped that Newton never had to feel like that again, or that Gage would at least be able to be there for him if there was a next time. “And I just kind of told him how I feel about him. That he makes me happy and that I feel good when I’m around him. That I’d like a chance to see where things go.”

“Aw, Gage,” Calvin sighed again, this time with a contented smile on his face. “That’s so sweet. You deserve to be happy. You deserve it so much. And what did he say?”

“He said yes,” Gage said, his cheeks hurting from how wide his smile grew. “He said he felt the same way, that he wanted the same things. I mean, I know it’s still early and that he and I don’t know each other that well yet, but Calvin… there’s something about him. Something special. There’s that spark, you know?”

“I know exactly what kind of spark you mean,” Calvin said, getting that dreamy look in his eyes that Gage knew from experience meant he was thinking about Jack. “I still feel that spark every day when I wake up and every night before I go to bed… and every hour of the day in between.”

“You really make it sound like a fairy tale, you know that?” Gage asked, folding his arms across the back of the chair and resting his head. “Is it really like that all the time? Even after weeks and months together?”

“It really is,” Calvin nodded. “And what’s wrong with wanting the fairy tale? You deserve the fairy tale as much as I do. Everyone does.”

Gage had heard Calvin talk about all of this before, of course. Hearing him gush about how in love he was and how great life was with Jack was nothing new, and Gage was just as happy for his friends now as he had been every other time they’d talked about it.

But this might have been the first time when Gage actually, truly believed that kind of happiness might also be possible for him.

Sure, he’d been on plenty of dates over the years. He’d had good times—great times, even—with a few of those guys, and he still remembered each of them fondly.

Never any that he had felt like this about, though. Not even during those first initial days or weeks when everything was fresh and new and wonderful.

He didn’t even know it was possible to think of someone so much until Newton had walked into his life.

Now he didn’t ever want that feeling to end.

And okay, it was too early to let himself get too sprung on the guy, but… he honestly didn’t care that it might seem weird. It felt right, and that was what mattered the most, wasn’t it? There really was no doubt in his mind that Newton was a special guy.

“I think you’re right,” Gage said, finally, belatedly realizing that Calvin was struggling not to laugh at him. “What? Why are you smirking like that?”

“Because,” Calvin said. “You know how you always accuse me of making a face like that heart-eyed emoji?”

“Yeah, I’m familiar with the face.” Gage rolled his eyes. “You were just making that face a minute ago.”

“So were you,” Calvin shot back, still grinning. “You were making that face, Gage. You’re the heart-eyed emoji face now.”

Gage snorted but didn’t try to deny it. He felt like that ridiculous emoji, if he was being honest.

He wasn’t going to admit it to Calvin, though. Not out loud. Not yet.

Not that it mattered. Calvin could obviously see it.

Gage was sprung.