You smoke like a chimney. You'll talk circles around something for days and then turn it into poetry, just to avoid saying what you really think. You've mastered the art of talking without saying anything, and of casually sliding out of any situation you don't feel like dealing with. You can be pretentious, condescending, and downright confusing.
But I love you.
I love your eyes. I love your cooking. I love when you get paint on your face and don't notice because you're so absorbed in your painting that for once you aren't worrying about your appearance. I love the way you look at me sometimes like I'm the only person in the world. I love how your hair falls against your eyes when you lean in to kiss me, and I love the feel of your stubble against my cheek. I've never been happier than I am when we're together. I want you to be mine and mine alone. I'm tired of not knowing how you feel, or whether I'm the only one. I want something more than what we have. I just don't know how to tell you that.
Immediately after graduating from college, Francis and Antonio moved into the small studio apartment they had decided to share in New York. It took about two weeks after moving in for them to start fucking. It was, they felt, only the natural conclusion of two very close (and very attractive) young men moving in with each other. They were amazed they hadn't thought of this in college.
Unfortunately, things went sour after about six months. That was still a long time for so ill-defined a relationship to last, Liz told Antonio later in an attempt to comfort him. It didn't help.
It had been so damn convenient. That was the problem. When you already know how to live with someone and what brand of toothpaste they use (Crest Pro-Health Whitening) and how to cheer them up after a bad day at work (a tall glass of champagne and excessive sympathy) and even how to say I love you to them, and you add sex into that mix and still aren't allowed to call it a relationship, well, that's a little confusing for someone as simple-minded as Antonio. His inadequacy at math may have nearly caused him to fail Introduction to Finance- three years ago, that was when he met Francis- but he was pretty sure that love plus living together plus really, really great sex was supposed to equal boyfriends.
Francis, apparently, wasn't so sure. One afternoon, Antonio had spontaneously decided to write down all his feelings about Francis and their relationship on the back of their shopping list. After Francis found that rather incriminating piece of evidence, things became first awkward, and then progressively more tense. Inevitably, there was a huge fight. It was loud and ugly and embarrassing- for Antonio, anyway- and it was the only thing in the three years since he'd met Francis that made him worry about the state of their friendship.
That night, he found himself on Gilbert's doorstep, red-eyed and apologizing profusely, with a suitcase full of hurriedly-packed clothes and necessities. His explanation was tear-filled and incoherent, but Gilbert seemed to get the gist of it.
"That guy is way too complicated," Gilbert told him. "He's obsessed with 'l'amore' but when he finally gets a real chance at it, he kicks it out of his apartment." Antonio replied by sobbing onto Gilbert's shoulder for ten minutes. Gilbert responded in the only way he could: by steering Antonio to the couch, getting two beers out of the fridge, and putting in the DVD of Beaches that he swore he only kept for when Antonio came over. As an afterthought, he grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom. It was time for some hardcore bromancing.
