close enough
Worse, what if he meant those words—I love you—and they heard it in his voice? Then he'd be bound. They'd hold him and so would his sense of honor. He'd have to worry too much about Oliver, who was very sick and who watched Robert's blurred face with pleading that Robert couldn't bear to acknowledge. Oliver breathed with difficulty, even through his nose when he shut his mouth to salvage dignity but just got louder.
And if Robert had loved him, that would have been hard to see.
Robert heard Miguel and his team stomp away, heard Oliver's unsaid question that was more in his wet blue eyes, "What about Robert?" and recoiled against the wall. What about Robert?
In the pause when their eyes left him, two sets scornful, one set crying, because Enrique nuzzled his face against Oliver's IV-stabbed, taped wrist, and Oliver slowly reached over and stroked Enrique's hair with the opposite hand, and Johnny watched them with rage like he'd maul this sickness… Just then Robert muttered, "Because, I, would be lonely without, you. So, don't leave okay?"
And they looked up, and they were kinder eyes. And Oliver cried harder and said, "'Okay."