Billy leans into her soft hand and feels his eyes burn with the tell-tale sting of tears, letting the relief that she’s not dumping him wash over him before her next words register in his mind and his head snaps up to her so quickly he almost gives himself whiplash with the force.

“What? No. Break up? No, Chris. No.” Both his hands cup her face and he presses a kiss to her forehead, wiping away her tears with his thumbs.
The idea of that causes him far more anxiety than he cares to address right now. There’d been a time when he first realized that he actually had feelings for her and he’d had a sexuality crisis before realizing that he didn’t give a shit about labels and what this made him and he wasn’t about to throw all their growth away because of this. “I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you wanna do.

“I… I’ve still got money… from the compensation if you wanna… y’know?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.