“You mean like a date?” he remembers her saying. First, she said yes, but later she texted him to say she didn’t want to make the friendship awkward. She’d have to pass. “We just never mentioned it again,” he says, but his feelings lingered on and off for 18 months as they became increasingly close. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going to just blurt it out that I like her,” he says. “I feel like everyone knows I like her, except for her. It’s not like I’m James Bond in my secrecy about the whole thing.” When he thinks about telling her, he gets anxious. He doesn't want to lose her.