I found a love, to carry more than just my secrets,

To carry love, to carry children of our own.

-

Mitch was silent. It wasn't unusual for him to be quiet, but given our current circumstances, I was a bit concerned.

We were in a car, in the middle of LA, attempting to get to RCA's office where we'd eventually be having a meeting regarding Pentatonix and touring for this upcoming year. It wasn't supposed to be a particularly stressful one, at least not for anyone else.

In the meantime, I was singing along to just about an song that came over the radio. It was a fairly normal occurrence, but the boy next to me was rapidly changing that. He wasn't singing or even humming along. He wasn't trying to talk to me, nor was he trying to talk to anyone else on his phone. The longer he kept simply staring out the window, the more I got worried.

Minutes later, we ended up in a parking lot outside of the office building. I quickly turned off the car, then turned to him. He was still unmoving, which only fueled my own anxieties.

"Do we have to?" He asked after some more time had passed. His voice was quiet. He finally turned to look at me, and now I could finally see the worry.

If I was being selfish; yes. We had to. We had to walk into that conference room and let everyone know about what had been going on. It seemed logical to me. It seemed like the right decision.

But then again, Mitch was more important. And I could never be selfish when it came to him.

"I-- I guess we don't need to." His eyes met mine. "I'd kinda like to... but not if you aren't ready." He barely nodded his head before he looked down at his lap.

"I mean... I want to tell them too. I wanna be out. But I'm scared of what they'll say."

"I understand," I said quietly. And I truly did. As optimistic as I liked to be, I could see the next hours going so many different ways.

"We already planned on waiting until the end of the meeting, right?" He nodded his head. "If you changed your mind between now and then, just text me or something. And I promise I'll drop it."

"But you won't want to."

"But you're more important." He glanced up at me again, looking a bit more emotional than the last time our eyes met.

"I love you," he muttered. I smiled at the admission before leaning towards him.

"Come here and kiss me." A bit of worry washed off of his face as he smirked. He finally took off his seatbelt, then closed the distance between us.

"I love you too," I replied after a moment of kissing. "But we can't be too short of breath when we walk in there." He rolled his eyes before opening his door and getting out of the car. I smiled quickly before copying the boy's actions. I reached out for his hand once I walked around the vehicle, and he was more than happy to hold hands as we headed for the building. However, we reverted to our past selves the instant we walked into the building. We kept to ourselves for most of the elevator ride up to our floor, or at least until I saw Mitch looking at his feet and fidgeting with one of the rings on his hand.

"I'll be right next to you the whole time," I reassured. He looked up at me and then eventually gave me a half-hearted nod. I set my hand on the small of his back, pressed my lips to his forehead, then pulled away right as the doors opened. I let him go out first, then continued to walk barely a step behind him.

We were quick to find the conference room and quick to see the rest of the band, Esther and Jonathan, and two executives from RCA that I had no names for sitting around a large table. We took the two seats open, Mitch on my left next to Esther and myself next to Kirstin. We chatted amongst ourselves for a few moments before the meeting was called to a start.

It went by fairly quickly, and by the end of it all, we were set up to hit almost 15 more Midwest cities in late summer. The band seemed excited to get back out there, and while Mitch and I weren't in the moment, I knew it'd hit us later.

"Alright, I think that's a wrap for today," someone said. I quickly glanced up at the person who had said that, then couldn't help stopping them.

"Wait," I blurted out. Everyone in the room turned towards me which only caused me to cringe a bit. "We have something to say," I tried again a moment.

"We?" Another voice said. I couldn't care less who it was though. I turned back to Mitch, looking for any indicator of if was still certain about this. He had a fairly blank expression on his face, so I took it as a sign to keep going. I reached for his thigh, squeezed it, then looked back up to everyone else.

"Yeah, um... Mitch and I..." I trailed off then sighed heavily, suddenly unable to get out those last words. I had rehearsed this so much in my mind that I hardly expected there to be a problem. But now that we were sitting together, in front of some of the most important people in our lives, it was so much easier to think it than say it.

As if he could read my mind, he set his hand on mine. I lifted my hand up and he took the opportunity to intertwine our fingers before they came back down to rest on his leg. I turned to him, not very surprised to see his eyes already on me. And just like that, the words fell out of my mouth.

"We're dating." I felt a small smile play on my lips, which only caused it to grow as I saw Mitch smirk too.

"Why haven't you two mentioned it earlier?" One of the executives spoke up. I looked back to them.

"It happened a bit... quick, and we didn't feel comfortable sharing it right away." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mitch nod his head. The room fell into silence for obvious reasons.

"If you wanted to do a publicity stunt of some sort, we could--"

"Wait, you think... we're faking this?" Both of the executives sucked in breath. Maybe they thought we truly were, but I had no clue as to why. A publicity stunt would have been so very unwise, and I was sure that if for some reason we did want to go that route, we wouldn't have dove into it without a meeting like this.

"How long has it been?" Esther spoke up. Mitch and I turned to her.

"Before last year's tour started," I answered. She looked back and forth between us for a couple seconds before turning back to the head of the table.

"They aren't faking it."

"What makes you so sure?"

"We know those boys better than anyone else. I think we can tell when something's up with them." I gave her a small smile even though she wasn't looking my way. The executives had gone from apprehensive to regretful, but it didn't appear as if they were giving up quite yet. They glanced at each other, seemingly gearing up to say something else, but I quickly realized that we were done with the meeting. There was no reason for us to stay here.

"I think that's our sign to go."

"Wait--"

"Let them go," Jonathan finally spoke up, looking towards us. "We'll talk to you two later, okay?" Mitch and I nodded our heads before both standing up and leaving the room a moment or two later.

Much like our journey up here, the elevator ride and walk back to the parking lot was oddly silent. A bit of pressure seemed to be taken off of my shoulders, but the lack of weight still seemed unsettling. Our meeting may have been done, but it felt as if parts were still unfinished. I was sure I wasn't the only one thinking that way. I finally turned to him as we got to the lot, wondering if I was alone in my thoughts.

"You okay?" He shrugged his shoulders, which was just enough to bring me to a stop. He barely took another step before doing the same. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Should've expected that, I guess."

"Its not your fault either. You did nothing wrong." He paused for a moment to look at his feet before he opened his mouth again.

"Guys!" I heard a voice call, cutting Mitch off. I glanced back where we just came from to see Kirstin walking towards us, followed closely by Avi and Kevin.

"What are y'all doing?" The two guys slowly came to a halt, but Kirstin seemed to answer my question by still moving forward until she was able to hug Mitch. I watched as the two embraced and I could instantly see the boy already start to relax. It appeared as if Kevin was about to answer, but he got cut off as Kirstin turned to me.

"Come here, you giant," she said, opening up her arms for me. Before I had a chance to say anything, they were wrapped around my waist. I squeezed her once before letting go.

"We wanted to talk to you two," Kevin finally said. "And we just wanted to catch you before you left so we could say that we're happy for you two."

"Besides us all having to third-wheel from now on, yeah," Kirstin added on, causing everyone to smile a bit.

"So you're with Esther." They all nodded just slightly off unison.

"We don't think you're faking it." Which was great, however...

"Were we really that obvious on tour?"

"You weren't terrible, but we can tell when something is up."

"Also, the making out in the car kinda gave it away," Kirstin mumbled. The making out in our car-- wait.

"You saw us?" Mitch spoke up, voicing my own thoughts. The three of them widened their eyes, then looked to each other. The boy took that opportunity to spin my way. "We're never kissing in your car again." He appeared to be plenty serious by those words, which were backed up with the tone of his voice and look in his eyes. But as much as he was, the rest of us couldn't help but laugh. He crossed his arms, now seemingly frustrated, so I simply pulled him into my side and kissed his temple as the rest of the band continued on.