Our boy has done a lot of growing up re: his thoughts about sex and relationships.
His empathy for Atom, and his encouraging Boston to give Atom some grace, because this is all new to him rounds out his growth arc that started with his attempts to move on and let Ton go while still validating Ton as a person and taking responsibility for what he did, and continued in his conversations with Dan about commitment and sex and romance not all being necessary/mutually exclusive.
And now, we have two boyfriend proposals, and two different shaped "no"s, even though he is clearly very interested in being a boyfriend.
When Dan asked "will you be my boyfriend", Nick said he didn't think he was ready to be anyone's boyfriend, and I think that's mostly about how his heart is still tangled up with Boston, and he can't quite separate from the idea of monogamy that the label "boyfriend" carries. But so far he's been honest about his not-exclusive affection with Dan, so no one is at risk of being hurt by dishonesty at this point.
But. With Boston's boyfriend-posal, Nick had a harder time shaking it off. He very clearly wants to say yes, but he was being smart when he said that it didn't make sense to change their label with Boston leaving in a few months. They can be friends, and they can be lovers, and if they can keep those lives very clear, then Nick thinks he can survive Boston leaving Thailand without his heart breaking.
Nick has learned his lesson about relationship expectations, and he is being very mature and very smart about how he's trying to navigate this changing relationship landscape.
Now, for the three of them to all sit down and decide on their relationship boundaries! *crossing all my fingers and toes*
**If any of them get their hearts broken, I'm going to riot**
