21 y/o dating 17 y/o?? Advice, please

I'm a 21 year old, bisexual trans guy that got into a chatgroup last year with a bunch of other LGBT+ people. The ages in this group range from 15 to 25, so it's a pretty big age gap, though we're all pretty close due to bonding over similar interests.I started dating a person in the group pretty quick after I joined (the 25 year old, let's call him S). He had a crush on me and I thought he was cute, but we didn't have too much in common. He also lives about five states away, which is, of course, pretty hard to manage. Over the course of the same year, I got really close with this 17 year old from the same group, another trans guy (we'll call him O). He and I call on skype every night and we easily have the most in common out of anyone in the group (we share the same mental illness, the same interests, both trans, etc). He's my best friend, and I love him a whole lot. I even got to meet up with him last year, he lives only 6 hours away and we spent a week together last summer. I kind of started crushing on him but because of the age difference I didn't act on it.A few weeks ago, S accused me of being interested in dating O, and even though I denied it, we decided to break up. I told O, of course, and then three days later he said he was interested in me and has been since I visited him. I told him about my crush, we said some mushy stuff, and then we started tentatively dating. We're worried about what a lot of people will think and do in our group, they're all against pedophilia (who isn't) but for them it's all black and white: if you're 18+ you can't date anyone 17-. But we love each other and we just connect really well, we want this to be okay...Where he lives age of consent is 17 and where I live its 16, so is everything okay? Are we safe to date and even maybe get up to stuff?? I'd like some advice if anyone can spare it. Thanks for reading!!!