And certainly not someone who made his pulse misbehave the way Eli did.
I thought you might want company. Eli’s words hit Noah deep, in a place he kept carefully closed. Company wasn’t something he asked for. Company was something people offered out of obligation or pity.
But Eli had looked at him as though he meant it. As though he saw something in Noah worth crossing two blocks of whiteout snow for.
That both terrified and warmed him in equal measure.
A war raged within him, and it would have been easy to listen to the strongest inner voice, the one that saidDon’t get ahead of yourself, don’t read too much into this.
Don’t ruin it.
But the other voice—the quieter one he never listened to—rose too:
Ask him. Let yourself hope. Just this once.
He couldn’t help it. He had to know.
He shifted closer, noting Eli’s damp hair, the chilled pink of his nose, the tiny tremor in his fingers. Noah lowered his voice, unable to rein in the note of vulnerability that laced it.
“Why’d you come?”
He wanted the truth, not the polite version, and certainly not the safe version.
The truth would tell him whether he was imagining everything. Whether the warmth in Eli’s eyes was real.
Whether Noah was standing on the edge of something he’d been afraid to want again.
Without meaning to, he held his breath, waiting, hoping…
Bracing.
Noah was watching him.Reallywatching him.
“Why’d you come?” Noah asked again, his voice softer now. “And tell me the truth this time.”
Eli’s breath caught. His mind tangled itself into a knot of epic proportions, with too many strands.
Because I wanted to see you.
Because I can’t stop thinking about last night.
Because I used to draw you, and I don’t know how to tell you that without sounding unhinged.
Because being around you feels like remembering something I didn’t know I’d forgotten.
What came out surprised the hell out of him. “You looked tired last night.”
Noah blinked. “Tired?”
“Yeah,” Eli said. “When you talked about your ex. When you said you pretend during the holidays.”
Noah’s lips parted in surprise, and before he could speak, Eli pressed ahead.
“I just… I didn’t want you to be alone today.”
Noah didn’t respond, and for a second, Eli wondered if he’d said too much.
Then Noah moved slowly, as though he was approaching something fragile. He shifted beside Eli, their knees brushing.
