Despite breaking intohis house just the night before, the last thing I wanted was to start falling for this broken, beautiful man sitting next to me. In all honesty, all I’d wanted was sex. It wasn’t supposed to get complicated. It wasn’t supposed to get personal.
But here we were, sitting on a couch that hadn’t even belonged to me, sharing stories of our pasts, commiserating over the sorrows of our separate, yetsomehow very similar histories.
Even though we were clearly in the sharing phase, I was still shocked when Noah asked, “What was your mom’s name?”
“Julie.” Her name tumbling from my lips felt both foreign and familiar, a mix of pain and comfort. “She was… I…” I stuttered over what to say about her. Recalling the stupid fucking argument we’d had the last time we spoke on the night she died, Ifelt a swell of emotion I’d been struggling to keep buried for as long as she’d been. After sorting through all the words floating through my head, I finally settled on, “Perfect. She was perfect.” I wanted to serve her memory well, but it was the truth. No matter what horrid words I’d flung at her, she was my mom and I loved her.
She was perfect.
I loved her.
I missed her.
And I would’vedone anything to have her right here next to me.
But she wasn’t. That was just the straw I’d drawn in life. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I apologized lamely. I knew I didn’t owe it to him, but words were failing me.
“It’s okay,” he assured me after we’d moved back to the couch. As we sat there, his fingers danced slow, lazy circles over my shoulder, lulling me into a trance. Exhaustionwavered over me as I leaned into his strong chest. I knew I’d need his strength to share my mom with him.
“She was beautiful,” I recalled wistfully. “I remember as a kid, thinking my parents were superheroes. They could do no wrong. Everything about them was perfect.”
Noah’s chuckle was reassuring. “Yeah, I remember feeling that was about my parents. Then I told them I was gay. That ended realquickly.” His words were blunt, harsh, much like I imagined his parents’ words to him.
He accepted the weight of my head on his body, pulling me down with him onto the couch in a much more comfortable position. I never would have imagined the two of us—that two people at all—would have fit on this couch lying next to each other. But here we were. Both of us half on each other, half on a cushion.To anyone looking on, we should have been uncomfortable at least. But there was something perfect about it all.
I tossed that out there that, “Mine never knew about me being gay.” Of course, in true Noah fashion, he had no reaction. He simply waited for me to say more, to speak all the words that he somehow knew had been pent-up in my heart for too long. “They died before I gathered up the courageto tell them, but I know if I would’ve ever told her, she still would have loved me.” I laughed, recalling the soft crinkles in the corners of her pale green eyes. “She would’ve smiled at me, run her fingers through my hair, and kissed me on the cheek. She would have told me that she knew already.”
“She sounds sweet,” Noah stated plainly, but not without emotion. His fingers danced through myhair, making me miss her even more.
“She was.” We lay like that for a few more minutes, letting the easy silence curl around us, a soft, fluffy blanket barricading us from the ice storm of memories.
Noah rolled to his side a touch more, angling his body and mine so that we were facing each other. “Can I ask you something?” He was treading lightly, letting me know in his words that if I wantedto, I could keep it all to myself, let my secrets sleep with me as I closed my eyes and drifted off into a world where the truth didn’t have to exist. But there was some draw, some pull to him that made me want to share it with him.
With Noah, I wanted to share everything. Even though I knew it was too soon, and I knew it made no sense—hell, having someone, anyone, in my life was the absolutelast thing on my radar—but with Noah, with him, it all seemed possible.
Even if only for this minute.
“What did you tell your brother? Back there in the bedroom.”
Closing my eyes, I replayed the words in my head and wondered how I’d ever keep my promise. But I knew I had to. “I told him I’d take care of him. That even though I wasn’t Mom, I would make sure everything was okay.”
“You’re a goodbig brother,” Noah said, his voice fading, floating somewhere above me.
Exhaustion from a long night of work and an adrenaline spike from worrying about Benny weighed me down, pulled me into a deep sleep within seconds.
Blinking away the sleep, I cracked my eyes open, only to see the bright streaks of sunlight filtering in through the small window above the kitchensink. Stretching my arms above my head was a horrible idea. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable this couch was. It was barely big enough for me to stretch out on. It sounded like every joint popped as I sat up. “Is that coffee?” I grumbled, mostly to myself since I had forgotten Noah was here until he answered me.
“Sure is.”
Stumbling to my feet, I walked into the kitchen and took the chair nextto him. “But I don’t have a—”
“Dude, I know. What kind of caveman are you? No coffee maker?” he joked, and I wanted to laugh, but the truth was that it had been on my list ofThings I’d Been Meaning to Get tofor a while.
Shrugging, I took a sip of the coffee. “Deli?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. The cup was all too familiar.
“Yep, and I even got some egg sandwiches. Well,for us. I got a plain roll for Benny if he’s up to it.” As he moved to the bag on the counter, a bubble of gratitude formed in my chest. My life had never really been much to write home about. I didn’t feel grateful for much because the selfish, teenage prick that I’d been had no idea what the truly meaningful things in life were.
Then I lost my parents.
