Noah waited. That couldn’t be it. But Michael stayed silent, staring at the wall with his jaw flexing from side to side.
“Fine?” Noah asked finally.
“Sure,” Michael said dully. He looked back at him, his lips stretching thinly around a weak smile. “I’ll leave everyone alone. But only because I want to see your face when you realize I was right. They’ll screw you over, baby brother. Then you’ll see I was only trying to help.”
“He turned down your money,” Noah reminded him.
“Yeah. Well.” Michael frowned, and Noah watched the confusion get wiped away by his usual self-assuredness. It looked more flimsy than usual.
“He’ll leave you eventually,” Michael finished. “You just wait and see.”
Noah wanted to laugh. But when he looked at Michael, all he could muster was exhaustion, resolution, and a faint pity. Michael didn’t have any people. He didn’t trust anybody enough.
After a long day of handshakes and congratulations and of people politely not mentioning how fast the engagement was or that, until recently, Benji was part of a tax code none of his coworkers had ever interacted with, Noah headed to Tia’s apartment.
“How was your first day back?” she asked as they sat on the couch facing each other.
Noah considered, chewing the hamburger he’d picked up on the way here. They had the takeout bag ripped open betweenthem as a makeshift plate, covered in fries and the pickles that were already dripping from Tia’s burger.
“Long,” he admitted. “It made me miss Bali.”
“Yeah, maybe don’t take five years between vacations next time.” Tia grinned, covering her mouth to hide her mouthful. “Lucky the honeymoon’s coming up, right? Where are you guys headed?”
“I’m taking him to an island off the coast of Greece,” Noah replied. “But enough about me. How was your first day ever?”
Tia beamed. She had been waiting for him to ask, had been practically vibrating since he came in.
“It was great!” she announced. “I think I’m going to be really good at this. I should’ve gotten a job in fashion ages ago. No offence.”
“None taken,” Noah said, pushing down the wave of regret at not pushing her to consider her career earlier.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out to find another email from Desmond.
Let me know if I need to congratulate you on your new kid, it said.
Noah smiled.
“Aw,” Tia said. “What’s happening now? Wedding stuff?”
Noah didn’t respond. He was thinking back to last night, Benji curled up in his arms while Max sat next to them, the brothers trading pieces of Chinese food as they argued over the best video game movie. It had been comfortingly domestic. Noah hadn’t realized how much he’d been craving it until they moved in.
He thought about the list on the fridge, covered in three types of handwriting. The robot trash can that Noah was getting weirdly attached to. Max’s excited rambling about whatever had happened at school that day, which was never annoying like Benji had warned.
“I think I’m going to adopt Max,” he admitted.
Tia stopped, the burger halfway to her mouth. “Holy shit. Are you sure?”
Noah pictured Max’s shy smile as he told Noah that he was glad Benji was marrying him, traces of the orange juice mustache still clinging to his upper lip.
“I’m sure about all of it,” he said.
CHAPTER 16
Everything feltgood.
Like, all the time. Benji couldn’t get over it. And it was all because of that goddamn chastity cage.
Benji stroked the cage absentmindedly as he waited in his studio, examining the covered painting in front of him.
