“I think I’d like to be an active participant—if you’ll have me.”
Noah wasn’t sure if he could speak past the knot still in his throat, so he held out a hand to her again. When she accepted it without an ounce of hesitation, he pulled her into his lap, tucking her head easily under his chin.
“I’d like to request that next time, we start with kissing, as opposed to everyone getting naked and jumping right in,” Noah finally managed to say, in part because he genuinely liked kissing, but also because he’d noticed the distinct difference it made in Aspen’s attention and enjoyment. He nudged his foot against Aspen’s side for good measure.
“Hey! I like kissing, too. Rachel just seemed nervous, so I didn’t wanna draw out the suspense!”
“No, just when you were teasing me with your big sparkly strap,” Rachel joked, and Aspen gasped in faux shock, but something passed over their face, and they quickly sobered.
Noah held out his hand to them, too, and they took it, scooting right up to Noah’s side.
Silence fell over the room for a few beats before Aspen turned to Rachel with a determined look on their face. “So…ADHD, huh?”
Chapter 8
Noah
“You know, it’s pretty fucking adorable that you and Aspen have therapy on the same day every week,” Charlie said as he lobbed a tennis ball across the small dog park at the back of the shelter. “It’s like exactly what you wanted from this trial, right? You two are figuring your shit out, separate, but together?”
Noah shivered as a cold November wind whistled through the trees. He stared with an unreasonable amount of jealousy at Alfie, the English Sheepdog puppy, and his shaggy fur. It flopped in and out of his eyes, much like Aspen’s hair, as he bounded after the ball. Noah wished he had a shaggy coat. Instead, he was wearing the thin peacoat his mom had given him for Christmas the previous year. It went well with the business clothes he had to wear, to the job he didn’t like, that his mom had strong-armed him into accepting. He wished he was wearing a cozy sweater or even a ratty Carhartt jacket like Charlie. Noah had rushed here after work so he could see Charlie and the dogs before Thanksgiving, but he clearly should have stopped at home first.
“Yeah, it was really lucky that Rachel’s psychiatrist was able to fit Aspen in the same week they called, and even luckier that he knew of a therapist with openings,” Noah said.
It had been almost a month since Rachel had inadvertently diagnosed Aspen with ADHD. Aspen was now seeing both a psychiatrist and a therapist, and they’d had their first therapy session that Monday afternoon, around the same time as Noah's weekly session. As of that morning, Aspen was on their third day of taking low-dose Adderall, and based on the few texts Noah had gotten throughout the day, it sounded like it was going well.
Noah wasn’t having quite as good a time with his therapist–not that she had done anything wrong, it just wasn’t exactly fun dredging up years' worth of familial bullshit. He knew it would be worth it in the long run, but thus far, he’d made almost zero progress on anything to do with love and relationships. Instead, he’d spent the past four sessions in tears doing a year-by-year recounting of his childhood. They would be hitting high school soon, which meant he’d probably be covering his transition around the holidays.
Joy.
“Speaking of Rachel,” Charlie said, accepting the slobber-covered tennis ball from Alfie before throwing it back across the grass. “How’s that going?”
Noah squatted down and rubbed his chilly fingers through Gordon’s fur. He didn’t play fetch anymore, but he liked to lie out in the grass with them while they played with some of the more energetic dogs.
“It’s going great. After Aspen introduced her to Blair, the three of them have been hanging out a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if Blair eventually tried to convince her to move into the townhouse.”
“Ah, the never-ending joys of commune recruitment,” Charlie said with an all too knowing laugh.
Maybe it should be embarrassing that the main stories and updates Noah provided Charlie with every week were about Aspen and their friends, but that’s just the way it was.
“And Aspen?” Charlie asked, bracing himself with a foot behind him as Alfie launched himself at Charlie’s chest. He managed to gather up the large puppy, ruffling his wild fur, before setting him back down.
“Things with Aspen are also great,” Noah said. Gordon peered up at him with skepticism, and Noah sighed. “That’s sort of part of the confusing problem.”
“Confusing?” Charlie asked, and when Noah continued to stare down at Gordon, Charlie sighed too. “Alright, peanut. Gordy Simple, what’s going on?”
Noah stood up only to immediately slouch back against the cinderblock exterior wall of the shelter. He stared up at the cloudless sky and tried to organize his thoughts into something that even resembled Gordy Simple. “It’s amazing, because Rachel is amazing, and Aspen is amazing, but I guess that’s also why it’s confusing. I like them both, and they’re both so great. But I also like you, and you’re also great.”
Gordon yawned at his feet, and Alfie panted loudly around the ball in his mouth, but Charlie was silent for several seconds. “I’m great…in bed?”
Noah choked on his own saliva and glanced sharply at Charlie. “I…I mean, you…probably are?”
Charlie very slowly raised a thick, brunette eyebrow at him.
God, Noah, why can’t you just speak your mind? It’s like you’re so afraid of what other people are going to think, you never tell me how you feel or what you want.
Well, that was new. Since when were his exes chiming in? Usually, his mother took up all the available real estate in his head.
“I mean, I bet you’re a very attentive lover, and you’re very attractive.”
