“How do people have kids, knowing how fragile they are? Knowing they could lose them any minute?” Jace asked.
“I want kids,” Noah admitted. “Or a kid, anyway. I feel like more than one would require more competence of me than I’m capable of.”
“You want kids?” Jace asked. Noah could hear the surprise in his voice.
“Sure, yeah, someday. With the right person.” Noah shrugged. “I think it’d be nice. I’d like to… I dunno. Share the world and everything in it with someone who hasn’t experienced any of it before. Because a lot of things are bad, but a lot more things are good.”
“But you’re gay,” Jace said.
“I am aware. Adoption and surrogacy are both options. I’d tend to lean toward adoption. And if I adopted a preschooler then I could skip the baby part, which is the least fun. For me, anyway. I guess it’s different if you carried it.”
Jace laughed, which Noah took as a good sign. “I wouldn’t know. And I didn’t mean that you can’t have kids, I guess. I just never thought about it. Which is dumb, because we get kids with gay parents in all the time. I just never thought about you having kids. I thought you didn’t like ‘em. You kept saying you couldn’t do my job.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t give as much of myself as you do to everyone. But I could do it for my own child.” Noah shrugged. “At least, I hope I could. I wouldn’t do it alone.”
Jace took a deep breath and finally let go of Noah. Noah missed his warmth immediately, but was glad he was back to himself now.
“So is that what you’re doing when we’re done with this? Finding someone to settle down with and raise a family?” Jace asked, sitting back down at the table. Noah joined him, choosing the seat next to him instead of the one across from him. He didn’t want to be any further away from Jace than he had to be just now.
“Maybe,” he said. “I dunno. I don’t think you just go out in the world looking for a life partner and have one fall in your lap. Convenient as that would be.”
“But it’s what you want? Like, if someone could wave a magic wand?”
Noah snorted. “I think I’d like to get to know the guy a little before I had a family with him. But I get what you mean, and yeah, I guess it is. It’s where I’d like to see my life heading. I don’t want to be alone forever.”
Noah’s mind had been more on home and family than usual lately, which made a lot of sense. He’d just gotten married, after all. He’d just moved in with someone he liked spending time with. Of course he wanted more.
“Well, you’re not alone now,” Jace pointed out.
“I know, and it’s surprisingly soothing. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I am.”
“Me neither.” Jace smiled a tiny, tired smile at him. “I’m actually really glad we did this. Especially because now I have someone to be up in the middle of the night with before a game.”
Noah laughed at that. “I’d rather sleep properly, but it’s nice to have company, yeah.”
“A little over twelve hours until start time.” Jace nodded to the clock. Noah wasn’t necessarily unaccustomed to being awake at this hour, but pre-game nerves stopped him from being able to do anything productive with his time. Running his own business meant he could work at night, when he was most effective, and sleep until the afternoon if he wanted to. He was just still getting used to that freedom.
“We’re gonna kick ass,” Noah assured him. “Even if we haven’t slept. Even if we fall asleep on the track.”
“Sometimes I don’t sleep,” Jace said. “I mean, it’s no big deal. I’ve worked some long shifts in my life. I’m wide awake the moment I put the skates on.”
“Yeah, me too.” Noah sipped at his glass of water. “Not so much the long shifts, but the not sleeping. I sleep really well after the bout, to make up for it.”
“Yeah.” Jace laughed softly. “Yeah, that’s why I never work a shift right after. I’d probably curl up in the reading nook and nap.”
“You have a reading nook?” Noah raised an eyebrow.
“For the kids. When I have a place of my own, I’m totally putting one in, though.” Jace grinned.
“I could go for that. We can have matching reading nooks.” Noah sipped his water again. He’d never thought much about owning a home, but it was a nice idea for the future. It was something he’d want to have, as part of the neat little family picture that was forming in his mind. Jace was, currently, holding the place of his partner, but that made sense, too. The more Noah thought about it, the more this felt like a practice run.
He was probably more invested in it than he should have been, but he could keep that to himself. He figured he was just getting older—he’d be thirty next year—and with that came wanting to settle down.
They fell into a comfortable silence, staring at their own glasses of water. Noah had been through this ritual more than a dozen times by himself, but it was nice to have company. It was good not to be alone, and he’d never realized how good it would be until he’d been not-alone with Jace.
That probably meant something, but Noah was too anxious about the game to tease it out. He’d get to it later, as he always did when it came to things he didn’t understand about himself.
Chapter Ten
