Noah made a small sound of distress, and decided that all he could do was confess and throw himself on Jace’s mercy. “I screwed up. Rafe told my mom about us, and she emailed me and I told her everything was legit and we’d been dating for a while and… she’s coming to see us. I couldn’t stop her.”
Jace looked at him as though he’d completely lost it, shrugged, and walked past him toward the kitchen. “So? Parents like me. I am actually the guy you do bring home to your mom.”
“Other people’s moms, sure. Not… not mine. Not because you’re not wonderful and a real catch and all the rest of it, but because she’s… she’s who she is. She’ll eat you alive.”
Jace laughed. “Dude, chill. She’s your mom, of course you think that. She’s notmymom.”
Noah could see that Jace didn’t understand the full gravity of the situation, and he wasn’t sure how to make him grasp it. “She would not hesitate to turn us in if she thought for a second we weren’t serious about each other. Which is also why she invited herself to use the spare room.” Noah rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“So we’re sharing a room for a few days.” Jace shrugged. “I promise not to get handsy with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Noah pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. Jace wasn’t going to take this seriously, no matter what he said. “Okay, fine. You wanna ask me when she’s coming?”
“Will you calm down if I do? Because I’m starting to worry about you maybe having a stroke over this.”
“I am calm!” Noah shouted. He paused, took another deep breath, and then tried again. “I’m fine, everything’s fine.”
“When is she coming?” Jace asked.
“She wants to see the last game of the season. She was very enthusiastic about it.”
Finally, some level of understanding dawned over Jace’s face. “That’s this Saturday.”
“No shit,” Noah said. “Do I freak out over nothing? Am I a highly strung person, Jace?”
“Well, kinda…”
Noah glared at him, going to the oven to take out dinner. “You know, I expected you to be mad at me,” he said, finally. Jace was taking the sudden invasion of his space very well.
“I don’t see why. I was vaguely aware that I was marrying your family when I married you. And I think you’re blowing this all out of proportion.”
Noah set the baking dish down in the middle of the table and sat heavily. “I’m so not. But you know what? You’ll see. Don’t come crying to me when my mom takes your balls as a trophy.”
“Dinner looks great,” Jace said, apparently not about to dignify Noah’s panic. He’d see. And then he’d be sorry that he hadn’t taken him seriously.
“I wanted to have something nice for you to soften the blow.” Noah sighed. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve asked you for so much already, and it just never stops. I feel like I’m not giving you anything in return.”
To Noah’s surprise, Jace reached out and took his hand. “I asked you to marry me. Practically begged. And maybe I didn’t do that for the usual reasons, but I did it fully intending to honor every vow we had to make and to come out the other side still friends. You don’t have to feel guilty about any of this, okay? It’s just life. This is what friends are for.”
Noah could feel himself tearing up at Jace’s sincerity, and sniffed to stop himself from actually crying. “I must have been a saint in a previous life.” Noah rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. He was stressed, and worried, and he didn’t want Jace to end up resenting him. The knowledge that Jace didn’t—that he wouldn’t—was such a relief he didn’t know how to handle it.
“I doubt it.” Jace chuckled. “But you’re a pretty good person in this life, which is why you deserve all of this. I get that you don’t see everything you do for me, but trust me, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Who else would make me mac and cheese?”
Despite himself, Noah laughed. “I guess you have a point. It’s even got a little kick in it, since you said you liked it that way.”
He was proud of the mac and cheese. The sauce had come up exactly as he’d imagined it, and he knew Jace was going to love it. If he couldn’t love Noah, he could at least love his cooking.
Noah could only hope that his cooking would be enough to balance out his mother. There was every chance Jace would divorce him over her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The news that Noah’s mom was coming to stay, and that he and Noah would have to share a room because of it, had put Jace’s plans to tell him about his huge, surprise feelings about him on hold.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you sprung on a guy who was about to be forced to pretend to be in love with you. That would have been awkward for everyone involved.
Brian had given him hell over it, obviously. Jace couldn’t fault him. If he’d been in Brian’s place, he would have been frustrated to see a friend so close to happiness and unable to take the step that would, in theory, get him there.
He couldn’t force Noah’s hand, though. If they were going to have a relationship that meant anything, that lasted at all—even for the three years they were stuck with each other—then the timing had to be right.
