‘Promise.’ Quinn wasn’t sure what he was promising. To be with Noah forever? Was it to be by his side at the book signing? To be there for him right now?
‘I’m terrified of what they will think of me,’ Noah said, tracing a finger along Quinn’s jaw. ‘I’m terrified they will hold grudges against me, or berate me for the life I lived. Scared they’ll make jokes to me about Mum. But I’m also scared I’ll let them down.’
Noah’s fingers hovered over Quinn’s lips, and Quinn kissed them ever so gently. This time, his heart beat harder, laced with his own anxious desire to take this to the next level with Noah. Whatever this was, and whatever it meant.
Noah slid his finger across Quinn’s lips and down to his chin.
‘Look at me, handsome.’
Only now Quinn realised he’d looked anywhere but into Noah’s eyes. Looking at him, he felt lost. Like he’d never be able to appease his anxiety, or hold him close, or be the person he could rely on. Maybehewould lethimdown.
But it wouldn’t be like that. Couldn’t be like that. Because underneath it all, Noah was destined to let him down. Listening to him now, his desire to escape the town told Quinn everything he needed to know.
‘You don’t want to be here, do you?’
‘I can’t be here.’
‘You can’t be in Hay, or don’t want to be?’
‘Both,’ Noah said. ‘Hay scares me, Quinn. It puts me right back to where I was when I was sixteen. Confused, alone, scared of myself. Of what people thought. It brings back all my insecurities, and it makes me face moments I don’t want to face.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like Mum. I don’t know what to do to help her.’
‘Be there for her,’ Quinn said. He linked his fingers with Noah’s, and his hand felt so rough, so gentle, and so strong. The anchor that helped him say what he needed to say. ‘Talk to her because she needs someone to talk to. Have you thought that maybeyoushould be the one to hear her story? To write it for her? Have either of you ever spoken about how the other makes you feel?’
Noah shook his head. ‘Never.’
‘I understand they are hard places to go to. I know it isn’t what you want to be doing. But your problems stem from how others treated your mum and how they affected you. It can’t have been easy growing up being told your mother was everything she wasn’t. And it can’t have been the easiest to discover who you were, how that made you feel, and how you were a victim of it all, too.’
‘A victim?’
‘To learn about what your dad did? To hear what people think about your mum and be okay with that?’
‘But what’s awful is that for a long time, I believed they were right.’
‘And what about now?’
Noah ran a thumb over Quinn’s hand, sending shivers down his spine. It took all his willpower not to drag Noah to him and feel his weight upon him.
Stay focussed, Quinn.
‘All I can see is how I failed her. I should have been there for her.’
‘Be there for her now.’ Quinn let go of Noah’s hand, almost immediately feeling the chill of where he’d been.
‘You intrigue me.’
‘I … what?’
‘Intrigue me,’ Noah repeated, though they both knew he didn’t need to do so.
HeintriguedNoah? How was that even possible?
‘You get me,’ Noah said. ‘I don’t know how, but you do. You understand that side of me I can’t show to others. And it confuses me. It intrigues me. Itpanicsme. If I’d met you sooner…’
‘Stop it.’
