TWELVE

 

When Justin approached him the next day, Darien was still glowing from the night before. His whole adult life, he had avoided relationships. Had avoided anything that seemed like it might entangle him and try to hold him down, which made it a decidedly new and wonderful experience that he didn’t have to hide anymore. Noah had broken through all that.

“Hey,” Justin greeted him, coming up to him after the practice. Darien had seen him talking with the other guys, with Aaron and with Lance, and it seemed he was next on the list. “You got the time to figure out a song? Do you know what you want it to be?”

Darien gave a silly little smile, and he knew it was silly, he knew it was probably far too dreamy, and that everyone could read his happiness on his face. It was hard to care too much, though, when he remembered how he had left Noah dozing back home. The man didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and it pleased Darien to think that he had helped with that a little.

“Yeah,” Darien murmured. “I want it to be a love song. Finding love in an unexpected place. Like in a friend.”

For some reason, Justin raised those stormy, steely gray eyes and looked over at something, at Ken, who was approaching with a strange look on his face. Justin’s eyes locked on Ken’s face, but Ken was looking at Darien, and he didn’t look exactly happy.

“Finding love in a friend,” Justin mused, mostly to himself. “Okay. Do you have time to work on this now? Lester’s not giving me much time.” Darien smirked to himself. Lester was pretty good at demanding the impossible, and usually, he got it.

Noah would be at school if Darien was remembering correctly. He had an afternoon class. Darien shrugged and nodded, smiling at Ken as the other man came over and draped his arm around Darien’s shoulders.

“Sure, I’ve got time. You can come to my place, if you want,” Darien told Justin, who nodded his acceptance of this plan.

“Why don’t you come, too,” Justin spoke directly to Ken, and to Darien, it seemed like there was a strange sort of intensity in those eyes, which focused directly on Ken’s face. “I need to talk to you about your own song.”

Ken shrugged, and Darien tried to will him to look away from him, to look at Justin, but Ken’s eyes stayed fixed on Darien’s face the whole time. It was like he didn’t even notice the way those icy eyes seemed to warm a little as they looked at Ken.

“Yeah, okay,” Ken agreed, and the three of them set off together. Darien gave a secret little smile as he watched Justin watching Ken. There was something there or could be, maybe, if Ken would just look back.

It was none of his business, of course. Maybe he was even misreading Justin, who, let’s face it, had some pretty intense, drill-bit eyes when he looked at pretty much everything. After all, wasn’t it true that Darien just wanted everyone to be as happy as he was? And he had noticed that Ken didn’t seem that happy these days.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, they were all back at Darien’s place, which was empty, just as he’d known it would be. He and Ken were ensconced in the couch, while Justin perched on the edge of an armchair and leaned forward, talking earnestly, seemingly doing his best to pull Darien’s emotions right out of him so that he could transcribe them on paper.

According to Lance, this man was the very best in the business. Darien could see that. Justin didn’t speak much, but what he did say got straight to the heart of the matter. In the end, Darien was confident that Justin would have crafted a song that would seem to cry out the emotions, the joy, the pleasure, the rapture, that Darien was feeling.

Ken sat too close to him on the couch, and Darien kept casting curious little glances over at him. Ken wasn’t normally so clingy. Even when they’d been dating, or, more accurately, sharing each other’s beds, Ken hadn’t been this consistently all over him. It was strange, but Ken was his friend, and it seemed to comfort him, so Darien shifted just a little away but otherwise let him hover close.

“Okay,” Justin commented finally, closing his old-fashioned paper and pen notebook and stretching himself out a little bit. “I think I’ll have enough to go on for now. I’ll call you if I need anything more.”

Darien was about to respond when the door opened, and it was only then that Darien realized just how much time had passed while he was sitting here with Ken and Justin. It was Noah, and he must be home from his class, which meant that it had been more than an hour.

“Hey,” Darien said, with a bright smile for his beautiful lover. Lover. Strange to think of someone that way, but he and Noah had admitted their feelings for each other, and it was the most accurate word that he could think of. “Sorry, I thought we’d be done by now.”

Noah’s eyes went to Justin, who was packing up his things and then to Ken, who had his arm stretched out over the back of the couch, so close to Darien’s shoulders that he could feel the heat radiating from his friend. Ken stared back, defiant, and the moment between the three of them thickened into something that felt unbearable.

Noah was jealous. Jealous of Ken, when there hadn’t been anything there in months and months. All of a sudden, the walls seemed to be moving, to be closing in on him, and the amount of oxygen in the air no longer seemed sufficient.

This was why he’d never wanted to get into a relationship. He had seen how his friends through his life had acted once they’d hooked up with someone, he’d seen how possessive people could get over their boyfriends, and he had never wanted anyone to feel like that about him.

Before Darien could get more than a few seconds to look at Noah, to try to communicate to him with his eyes that everything was okay, that he and Ken were just friends, Noah was gone. He’d disappeared into the bedroom without having said even a word, not to Darien and not to his guests, which struck Darien as pretty rude.

“I think we’d better take off,” Justin commented, looking at Ken, but Ken was staring at the bedroom door as it closed firmly behind Noah. It was like there was some sort of conflict inside of him—like he almost looked pleased but there was something else written all over his face. Guilt, maybe? It was hard to say because Ken wasn’t good at keeping his emotions inside, but then those very emotions could be hard to read because of their intensity, and how freely he expressed them all at once.

Ken didn’t respond to Justin, who shrugged and left, and Darien had a moment to feel a brief moment of pity for the guy. He was obviously interested in Ken, but Ken had his own thing going on, and Justin was a gentleman enough, it seemed, not to push it.

He didn’t have a lot of pity to spare, though, not when he was faced with the blank, uncompromising shut door through which Noah had disappeared. It seemed to mock him with its very plainness, telling him that no matter what he’d thought, this was going to be no different than what Darien had been running from his whole life.

“Call me later,” Ken finally said, and disappeared out of the door a good minute or so after Justin had. Darien nodded and then rose to his feet and approached the door to the bedroom, laying his hand on it.

He didn’t want to go in there. More than anything, he didn’t want to go in there. He would face down a firing squad in preference to facing his angry boyfriend, because after the night before there was absolutely no doubt that this man was his boyfriend.

Which meant that he had a responsibility to him. Noah was upset. It wasn’t even a sure thing that he was angry about Ken, Darien had to admit to himself. Maybe something bad had happened at school, and Darien might be new to this whole romantic relationship thing but he was Noah’s friend first and foremost, and Darien did know that, as Noah’s friend, not to mention boyfriend, his job was to figure out what was wrong with him and comfort him.

So, bracing himself, setting his shoulders, Darien pushed open the door. What he saw inside was not particularly encouraging. Noah had his laptop open and was typing away furiously, the loud sound of the clacking keys filling the room, those unrelenting eyes fixed on the monitor and nowhere else.

“Noah?” Darien called softly, hating the tentative way that his own voice sounded. This was his bedroom. His house. Surely he was allowed to get to feel comfortable here, of all places?

Noah glanced up, looking over his shoulder at him, his eyes set wide and huge in his pale face. It was just for a moment, a look that Darien didn’t know how to read, but he entered his room and perched on the corner of the bed closest to the desk where Noah sat like he was bolted to the chair.

“Noah, what is it? Did something bad happen at school?” He was almost hopeful, though he knew that was terrible. Something bad happening at school that was external to them. He wouldn’t have to talk about himself, in that case. Wouldn’t have to try to defend himself, because school was outside of Darien’s control.

“I’m busy, Darien,” Noah told him, his voice small and very polite, the voice that he used with strangers, on the rare occasions that he was forced to talk to them. “I have work to do.”

Darien bit his lower lip, and he considered, he did, just walking out of the room, out of the whole apartment. Of calling Ken, or Lance, or even Aaron, to see if they wanted to do something. Noah didn’t want to talk, and who was Darien to try to force him to?

He knew the answer to that, though. He was Noah’s lover, his boyfriend, his friend, and Noah so clearly needed to talk. But the question was, would he let himself trust Darien enough to talk to him? Or had nothing changed?

“Noah,” Darien tried again, forcing his voice to come out calm and cheerful. “Babe. Tell me. What’s going on?”

Noah turned to him again, his movements small and quick and efficient, a sure sign that something was bothering him. Not like Darien needed any more of those signs. In his own way, Noah was telling him things were not good. Hell, those brief little movements were the same for Noah as if he’d been standing on the edge of a building screaming his discontent with a bullhorn.

The signs were not easily read, not until one got to know Noah, but they were there and Darien did know how to read them. So he reached out his hand to Noah, offering him some sort of comfort with more than his words, and after a brief hesitation, Noah took it and finally got up off of the chair.

He would sit beside Darien now, so Darien figured. He would spill his guts, tell Darien what was wrong, and they would deal with it. Together. Wasn’t that what couples who were together did? Wasn’t that how relationships were supposed to work? He would be the first to admit that he was no expert but that’s what he’d been led to believe.

Noah didn’t sit beside him, though. Instead, Noah settled on his lap, straddling him, their chests pressed tightly together. Noah kissed him then, and despite all of the turbulence in Darien’s head, he couldn’t help but find it deeply arousing, the way Noah’s hot tongue plundered his mouth.

How could anyone run so hot and cold like this? One second, Noah wasn’t even talking to him, and the next, he was kissing him like his life depended on it. And worst of all, though Darien felt somehow, deep down, that they needed to talk, his body was reacting so strongly to Noah’s kisses that he couldn’t even make himself focus on anything else.