Noah

Two years ago.

 

 

“Can we just talk about this?”

Shrugging out of the slate-gray herringbone jacket, I tossed it on the back of my chair and proceed to meticulously roll up the sleeves of my white shirt one at a time.

While I heard irritation and a considerable lacking calmness in Tom’s voice, I’m his opposite. I didn’t feel whatever that he wanted me to and for that I was sorry.

Tom’s question wasn’t a surprise, but he’s wasting his breath in asking.

I looked on as he marched my small office on the first floor of Frost.

It’s after 11pm, prime time for nightclubs, and my place was packed solid, but then holidays always brought in the crowds.

I’m pandering him, when all I wanted to do was walk the few steps to look out of the blinds overlooking the whole club and survey the dance floor and bars.

“What is there left to say? We were coming to an end anyway, Tom. You expedited it up by sucking, how many other cocks was it while you were in Paris?”

“Fucking hell. At least I told you. I didn’t have to.” He’s frustrated I’m not giving him another chance.

He assumed I’m hiding my anger.

What he didn’t know was I told him the truth.

If not for him confessing many infidelities on a work trip, then I would have called us a day. I’ve known Tom more than a few years as acquaintances in the same circle, and this past six months was a pleasing distraction for what it was, but I was never in any doubt what we were.

He’s hot as hell, can work a dick with his pouty mouth but as for more than that, we’d come to the end.

I cast a steel gaze at him. “You know where I stand on this, Tom.”

“Jesus, can you stop saying my name like that. I feel like I’m being reprimanded.” He rubbed both hands around the back of his neck and blew out an irritated sigh.

A month ago, I might have put the handsome model on his knees for doing something wrong. Might have fucked him over the desk just because it filled the time and occupied my head. While I recognized all the same attractive elements I saw in him months ago I no longer felt them.

It would be fucking for fucking’s sake and I’m not about that.

I can get an empty climax anywhere.

I want the fucking connection.

And it’s never been with the guy looking at me with pleading eyes.

“Can’t we just get over this?”

“I’m over it.”

He appeared encouraged. Turning his dark almost brown-sometimes hazel eyes on me and that flicker of a smile I’d initially found striking. “So, we can try again?”

“As I said, we were going to be over anyway. I’m sorry if it’s not what you want to hear. I didn’t know you were serious about us.” With his job travelling and mine as busy as I made it we hadn’t collected that many actual days together.

“I fucking love you! You, asshole!” he yelled.

I could remind him falling on other dicks wasn’t the way to show love, but then it would only prolong the conversation and give him encouragement that I was jealous, and already my tolerance was fraught at the edges.

All I wanted to do was look down to the fucking club floor.

“Noah, please.”

“I’m sorry.”

There’s no more to be said. Not for me anyway. I wasn’t invested in this relationship or the last one and I think he knew that.

Tom’s face turned bitter. “It’s because of her, isn’t it? Little miss fucking cornfields. Didn’t I tell you she’s always in the fucking way. Where you are, there she is panting like a poodle for attention. You and her in your little co-dependent, dysfunctional club of two no one else can get near.”

My bones tensed. Eyes narrowed. Confessing he’d cheated didn’t illicit a reaction from me but hearing the way he’s talking about Sena lifted anger to my surface immediately until it burned on my skin.

“I’m not doing this with you again, your paranoia is your own.”

“Fuck that. Why don’t you just fuck her if you and her can’t be away from each other. You do everything but stick your dick in her anyway, and you can’t even admit it, Noah, how fucked up you are with her.” He spat out and oh boy, he just kept on going didn’t he. “No one stands a chance with you while she’s around. I’m not the only one who’s said it.”

Voice eerily calm. “Is that right?”

And then sensing how effortlessly I’m ready to rip his head from his shoulders, Tom decided wisely and calmed the fuck down, changing the tempo of his tone. Oh, it’s much too late, yet still, his noise levels meant I wouldn’t hurt him now.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay. You know she’s a sore point for me.”

Of his own making.

Sena has never gotten in the way of my relationships, casual or otherwise. His jealousy stems from his own mind. It mattered not Sena couldn’t stand him either.

“We could go away for the weekend.”

“I can’t. I’m busy.” I thought it was easier than telling him outright I had no desire to. We were over. For me it was the end.

“Let me guess, doing something with the wifey?” His face twisted in a nasty scowl.

As it so happened, we were going to a hockey game.

“Time you were leaving, Tom.”

“I don’t want it to end like this.” He walked over to me and tried to grab my face. A sharp stare and a hand between us soon stopped him. “Noah…babe.”

“Find someone who can give you what you want. I’m not it. You deserve that, Tom. I want that for you.”

We’ll probably wind up being friends in the long run.

Queers stick together in our own circle. It’s all very incestuous in Manhattan.

He’s a nice guy, but we’re just not made for each other.

I suspect why. Him sucking dick elsewhere had nothing to do with my decision.

It’s the reason I have fucking heartburn in my chest.

But for now, I just want him gone.

After another ten minutes of trying to convince me, he sighed and stormed out.

He’ll see eventually I was far from being the one for him. I’m not easy to put up with and he needs something better than I can give him. I’m not the firm hand he needs to keep him in line either.

Only then did I take the stroll over to the window covered by blinds. I flicked the light out first and then pulled the string to open the view. It gave me full advantage to see the entire club.

How I spot Sena in a sea of a few hundred I didn’t know. Maybe her vivid purple hair, or I’m just aware of where she always is.

I find her almost instantly winding her way through the crowd.

For a second, I grinned watching how much fun she was having. With a busy week behind her she warranted to let loose for a few hours.

It was why I invited her tonight.

Sena was a carefree nymph when she danced, it’s as if the music raced through every molecule of her body.

I’m restless.

I know the reason.

Or at least I think I do.

It’s hard to fucking tell any more.

My relationship just ended, and I have not one fuck to give. Instead, my eyes are down there on the floor tracking my high-spirited best friend.

My scowl was in attendance when I spotted someone behind Sena.

Her damn lap dog on her tail.

She’s been dating an artist—and I use the term loosely since all he does is mold some fucking clay into pots and sells them at a local market. He earned pennies if that. His day job was a barista, the coffee shop Sena met him at. It’s going on a few weeks now.

I don’t like him.

Not even a little.

I can’t even pretend to be civil.

He rubbed me the wrong way and it’s not my fault I want to throw punches at his stupid goatee face.

He’s not good enough for Sena and he has a nasal laugh that is about as irritating as anything can be. How I haven’t put my fist in his face before now I don’t know. But then I do keep my interactions with the dopey artist to the barest minimum.

Something Sena noticed.

I’m your friend, kitten. I don’t have to be his. I’d told her. Don’t be so grumpy, lion.

I didn’t like the tightness clawing at my belly, nor the constriction to my heart as I watched the waste of space artist put his hands on Sena in ways that were too intimate for public. In any kind of way. I hated it.

I shoved both hands into my pants pockets, rocked back on my heels and turned from the sight of her laughing face as she tilted it up for a kiss that dickhead is all too happy to swoop down and take.

I have my answer though.

It wasn’t just a passing phase. A rare occurrence. Not when I’ve felt this way for months now and I did nothing towards figuring out why.

All I know is Sena is special to me.

And I might be the only queer in love with a woman.

A fluke one might say having an erection seeing Sena in her teeny yoga clothes. I’m a man with healthy appetites and those fucking shorts left nothing to the imagination. She had no idea that day I was sporting so much wood I lost all sensation in my fucking brain and had to sit at the breakfast bar in my apartment until she left for her yoga class.

I put it down to horny dreams. Lack of sex. Whatever.

Me attracted to a woman, there was more chance of me landing face first on the moon.

But my jealousy was raging right then. I wanted to storm down into the club and rip her from the artists arms and tell him to take a hike because Sena belonged to me.

Tom wasn’t wrong, we are close. She’s one of the few people I can tolerate for long periods of time.

And now I fucking crave her from a place inside me that’s not only never experienced a woman in a carnal way before, but also not with anyone, period.

I’ve never craved anyone in this way.

It’s new and it’s raw and it’s driving me mad.

It’s a different awareness.

It means more because it’s Sena.

I loved her first as my beautiful friend. A friendship that’s meant the world to me.

But now it’s more.

I want to know what she tasted like in the dip of her neck and hear how she moans while I’m buried in her. Is she loud? Would she claw my back? How tight would she clutch her hands on my waist if I pushed as deep as I could go?

Fuck.

I can’t even believe my brain was taking me there, or my cock was bat-stiff in my pants.

Blowing out air, I threw myself back in the chair, fingers drumming the desk.

I can’t do anything about it.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Not if it passes.

I won’t squander our friendship, she’s too vital to my fucking lungs for that.

Maybe I’m just a pussy who was afraid to try something new.

While I’m not worried about the artist creeping into Sena’s heart, I know she is soft and collected idiots like that as projects.

He can’t stay.

There’s no room in my goddamn life for idiots like him.

I won’t share her with someone who doesn’t deserve to breath in the same room as her.

And Sena is just beginning to make a name for herself with her consulting business. That fuckwit would drain her dry once she became successful and that I won’t allow.

No. There’s only one thing for it, and sadly it’s not murder.

I took a drink of scotch on my right, the amber liquid just what I needed before scrolling through my contacts on my cell. Finding who I need in moments.

If she’s too busy with clients, then this pot maker can drift into the background.

It’s underhanded and manipulative. And if I considered for a second, she would love that guy I wouldn’t lift a finger, but I know her, and I know she doesn’t have those feelings for him. Though listening to her stories of what they do together is about all I can take.

The call connected, and I strolled back to the window. She’s dancing once more, laughing with her friend India.

Both dick and heart ache in tandem.

I’m so fucking unbelievably screwed.

“Gray, it’s Noah Fierro. I’m good, man, how’s things with you?” I listened to his reply. I’ve known Gray Ellison for a few years through mutual connections. He’s perfect for what I need. “Listen, are you still looking for investors for your online venture?” He told me yes. I’ve no doubt he’ll do big things, and when he asked me for capital a few months back last summer I was in the process of acquiring a new club and had no desire for a silent partnership in online shopping. He had a good eye and the time is right now for cyber consumers. But my sudden re-interest had nothing to do with me investing in his idea.

It’s altogether more self-seeking.

“Good. I’m willing to come on board with the full 120k you need, with eighteen percent of the shares overall, but it comes with a stipulation.”

He laughed on the other end and said he figured there’d be a catch.

My eyes tracked Sena.

My blood burned.

What the fuck was happening to me?

I cleared my throat and tried to do the same with my mind so consumed with one tiny woman. “I have a friend who is the finest in her field for web design, program coding, hacking, security, you name it, she can do it. Her brain is fucking brilliant. You’re going to need someone to get you up and running. I want you to call and offer her a freelance job to do all your web interface. And one more thing. She doesn’t know I recommended her.” I laugh at his cursed reply. “You’re a smart guy, or so you like to tell me, you’ll think of something.”

The deal was struck.

I’ve no doubt within days Sena will be too busy with Gray and her excitement over a new IT mission to care if the barista artist faded away.

And then …

Fuck. I don’t know what then.

I can only see right now and right now I’m fucking filled with possessive instincts to claim and mark.

As I retook my seat to force myself to do the work I’d come here for tonight, before I paid a visit to a few other of my clubs GM’s, my cell phone rang.

I grinned. The woman herself calling me on facetime. I answered, and her luminous face filled the screen holding it too close to her eyes.

“Lion! Where are you? Come and play with me!”

Oh, if only she knew.

A lot of what she screamed into the phone got swallowed up by the music. I could only tell she’s happy by her animated face.

She’s also wasted.

I’m already sliding into my jacket.

I’d do anything for her.

Because while it’s unbalanced these new sexual feelings I’m experiencing.

There’s one thing that never changed.

And that’s my devotion to the petite party animal downstairs.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

I pulled from the memory on a torn breath.

Sounds of the hospital filter back through my hearing.

Two years it took me to act on how I felt, and we’ve hardly had any time together.

If I lost her now.

Fuck.

I can’t think about it. I can’t. My fucking brain will explode if there’s no Sena in my world.

She’s my existence. I breathe for her.

You save her. If it comes to a choice … you save Sena.

I love my kid. Cloud nine kind of excitement, but there was no stopping the words coming out of my mouth when I saw a doctor ready to examine Sena.

She’d probably hate me for the choice.

I’m a selfish fucker and I won’t live without her.

I popped up from the seat, I couldn’t just sit here and not know what’s happening with the love of my fucking life.

“Noah, they’ll come and tell us when there’s something to know. Come and sit down.” My youngest sister.

“Here you go, bro.” My brother in law tried to hand me a coffee.

I ignored both to pace the waiting area. My eyes snapping to the hallway they’d taken Sena down to examine.

I could still hear the deadly noise of the car smash and her screams through the phone. It paralyzed me.

Her fucking screaming in pain would haunt me forever.

I’d never felt so helpless.

And the way she was telling me goodbye. I don’t think my heart has restarted yet. Not until I could see for myself she is okay.

If not for my brother in law and sister still at home I think I would have abandoned my nephew to get to Sena.

I can’t sit. I can’t stay still.

Not even when my parents arrived or my other sister and her husband. Not when Sena’s best friend arrived.

All of them worried.

I’m fucking terrified.

If I stop moving I might fall apart.

It’s then we all saw a doctor dressed in a shirt and tie with a stethoscope around his neck walking towards us. I know he’s for us from the way he caught my eye and held it.

Fuck. I couldn’t tell from his face what the news is.

I just know my family have gathered at my back. Someone touched my arm. My back. My other arm. The support is there, but my heart is with Sena.

My mouth dried as I watched the doctor approach.

Don’t say it. Don’t you fucking say it.

“What is it? How is she? Can I see her?” I met him halfway.

“Sena Black’s family?”

I replied him yes. I was her family. She’s mine. The rock in my inside pocket I’ve carried for weeks was meant to make us a legal family, only I hadn’t found the perfect time to ask her. I had her father’s blessing and I’ve waited for the right time.

She’d bust my balls and tell me any time to offer diamonds was a great time. Shit. I should have asked her, why didn’t I ask her as soon as we got home from Carolina?

It’s me the doctor directed his conversation to.

I’m not sure I heard him over the battering of my heartbeat.

 

~*~*~

 

Sena
 

The resurfacing into my body wasn’t a pretty endeavor.

Everything hurt, even my hair. But I was awake and looking up into the most perfect blue eyes, washed out with concern.

“Sena…” Noah breathed, bending over me, his hand cupped my face tenderly.

Beeping and wires attached to my belly alerted my gaze from his face down to my bump. Not fully cognizant yet but my heart gave one sluggish, scared thump.

“Our baby?”

“He’s fine.” Noah breathed against my lips, forehead, cheek, moving his lips across my face reverently. “They have you hooked up just for monitoring. It looked like you might go into early labor, but they stopped it, you’re on bed rest for the next three months.”

Oh, thank god. I let out an exhalation. And then. I blinked up at him. “He?”

Noah smiled and kissed me again. “Yes, he. He’s strong and healthy.”

A boy. We’re having a miniature Noah. God help me. I smiled through my fog and massive headache. “I don’t feel him.” I waited for a second. And nothing. My worried eyes flew to his.

“Shhh, kitten. He’s just sleeping, he’s had a hell of a day. You both have. Look?” he stepped aside and showed me the monitor my belly was strapped to measuring the baby’s heart rate. A steady blip-blip.

Only a broken wrist. I had a cast on my left arm. Swelling and contusion on the side of my face and a mega concussion I could feel ringing my bell.

“Noah…” emotion stuck to the roof of my mouth looking at him. The concern and love right there on his face for all to see.

For a minute in his car I was sure I’d never see that villainous face again and my heart had broken.

There he was.

My Noah. The most important person to my soul.

He kissed my fingertips and brought them to his cheek.

He smiled.

“Everything is okay, kitten.”

“Marry me.” I blurted.

His eyes opened wider.

If my head wasn’t splitting open I might have laughed at his surprise.

I repeated. “Marry me, Noah. I love you so much.”

Something like relief and love and amusement crossed his features and he leaned down to rest our foreheads together. “You couldn’t even wait to let me ask, could you? God, I love you, Sena.”

My eyes flickered heavily. I was so marrying my lion just as soon as I got home.

Sleep took me again as I held tightly to Noah’s fingers.

When I next opened my eyes, Noah was still there. I’d been moved to a private room. He was up from the chair and over to the bed soon as he saw me move.

“The baby?”

“He’s doing good, kitten.”

After he’d helped me take a sip of water and I felt more alert than I previously had, I asked. “When can I go home?”

“The doctor wants you to stay for a couple of days, and you won’t complain about it. You’ve aged me, Sena.”

I frowned. “I’m sorry about the car,” he cupped the cheek that wasn’t torn up, bending down over me he kissed me gently. I felt him tremble when I laid my good hand on his wrist. “The car doesn’t matter.”

“Lie down with me?” When he hesitated I added, “please, lion? I need you close.”

He slid on, lying on his side, he took me into his arms where I snuggled in despite my ribs protesting, tangling my legs with his, my face found the side of his neck, inhaling him deeply. I was so fucking happy to see him.

“Jesus. You can’t get hurt again, Sena. you can’t fucking leave me again. I won’t survive it, do you understand? If your life ends, then mine ends right along with you. There’s no question about this.”

With his heart wide open without reservation I hiccupped around a sob, tears had fallen, and I hadn’t realized until I felt the wetness coating my cheeks. The relief seeing him overwhelmed.

I clung, and I didn’t have plans to ever let him go.  

My big, tough robotic Noah was wide open with emotion, his eyes glazed with it. “I can replace everything and everyone but you …. You, Sena, are fucking essential. I only have one of you. My precious girl. You I need.”

While he rested his forehead against mine, his hand curled gently around my neck locked in our own special moment of love I became aware of his family in the doorway.

Sniffling and watching us.

Watching him declare I’m everything to him.

And as his eldest sister brushed a tear from the corner of her eye I think she finally understood.

She gets it now.

We have love.

She sees it in him. In me as we clung to each other.

We’ve always had love.

It didn’t matter than no one else got it or they questioned Noah’s motives if he’d been gay all his life. It only mattered that we felt the truth.

I’m drunk on euphoria and relief pouring through my veins, so jammed full of joy, my feelings ooze out of me as I smiled and cried at the same time as everyone piled into my room.

Noah and I aren’t conventional by any means. It doesn’t mean we weren’t allowed to fall, deeply, unexplainably in complete love with each other.

It’s what we’ve done.

And we were going to be okay because we were together, always now and forever.

“I need you just as much, lion.” I confessed into his chest. His hand coasted down my spine brought more comfort than every doctor in the hospital. If Noah was saying, we were going to be okay then I believed him.

“Good, since you’re gonna be my wife.”

“Say what now?” I did my own version of whiplash by looking directly up into the most startling blue amused eyes.

His family chuckled.

He kissed me lightly.

I poked him.

“Don’t you remember proposing to me?” Oh, that smirk was devastatingly handsome.

“I did?”

Noah nodded and kissed me again.

Holy smokes!

Wait… wait… wait! “You said yes?”

Knocking my nose with his, Noah’s hand around my nape, holding me in his arms while our baby boy woke and kicked me in the bladder, the love of my life rolled his pretty boy eyes at me as if to say, duh, kitten.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

Later, after yet another nap and much talking of this proposal I supposedly did, it was just he and I in that compact room while we listened to the rushing waves of our son’s healthy and strong heartbeat.

Noah hadn’t left my side and I hadn’t left his arms.

“Do you know what happened?”

“A cop told me a bread delivery guy passed out at the wheel. Suspected heart attack.”

“Oh, no. Is he okay?”

Noah shook his head and I frowned.

How brittle life was.

“We need to send his family flowers or something, Noah. A message of condolence.”

His smile pressed to my lips and I relished the touch. “We’ll do that, baby.”

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“Impossible.”

“Truth.”

We shared a soft kiss. My lips reluctant to leave his.

“You have my heart.”

“What about your gorgeous dick?”

He chuffed a laugh. “You just had to ruin a nice moment with talk of my dick.”

“Your gorgeous dick! It’s worth mentioning.”

Noah tweaked the curve of my chin.

This was us. Not always serious, but completely serious with each other.

My heart was full to bursting.

I can’t keep it off my face, I beamed my love.

The accident and hospital room aside, I’ve never felt better.

“You have that, too. All of me.”

I nipped my teeth on his jaw. “I’m keeping it.” I nestled into him. My parents would be arriving any time soon and I needed to be prepared for the theatrics my momma will throw when she saw my bruises. We’d be lucky if she doesn’t move in with us permanently.

“You need rest, baby. Close those pretty eyes. I’ll be here.”

My eyes were already dropping shut, but I didn’t let go of him.

Noah simply wrapped me in closer.

“It was love, Sena.” He said quietly by my ear.

“Hm?”

“You and me.”

I smiled against his cheek as he stroked my back, over my hip and up again.

His voice low and peppered in emotion.

Noah was dark, and I was light and somehow, somewhere in the middle of a murky gray we'd made it our own because love was determined to link us forever.

This taboo kind of love no one, least of all us, expected to happen, was real and as big and as strong as two people could love.

I mean, after all, who said you couldn't live in the gray areas of love?

Love was exactly what you made it.

It's neither one thing or another.

“It was always love.” He said against my lips.

It really, really was.