Chapter Seventeen
Adrian’s skin felt as damp and chilly as the stupid parking garage. The winter wind whipped through the darkened space, but the wind howling through his soul felt twice as lonely.
Another gust made Noah clutch at his coat. Adrian didn’t care if the wind carried him away, took them both to a distant island where this was not happening.
“You want me to end things? Want me to walk away?” Adrian dug at his hair. “Fine. This is me grabbing my dog and going.”
He headed to the stairwell at a fast clip.
“Adrian!” Noah called.
Like an idiot, he spun around, heart lodged somewhere up around his sinuses. “Yeah?”
“You don’t have keys to the RV.” Noah caught up with him. “I’ll uh...walk you back.”
“Big of you.” Adrian took the stairs two at a time, not looking to see if Noah was behind him.
At the landing, he swiveled around, unable to keep his questions back any longer. “Why are you doing this? Why tonight?” I wanted my holiday boyfriend.
“The chair called yesterday—”
“I get that. But why tell me now? We could have had Christmas, at least.” Damn it. He was not going to cry. Lie to me, please lie to me. He knew the impulse wasn’t a reasonable one. He wasn’t some little kid trying to save an awkward family holiday. Clinging to the pleasant little fantasy of a holiday with Noah wasn’t going to help anything. But he’d thought Noah at least shared that fantasy. Noah wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t fickle. He’d raced across town to the hospital—
Bingo.
“You were going to wait to tell me about your tenure, weren’t you?”
“I couldn’t keep it back any longer. You’re right, you deserve better—” Noah’s mouth was as shifty as his eyes. He was a pitiful liar, and Adrian cut him off.
“Bullshit. You’re scared. More than usual. Tonight scared the ever living fuck out of you. Enough for you to ruin my Christmas—our Christmas. The one we waited all month for. What? Are babies that scary?”
“No,” Noah said softly. Adrian made the mistake of catching Noah’s eyes right at that moment, and he saw all the pain, all the longing Noah was stomping down.
“Oh, Noah.” He went to him then, arms out to hold him, but Noah stepped around him, taking the stairs to the roof at a fast clip.
Adrian caught up with him at the RV. “That’s it, isn’t it? You saw something you wanted tonight, didn’t you?”
“You’re the one—”
“No, not me.” Adrian wasn’t going to let him turn this around, not when they were so close to uncovering Noah’s truth. “Not what I want, but you—what you want. You saw something you need, and now you’re running from it, because you refuse to even let yourself have desires outside your carefully scripted little life. You’re telling yourself that this is all about me and how we want different things—”
“We do.” Noah unlocked the RV. “Shall I drop you back at your mom’s place?”
“No you shall not.” Adrian scooped up Pixel. “We want the same things. That’s what you’re so scared of. You want a family, and maybe even my big, wacky one. You love me, but you won’t try to make things work?”
Noah shook his head. “There’s nothing to work out. I’m taking tenure. I’m staying at Landview. It was cruel of me to lead you on. This...holiday fling idea, it’s hurting both of us.”
“You’re afraid. You’re afraid to sit there tomorrow and play video games with the boys and snuggle that baby and eat my grandmother’s eggnog cheesecake. You’re afraid you might like it enough to want to change this tightly held vision you have for yourself. You’re afraid of wanting to come back.”
“Yes.” Noah nodded, which Adrian hadn’t expected. Noah collapsed on the couch next to Ulysses, before continuing, “I’m a coward. But I’m one who knows my limits. These are mine. I can’t do this. I can’t lie. I can’t pretend. I was a fool to think I could.”
“Some...someday—” Adrian’s voice broke. “Someday you’re going to look back and you’re going to see what you could have had. And I’m not going to wait around.” He had to force himself to say that part, because truth was he would wait. But Noah was right that he deserved more. Maybe Noah had been scared by a glimpse into a possible future, but Adrian had never been surer about what he wanted. And he was going to go out and get it. Preferably with Noah. But he wasn’t going to mortgage his whole future on the chance of Noah unbolting his closet door. For the first time in his life, Adrian was going to put himself first.
“I love you, Noah. I really do. But I deserve all of you. I thought about us the whole plane ride out here...” He shook his head. “I had this stupid plan. I was going to talk you into continuing in secret, with stolen weekends here and there. I’m good at distance. I’ve done it before, and I’d do way worse for you. But I can’t do it. Not if you’re not willing to meet me partway.”
“I can’t.” Noah’s face was buried in Ulysses’s neck. Adrian wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around him. “I’m sorry for ruining your holiday.”
“Fuck that. I wanted our pretend holiday together, but at least I’m man enough to admit I want the real deal. I fell in love. You fell in love. We don’t have to pretend. We could be adults and work out a future together, but you can’t let yourself see that future. Don’t be sorry about ruining my Christmas. Be sorry about ruining your life.”
He grabbed his backpack and his dog and let the door slam behind him before tears could ruin his speech. He walked away slowly, willing the universe to whisper his name one more time, this time for real. But Noah didn’t call him back and he found his way to the stairs on autopilot.
* * *
The evening air had an icy bite to it, angry gusts blowing through the parking garage as Adrian dug out his phone. Zero bars. Gee. This was familiar. Alone, cold, with a shivering dog and not a damn clue what to do next. God. How could one of the best months of his life contain so much suck?
He made his way back through the garage, walking blindly through the levels, absentmindedly stroking Pixel, his mind a dull roar.
“Adrian?” It took a second for him to register the sound of his mother’s voice. Her heels clacked noisily along the pavement as she quickly covered the distance between the two of them. Fuck. That was her car right behind him.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my dog for a walk, mother.”
“Did you and Noah have a fight?” She came closer, touched his arm. “Did he leave you here?”
The moment of complete humiliation he’d tried so hard to avoid a month ago had arrived, and surprisingly, it didn’t hurt as much as he’d feared. Didn’t even cut into the raw pain of the fight with Noah.
He’d been so messed up over not wanting to disappoint the family that he didn’t really have a plan for how to handle it when he disappointed himself.
“Don’t take this badly, but I don’t really want to talk right now. And I really, really can’t handle a lecture.”
“Lecture?” His mother clicked to unlock her car, then gestured regally for Adrian to get in. “I don’t lecture. I merely point out that your choices—”
“Are not really up for discussion.” He surprised himself by standing taller, voice firmer than usual when dealing with her. He loved her, but they were years overdue some boundaries. Hanging out with Noah had shown him how unbelievably lucky he was to have his family and their support, but now was one of those times when the support felt like an ace bandage slowly cutting off circulation to his bruised heart.
He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I love you. And I’m going to show up for Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow, but tonight I need to be alone.”
“What? Are you getting a hotel? How will you get there?” His mother’s voice rose dramatically, a nervous trait they both shared, but she was the queen of using her tone to make Adrian second-guess himself. “Let me take you back to my place? You can have the guest room all to yourself—Cousin Bernice doesn’t arrive until tomorrow, and we’ll just tell her that your...arrangements didn’t work out. Wallow in your heartache if you must, but be reasonable.”
I must. “Mother. I don’t do reasonable.”
“I know.” She smiled sadly and touched his cheek. “What you really mean is you want the freedom to go get inebriated and make questionable body art decisions.”
He laughed—a bitter, hacking sound. “You know me well.”
“Yes. I do. Will you at least let me give you a ride to the hotel by my house? They’re pet friendly—Uncle Merv and Aunt Char stayed there with the poodles last year.”
He wanted to dig his heels in and insist on finding his own way to his own goddamned pity party, but an unreasonable fear of asking her for any sort of help was what had started this whole mess.
“No lectures. Not even a hint of one. I mean it.”
“You mean I can’t ply you with eggnog and tell you about the nice clerk in our office? The one who would never abandon someone?” His mother cracked a rare joke, and he had to join in laughing.
“No, no you can’t.”
“Darling, my baby just had a baby tonight, I’m missing the Sponovitches’ holiday gathering where I’d hoped to corner a handsome ad exec I’ve had my eye on under the mistletoe, and the number of guests for tomorrow’s dinner is fluctuating hourly. I’m an overemotional mess right now, but I think I can manage a quiet drive.”
“It doesn’t have to be complete silence,” he offered as he got into the car. “You can tell me how long you knew about Noelle’s middle name.”
He waited until they were pulling up at the hotel—a nice, mindless discussion about the baby behind them—to ask the question that had been bugging him for twenty minutes. “You have an ad exec you’re interested in?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. You know I date.”
“Why didn’t you ever remarry, like dad did?” Oh he was so going to regret asking this, but like their too-dramatic voices and arched eyebrows, he and his mother shared a tendency to go for the unavailable or at least out-of-town men.
“Oh, Adrian.” His mother sounded weary, but not in the usual Oh-Adrian-what-have-you-done-now way. “I don’t know. Dozens of reasons really. I like being on my own too much, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, sometimes it’s easier not to try, you know? You can’t fail if you don’t really try. And I didn’t want to fail again.” His mother rubbed the bridge of her nose where her reading glasses usually perched when she wasn’t being vain about a social event. Her eyes looked away, as though she instantly regretted the rare candor.
“I get it.” And man, did he ever. Misery swamped all his senses. Misery he’d thought he could avoid by sticking to long-distance guys and casual friendships. How wrong he’d been. He’d been afraid of fully committing to someone, thinking on a deep level that because his parents’ marriage had fallen apart that he’d be doomed too. He’d ripped on Noah for hiding away, but in truth he’d done it too. He’d hidden behind relationships that never really required all of him, didn’t ask more of him than he was willing to give.
“Not everyone lives their lives as...fearlessly as you. Remember that.” His mother said quietly as he got out of the car.
“Yeah.” His throat tightened. He wasn’t brave like she thought. Not where it really counted.
He’d glimpsed something real and precious with Noah—a chance they could have had a family, a shared life together, and for the first time, he’d been willing to push past all his fears and insecurities and go grab it. But now it was lost and he was left with absolute confirmation that love did indeed hurt. Giving everything and having it rejected sucked way more than holding back. Only question now was whether he’d be brave enough to go after the future he deserved or go back to almost-living.
* * *
When Noah was younger, he used to shut out his parent’s arguments by climbing in bed, pulling the covers over his head. Sometimes Ruth would make them a blanket tent, and they’d huddle together, blocking out the scary adult world. Now he was an adult man and he had no business languishing in his bed like some heartbroken Victorian maiden.
He’d driven back to Landview in something of a fugue state Christmas Eve, doing the seven-hour drive in five and half, stopping only for gas. He’d had the notion that he needed to be home before he fully collapsed, and he’d pulled into the mobile home and RV park he hadn’t seen in six months, found his space and crawled into bed. He hadn’t left since other than to let Ulysses out. So languishing it was.
His phone had buzzed insistently Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but he’d shut the stupid thing off without looking at it. Didn’t matter who it was, he couldn’t deal. Part of why he’d raced home was to get away from the temptation of doing something stupid like showing up at Adrian’s Christmas, begging forgiveness. But that would be the height of foolishness—seeking another hit of the drug of Adrian’s companionship, knowing he was only delaying the inevitable pain.
Ulysses growled at him, nudging his limp carcass with his nose before giving up. He returned a few minutes later to drop an empty food bowl on Noah’s face.
“Oh crap. Did I forget breakfast?” He made his way to the kitchen on unsteady feet. He found some kibble for Ulysses, gave him a generous portion. When was the last time he’d eaten something himself? Yesterday? He opened the fridge but he was out of almost everything and nothing that was left looked good. A package of gluten-free waffles mocked him in the freezer.
What he wanted was something greasy and heavy. Something he could take back to his bed nest. He couldn’t even watch any of his usual movies—too many memories of Adrian—so he’d been streaming bad documentaries that didn’t come close to filling the silence in his heart. He pulled his phone off the charger. Powered it up. He could call for a pizza—
Buzz. His phone vibrated as he unlocked it.
“Noah? Noah is that you?” Ruth’s voice echoed in the room.
Oh crap. He’d accidentally answered the call. Reluctantly, he put the phone to his ear. Ignoring his phone was one thing. Actively hanging up on his sister was more than he could do.
“It’s me. Is everything okay?” he asked. She’d sounded almost panicked.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for days. You didn’t call on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. The kids wanted to thank you for the gifts you mailed. You didn’t even text. Did you get my messages?”
“No,” he admitted. “My phone’s been...off.” He couldn’t lie and call it broken even if that might spare her feelings.
“What’s going on with you?” Her voice was gentler now.
“Nothing.” He sounded exactly like a fifteen-year-old who didn’t want to confess his inner turmoil to his big sister.
“I miss you. We only got a text at Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Ditto Halloween. I can’t even think of the last time we spoke on the phone. Really talked. I’m worried about you.”
I’m worried about me too. He couldn’t speak, could only suck a ragged breath in. Her concern wrapped around him, a blanket fort of love that made him perilously close to losing his composure completely.
“Talk to me.”
The words rose up his throat, the ones he’d spent eighteen years keeping away from her. What was the point? He’d already messed up his life beyond all recognition. And he’d shoved her so far away, what did it really matter if he pushed her the rest of the way out of his life.
“I’m gay.” Bile rose up in his throat. If he had any food in his stomach, he’d be retching. His hand shook on the phone.