Chapter Nineteen
New Year’s Eve was a crappy day to have to work. All day Adrian had to hear about everyone else’s plans and fend off questions about his own. No one seemed to be doing actual work, despite next week’s scheduled rollout of new features for the beta users, and an upcoming funding launch of several new colony types. With any luck, the game would pass the sixty-million funding mark in the New Year. Already, he had trips to Germany and Austin booked to collaborate with the development teams there. His career was totally taking off.
And he’d never been more miserable.
What good was finally getting the mining bots to cooperate if he couldn’t show the renderings to Noah? In under a month, he’d become more than a little addicted to sharing his day with Noah. He was the best listener Adrian had ever met, and he’d always made it seem as if Adrian’s work was meaningful and important—even the trivial stuff like arguing about filming another Code Review webisode for Rex for Space Villager’s YouTube channel or answering user questions in the forums. And Noah was excellent at brainstorming solutions, mainly because he’d let Adrian ramble until he talked himself into the right fix for the problem.
God, he missed Noah. He glanced at his phone. He’d thought maybe today there’d be a message...but it had been radio silence from Noah since their parting. And whose fault is that? Adrian had very deliberately not messaged him on Christmas. Or any other time. He’d been that boyfriend before, the one who chased after the reluctant partner and tried to make things work. And he wasn’t going to be this time. He knew what he wanted. And he wasn’t going to settle for less than that. If there were any moves to be made, it would have to be Noah.
What harm would a “Let’s be friends?” text be? He put his phone on silent and stuck it in his messenger bag next to Pixel’s bed under his desk. Temptation removed. He couldn’t be friends with Noah. Unlike most of his relationships, where the sex and the friendship were fairly separate things, with Noah the friendship was the bedrock of the relationship—the sex was an awesome bonus. Asking to still be friends with Noah would be like heading to a ten-course dinner intent on not eating a bite—having everything he’d ever wanted in a partner hovering just out of reach.
“How about you come over tonight?” Meena spun around on her exercise ball office chair. “Dale talked me into making chicken korma and my mother’s carrot halva recipe. It’ll be us and a couple of other people from our apartment complex. Might be good for you to get out.”
“I don’t need to get out. But thanks for the invite.” He struggled for a polite way to decline. He loved Meena and particularly loved her cooking, but her impromptu dinner parties were always filled with couples—happy people starting their lives together like her and Dale, not bitter singles like him.
“Our new neighbor, Ravi, will be there. I’m talking to him about applying for one of our openings—he’s a graphic designer. You guys would get along great.” Her smile was too wide, eyes too innocent.
Crap. Only thing worse than being surrounded by couples was being set up.
“I’m not ready to meet someone.”
“Which is why you should come out with me.” Josiah rolled his stool over from his cube. “Bunch of us are headed to West Ho tonight. It’ll be epic. When was the last time you went clubbing?”
“It’s not really my scene.” Geeks Gone Wild was hardly the sort of “epic” Adrian wanted for his evening.
“Adrian,” Meena said patiently. “Maybe it’s time to change your scene. Come have dinner with us, then hit the parties with Josiah.”
“You’re encouraging me to get drunk with Joz’s buddies and have a one-night stand with some random club dude?”
“What else is New Year’s good for?” Josiah said.
“Adrian can hold a torch like no one else,” Meena said to Josiah as though he wasn’t right there.
“How about you tackle the next batch of forum questions? Surely there’s a dude in Quebec ripe for you to pine over,” Josiah said to Adrian, but Meena was the one who laughed.
No more long-distance boyfriends. No more pining. Be fearless. “You take the forum questions. And I’ll think about going out.”
“No, you will go out,” Josiah said, even as he clicked to the forums on his monitor. “And I want korma too.”
“Fine, fine, maybe I’ll tell you all about Ravi since other people are being picky,” Meena said, moving closer to Josiah.
“I’m getting coffee.” Adrian stood up and headed for the espresso machine. This day seriously could not end soon enough. Why was the rest of the world so obsessed with having someone to kiss at midnight? What he really wanted was someone to wake up with. Someone to—
Pixel rushed by him barking. Crap. He was usually so well-behaved at the office. Adrian abandoned the coffee station and headed to the front, where he heard raised voices.
“I’m sorry. We don’t accept visitors.” Rex’s voice had reached a new condescending low. “If you leave your name—”
Yap. Yap. Yap. Pixel charged right into the reception area, Adrian fast behind him. He pulled up short at the sight that greeted him.
Noah.
Noah stood in front of the receptionist, Becky, but as usual, it was Rex running the front-office show. Noah had a good four inches of height over Rex, but Rex was bristly as a porcupine and equally puffed up. He whirled on Adrian.
“Adrian. Can’t you do something about your animal? People are going to think we’re unprofessional. This is a place of business.”
“Noah.” Adrian ignored Rex’s bluster. “What are you doing here?”
“And now you’ve got unannounced guests.” Rex threw up his hands and mercifully walked away. “Fine. Let the kingdom fall to ruin.”
“Sorry.” Adrian gestured at Rex’s back. “He’s a bit...”
“Dramatic?”
“I was going to go with power-hungry crazy pot, but yeah, dramatic. He’s got a huge investment in the game though, so there’s no getting rid of him. He asked to be office manager.” Adrian spoke too fast, sharing pointless details even as his brain reeled.
“Ah. Well, I’m grateful to him for the web TV episodes idea.” A nervous smile teased Noah’s lips.
“You’re here,” Adrian said, touching Noah’s sleeve. “Really here. Why are you here?”
“I’m not precisely sure.” Noah tapped his fingers against his lips. “Taking a chance?”
“Hey, Adrian!” Josiah came barreling into the reception area. He was built like a Great Dane puppy, all big feet and knobby limbs and little coordination, and truly awful timing. “My friend had the best idea. Let’s get a couple of rooms in West Ho for after we go out.”
“Oh.” Noah’s face sagged. His hooded eyes flicked from Adrian to Josiah and back again. “You have plans for tonight?”
“Oops. Didn’t mean to barge in.” Josiah held up his hands.
“Joz, this is Noah. Noah, this my colleague, Josiah.”
“You’re Noah.” Josiah totally fumbled the reluctant handshake Noah offered him.
“That I am.” Noah’s eyes were full of questions for Adrian.
“You’re why Adrian’s been cranky all week.” Josiah shook his head. “I really hope you know how to grovel.”
“Wait! There’s going to be groveling?” Meena appeared at Josiah’s elbow. Seemed like Rex hadn’t wasted time spreading Adrian’s gossip.
“No. There’s not,” Adrian said firmly. Noah was looking distinctly green around the edges. He knew how much Noah hated group scenes. Noah risking a public scene at his office made his chest all warm.
“Yes. There is. I came to apologize.” Noah’s eyes locked on Adrian. “Please give me that chance?”
“We can talk in the conference room.” He grabbed Noah’s arm and hauled him toward the teleconferencing room off the reception area. Meena and Josiah and even Becky trailed along. “Alone,” Adrian added.
“Darn,” Josiah said with a smirk. “I guess we should go find some work.”
“Better be a good apology,” Meena said as she followed Josiah back to the cube farm.
Adrian flipped on the lights in the room and closed the door.
“Holy cow. You guys didn’t skimp when you made teleconferencing a stretch goal, did you?” Noah motioned at the multiple screens, the oak table and the padded movie-theater style seating.
“Robert doesn’t do anything by half measures.” Adrian didn’t have spare attention for the room’s collection of high-tech gadgetry. “Why are you here?”
* * *
Noah didn’t have a good answer for Adrian. Or at least not one he could articulate. He’d driven twenty hours in two days, and still had no clue what he was doing, only that he wanted to reach Adrian by New Year’s.
“You weren’t answering your phone.” Noah had definitely not planned on the whole public-apology thing, but he’d realized somewhere in New Mexico that he didn’t have Adrian’s apartment number. Then he’d planned to call Adrian, ask him to dinner. But Adrian hadn’t answered his phone, and Noah had done the very un-Noah-like thing and flat-out panicked. For the first time, he’d known jealousy. What if Adrian had plans with someone else?
And as it turned out, he’d been right to be suspicious. Adrian’s tall, goofy-but-cute friend sounded only too eager to make plans. He looked like he laughed a lot. He probably had a lot fewer issues.
And he wasn’t getting Adrian.
“I didn’t want to spend New Year’s alone,” Noah added when Adrian stayed silent. The meeting room was strangely dim—so many reflective surfaces but weird track lighting that gave everything an almost sepia cast. It made Noah yearn for sunshine reflecting off piles of white snow, back when things between then had been so much simpler.
“Kind of far for a booty call.” Adrian gave a shallow smile. “You drive?”
“Me and Ulysses. Yeah. Left before dawn yesterday. Left...” Heck. His voice was none too steady.
“Hey.” Adrian rubbed Noah’s shoulder. “I’m giving you a hard time, but I am happy to see you. Really. I’m not about to send you away. You can tell me whatever.” He steered Noah into one of the cushy chairs. “You look exhausted. Do you need a water or tea?”
“You. I just need you.” Noah grabbed Adrian’s wrist, held tight. “My life’s kind of a wreck right now, but all I could think of was getting to you.”
“A wreck?” Adrian didn’t pull away, but his voice was wary. “I thought you had everything you wanted.”
“I didn’t have you,” Noah said simply. “Turns out nothing else mattered without you. I came out to my family.”
“You did what?” Adrian sank into a crouch in front of Noah. “You told your family?”
“It wasn’t half as scary as I’d built it up to be,” he admitted. “I should have told them years ago. Should have trusted my sister more. And I’m...grateful to you. For giving me the push to do it. I feel...like I can breathe. For the first time ever, the secret isn’t controlling me.”
“That’s wonderful.” Adrian stroked his face.
“I told work too. That didn’t go quite so well as my family.”
“You told Landview? You didn’t wait to make tenure first?” Adrian peered into his eyes.
“I was done lying. Done lying to myself. Done lying to my family. Done lying to my job. I realized I wasn’t doing my students any favors hiding my real self away.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Adrian kissed him soundly on the mouth. “How badly did they take it?”
“They gave me a choice of spiritual counseling, the disciplinary committee, or resigning.”
“Spiritual counseling? Like a pray-the-gay-away program?” Adrian made a face.
“Yes, exactly. But I realized something else. God—the God I believe in—he wouldn’t want me to be alone. I can’t subscribe to a reality where God wants me to be miserable simply because of the sexuality I was born with. So I said no to the counseling. And...” This was the part he’d dreaded telling. He hadn’t told anyone yet.
“I’ll help you fight the disciplinary committee, baby. You can—”
“I resigned.” Noah tried to straighten his shoulders and failed, sagging even more forward into Adrian’s embrace. “As of day before yesterday, I’m unemployed.”
“You didn’t want to fight it?” Adrian’s face was confused. “You can’t just let them chase you off—”
“Yes, I can.” Noah sighed. “I’m not like you, Dre. I know. I could have gotten a lawyer and done a press release and reached out to the ACLU and HRC and brought a whole media circus to Landview to show what an idiotic policy they have.”
“You’re not really the circus type.” Adrian’s eyes were understanding and his voice was soft.
“I likely still would have lost. They’re a private university. I willingly signed the morality clause. I would have just been delaying the inevitable. And I knew you’d want me to fight. But I kept thinking about all the cameras and the questions and...” Bile rose in his throat. He dug his calves into the chrome base of the chair.
“It’s okay.” Adrian kissed him again, gentler this time. “I get it. You don’t have to fight them for me. It just sucks that they get to win. And you lose.”
“No, I don’t.” Noah had been far into Arizona before he had that realization. “I win. I win the right to be who I am. To fight for you. And yes, I’m sad about my job, and I’m especially sad about the students, but you were right. Living under Landview’s thumb was slowly killing me.”
“It was,” Adrian agreed. “But it’s okay to be sad too. I know how much tenure meant to you.”
While missing Adrian had been a sharp, acute limb-ripped-off sort of pain, the loss of his job was a dull, nagging ache that he was trying to make peace with. Noah took a shaky breath. “I’m working on being okay with it. It’s going to take some time. And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure my stuff out and I ruined your holiday.”
“Hey, I’ll take a late present.” Adrian rubbed Noah’s hands. “And I was maybe putting too much pressure on you to make big changes. I don’t think I really appreciated how hard all this was for you. I said some harsh stuff, and I’m sorry.”
“I needed to hear it. I needed to make the changes. I needed to stop punishing myself for being gay.” He realized as he said it how true that was. He’d spent years unconsciously beating himself up over it. It had taken Adrian charging into his life to make him see the prison walls he’d built around himself.
“I love you,” Adrian said. “I love you for deciding to love yourself. Life’s too short to hate yourself.”
“I get that now. But I have no clue what comes next.” He felt lightheaded thinking about the future. He’d driven here, powered on by the smoke from his smoldering life, unwilling to think about anything more than getting to Adrian.
“How about you don’t have to think about that yet?” Adrian kissed him again, his lips a soft, steady pressure linking Noah to the present. “You’re here. It’s New Year’s Eve. Come home with me. We can go eat korma at Meena’s if you feel up to a group thing. Then I have big plans for midnight.”
“Big plans, huh? I’ve never had someone to kiss at midnight.”
“Tonight you do.” Adrian kissed him fiercely. “And if I have my way it’ll be a very naked kiss.”
“I like the sound of that.” Noah tried to shove all his worries about the future aside. For the first time ever, he had a New Year’s date and he was going to enjoy that. He could freak out tomorrow.