A Younger Man (8 page)

“What’s his name?” Janice pressed.

“Za—” Activity at the open door to the house had Noah twisting to look over his shoulder.
Oh wow.

“Dad. Hi.” As Noah looked upon his father, the man still more blond than gray, his throat grew tight. Visible discomfort shaded his father’s face. Shaking the heartache, Noah turned to his silver-haired mother. “Mom.” He rushed to the stoop to give her a hug and kiss. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Standing a pace behind Noah, Janice gently squeezed his arm. “It wasn’t planned.” The way she rubbed his arm, still so familiar, told Noah she would have called him to keep him in the loop if she’d had the time. “But I was happy to see Cathy and Hoyt when I opened the door a bit ago.”

Noah’s mom hugged him in return but then pulled to stand next to Noah’s dad. “We were having brunch after church with Norman and Hilary,” Cathy shared, mentioning Noah’s old neighbors. “We decided to walk over to say hi to Matthew.”

From the truck, Noah’s son shouted, “It’s Matt now!”

Hoyt sent a thumbs-up Matt’s way. “Gotcha, kiddo.”

Noah stared at his dad, who kept his focus on his grandson, and he silently told himself not to dwell on the stabbing sensation digging repeatedly into his gut. Instead, Noah put on a happy face and turned to his mother. “I know you said you just ate, but you’re welcome to join us anyway.” His gazed darted to his dad; he couldn’t help it. “You could have coffee, and we could all catch up.”

Cathy gave Noah another fast hug and then moved toward the drive. “We’ve already been rude to leave our hosts for as long as we have. We should really get back.”

Hardly making contact, Hoyt grabbed Noah’s hand and shook it. “Son.” His lips barely moved, and in fast strides he was at his wife’s side.

“Bye, dear.” Cathy waved and then linked her hand in her husband’s elbow. “We’ll call you soon.”

As Noah watched his parents walk away, it felt as if huge chunks of his very being fell off his body and crumbled into the grass at his feet. Their rejection, but particularly that of his father, scraped away a little more every day at the choice Noah had made to face his sexuality. More than that, with every frustrating, lonely day that went by, greater doubt crept in, and made Noah question if what he’d gained in his life could match the many things he’d lost, and if in the end he’d made the right choice.

Janice rubbed Noah’s arm again. “Try not to let it hurt you. They’ll come around.”

“I don’t know if they will.” Rust coated Noah’s words, and it hurt his throat to talk. “I think I just lucked out with you. Most everybody is more like them. Polite but,” he struggled to explain the volatile emotions roiling inside him right now, “they act as though they don’t know me anymore, like if they touch me for more than a second they’re going to catch the gayness I’m apparently carrying around like a disease. It’s like I’m a different species now or something.”

Stepping in front of Noah, Janice gave him the eye contact his parents no longer would. “In their minds you were their straight son for forty-one years. Married and with kids too; everything they expected in their only child. Certainly they always were and are very proud of you, but you also never once threw them any real surprises in that time.” Her vocation as a counselor at their local high school shone through every part of her. “Now you’ve been their openly gay son for fifteen months. Intellectually you have to understand it will take time for them to adjust.”

“You didn’t need time,” Noah shot back, knowing he could still say anything to her. Christ, he missed this closeness with another adult. “If you hadn’t been so fantastic we would still be gearing up for a battle in divorce court, rather than already settled and moving on.”

A shot of laughter escaped Janice, and she quirked a dark brow. “Maybe you’ve conveniently forgotten how I tore up our bedroom when you told me. I threw some very nice things at your head, more than once.”

“I know,” Noah conceded. “But you never stopped talking to me, even when it was yelling and crying. You never treated me like a stranger, or as if it might burn your fingertips off if you touched me.”

“I also knew you’d had that one experience with a guy; your parents didn’t.” Janice went quiet then. Her gaze changed to cloudy, as if she’d drifted away. “Maybe buried deep in some secret part of me,” she said, her voice gone soft, “I was always waiting for that shoe to drop, for you to tell me that you needed the freedom to try something with a man. I think some part of me always knew you would have to leave me one day.”

Guilt flooded Noah, and he second-guessed the decision he’d made more than two decades ago to tell Janice of his one-time slip with another guy. “Were you worried the need might get so great in me that I would cheat on you?”

Her focus sharpening once more, Janice shook her head. “It’s not in your DNA to cheat on a person you’re committed to, man or woman. Beyond that, we were both so freaking busy with work, the kids, and making sure we were saving money, you never would have had the time to stray.” She chuckled again, this time in commiseration. “Me either, for that matter.”

Noah suddenly put a laser focus on his ex. “Did you ever think about cheating on me?”

“Nothing more than the occasional fantasy every couple has but never admits to feeling.” She raised a brow. “You?”

With a shrug, Noah admitted, “The same.”

“Daaaadddd!” Matt leaned out the window and wailed loud enough for the entire town to hear him. “Come on!”

Noah rolled his eyes at Janice. “He must be hungry again.” The kid burned so much energy he sometimes consumed more in a meal than Noah did. “Let me get him to the diner before he threatens to pass out on me.”

“Have him home by nine.” Janice waved as she walked backward to the open front door. “He has school tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

With that, Noah jogged to his truck and strapped himself in, along with a promise to Matt that he would get the kid to some food as fast as he could. As Noah drove past his parents’ car parked in a drive a few houses away, his heart once again squeezed with unbearable tightness. He had a glimmer of hope he might get his mother back in time, but with each tense moment that passed between him and his father, Noah feared the strong bond he’d shared with his dad for so many years was gone for good. Another crushing wave of loss bore down on Noah, suffocating him.

He’d never experienced such pain in his life.

* * * *

Pausing to wipe sweat from his forehead, Zane eyed Noah from across the spare bedroom. The man painted the disgusting wall—Zane didn’t want to know what the previous renters had done to create such stains—with such efficiency he might as well have been a robot. More than once in the last two hours Zane had found his gaze straying Noah’s way. When he found himself fixating on Noah’s strong back and shoulders, staring at the man’s muscles moving with such precision as he rolled a brush across the wall, he would avert his attention. The guy might as well have been naked from the waist up for all the good his thin T-shirt did to conceal his muscular frame.
Good God.

Zane’s knee-jerk reaction to rip his stare away once more kicked in, but this time, before he did, a band suddenly constricted his chest. Instinct pulled him closer to Noah. Zane couldn’t stop himself from drinking in Noah’s incredible hardness and physique, or keep his throat from going a bit dry as he closed the distance between them. This time, though, he ignored the strange confusion he experienced when around this man, and instead zeroed in on the way Noah repeatedly clenched his jaw. He reassessed the tension in Noah’s shoulders, as well as his silence. As Zane did, his heart inexplicably tugged again.

After putting down his roller, Zane curled his hand around Noah’s arm.
God, his muscles are so fucking tight and hard
. Noah jerked away, muttering a curse.

Zane immediately lifted both hands in the air. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No,” Noah rubbed his arm where Zane had touched him, as if hurt by the contact, “it’s me who should apologize. It’s fine.”

Studying Noah more closely, Zane took note of the tightness still coiling in Noah’s hands and arms. “I notice you didn’t say
you
are fine.” Tingles in Zane’s palms pushed him to touch Noah, to try to ease the tension in the man. Only having known Noah for a short while, Zane squashed such a presumption. Still, the urge to help overwhelmed Zane; he kept his tone soft, and said, “I don’t think you are fine, Noah. I don’t think you’re okay at all.”

Noah’s pupils flared. He abruptly stepped back. “It was just a poor word choice. I am.” After a terse second, he added, “Fine, I mean. I am fine.”

The kids had abandoned painting after completing one wall together. Matt had shown Hailey and Duncan his portable gaming device, and he’d taken them outside to teach them a few games. Their loud chatter drifted through the open windows of the cabin, so Zane had no fear they would wander inside and overhear any exchange between himself and Noah. He could speak freely.

“I know you said you enjoy the quiet, but you’ve been even quieter than the day we worked together. And maybe I don’t know you very well yet, but I feel like there’s something … I don’t know…” Zane soaked in every rigid, firm line in Noah today, much more pronounced than before, and he struggled to explain that whatever Noah had festering inside him right now had leaked through his pores and infected Zane too. “Something is
off
with you today. Like you’re agitated, or angry, or upset, or something like that, and that you’re biting your teeth together hard enough to wear down the enamel so that you don’t vomit what you’re thinking all over the nice walls you’re painting.”

“You’re painting too.” With those words, Noah’s frame only locked up even tighter.

Zane sighed. “All right, that
we’re
painting. That’s not the point. What I’m feeling vibrating out of you is still the same.” Compelled beyond what might be considered good manners, Zane stepped closer and put his hands on Noah’s forearms. Warm flesh immediately licked against Zane’s palms, but he ignored the buzz shimmering through his hands and went deeper to the rigidity coiling the muscle beneath. “It’s like you’re trying to keep something inside you from snapping or exploding.” Caressing down to Noah’s wrists, and then lower, Zane ran his fingertips along the tendons cording the back of Noah’s hands. Each sliver of contact filled him with accompanying tension. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s pretty powerful.”

Noah yanked his hands away from Zane. He whispered a string of curses as he paced across the room. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “I apologize.” Gruffness ruled his tone. “I should be able to hide my crap better.”

“Why?”

Stalking around the room some more, Noah shot Zane another sideways glance. “Because it’s not professional to bring private stuff into a work environment.”

“You’re not officially on the job today, so don’t worry about it.” Some friendly taunting about gaming skills from young voices outside prompted Zane to add, “Your son isn’t within hearing distance, so you don’t have to worry about him hearing or seeing you upset. If you want to tell me what’s wrong, you can.”

A small hitch broke Noah’s stride. Then he began circling the room again, his stare laser sharp in front of him at all times. “Talking won’t change things.”

“It might make you stop strangling that roller handle,” Zane pointed out. “You’re acting like it did you wrong or something. Come on, Noah.” When Noah passed by, Zane grabbed the paint roller out of his hand. “It’s not exactly like you met me on my most stellar day. I think I was near to hyperventilating at one point. You can spill.” This time, when Noah made to move past him, Zane stepped in and blocked his path. Noah locked his gaze on Zane, his stare intimidating in its focus. Zane held his ground, even though his heart suddenly pounded like a motherfucker. “I promise that whatever you say will go to the grave with me.”

“Shit,” Noah released a rough chuckle, “it’s not that dire.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a big deal to get it off your chest.”

Silence reigned between them, and a battle of wills ensued. Or, at least, Noah glared. He took a step closer, in a way that felt as if he were trying to use his extra height and size to get Zane to break and back away. And, fuck, Zane did find it harder to swallow, and drops of sweat trickled from his neck down his spine. At the same time, though, he didn’t think a roar in his face would make him tuck tail and slink away. Something inexplicable, forming in his gut and solidifying in every limb, nerve, and vein in him wouldn’t let him pull his stare from the intensity burning in Noah. He wouldn’t shrink back from the powerful waves of heat emanating from Noah’s entire being. Something elemental in Zane’s being, beyond his ability to control with conscious thought, would not let him walk away.
Fuck.
Breathing became a tangible thing, and Zane swore Noah had trouble too.

Accompanying the muttering of a few more expletives—God could only know how long later—Noah finally muttered, “Fine.”

Zane exhaled.
Thank you, God.

After scratching through his hair one more time, his fingers leaving the blond tresses in sweaty tufts, Noah launched into a fast-paced explosion of sentences. He explained the difficulty his parents were having being around him, with being affectionate with him, with being natural in his presence, since his telling them he was gay. Noah paced as he spoke, and with each sentence, his throat seemed to fill with more gravel than usual, making Zane think the man swallowed down tears—ones he’d likely been fighting for a very long time.

On the heels of the battle of wills that had just occurred between them, Noah’s words and cadence were surprisingly very matter-of-fact, but Zane catalogued the pain etched into each line on Noah’s face and in the tension filling his body. He added the information to the struggle Noah had overcome just to share, and Zane knew the truth.
His parents’ response has crushed him, and doesn’t know how to process such a monstrous loss.

Matching pain swelled in Zane, and he barely kept from pulling Noah into his arms each time the man crossed his path. He didn’t understand the urge, or why such emotions had all of a sudden come alive in him—particularly for another man—but such empathy erupted in him, squeezing his insides so terribly, Zane could not pretend they didn’t exist. They did. For Noah. Another man. An older, gay man.
Shit.