The night before Noah Hill left his hometown of Mountain View,
he had a drunken sexual tryst with his best friend, Lucas Wesson.
Deeply in the closet, Noah is horrified at his behavior, and terrified
of what Lucas would think of him. He left the next morning without
saying goodbye, and effectively cut off all ties. He returns five
years later to help his father, and runs into his old best friend
almost as soon as he reaches town. And nothing has changed. He
still loves Lucas, and he still can’t stand to meet the other
man’s eyes.
Lucas has been through a lot in the past five years without his
best friend’s support. A marriage. A divorce. A child. Running
his own business. He also remembers his one night with Noah with
perfect clarity. For five years, he only wanted Noah to come home.
But now that Noah is back, things have changed too much to ever
be the same between them...
Excerpt
Noah took the bottle and drank most of what remained of the
bittersweet liquid, waiting for the pleasant burn to begin in
his belly. "Maybe you can come and visit me, then."
"And you can introduce me to all of your famous friends?"
"I doubt I'll know anybody famous. I've just got a part-time
job at a small station."
"Knowing you, you'll own the entire station in five years."
Noah began peeling the label from the bottle. "Yeah. Right."
"Hey."
He looked up. "What?"
"You're going to do fine, Noah. You can take my word for
it. Have I ever been wrong before?"
Noah nodded. That was the great thing about Lucas. He believed
in him when Noah couldn't even believe in himself. He always
had. It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't know what he
was going to do, how he was going to take care of himself, without
Luke in his life. They had been together, practically inseparable,
since the first grade. Nobody was closer to Noah than Luke,
and nobody meant more to him.
Something warmer than the wine bubbled in his chest, and he
opened his mouth, unsure of what was going to come out. He made
a strangled sound, like the words were lodged in his throat.
He closed his mouth again, and Luke tilted his head, regarding
him curiously.
"You okay there? You look a little…"
Noah never found out what he was going to say. He leaned forward
and cut off Luke's question with a whisper of a kiss. Luke's
lips were dry and warm and soft, and when they parted in surprise,
Noah took advantage of it, moving to deepen the kiss. He reached
for Lucas with his free hand, holding his shoulder, while he
explored more and more of Luke's mouth.
Noah broke the kiss first. He leaned back, wiping his lips
self-consciously, and tried to gauge his friend's reaction.
"Noah…"
***
Noah opened his eyes and growled with frustration. What had
happened? What had Lucas said? Had they kissed again? Had they
done more? Did Luke push him away? How did he get that home
that night?
Everything from the kiss to when he woke up the next morning
wasn't just a blur, it was gone. Anything could have happened
in those hours. And he had no clues when he woke up. No note
from Luke, no signs on his body that anything more happened,
no residual feelings-nothing except a hangover and a flush of
embarrassment. Did it matter if anything happened after the
kiss? Wasn't the kiss bad enough?
The kiss had been bad enough to make him run away and never
look back. Ultimately, it didn't matter how Luke had reacted.
Noah was leaving and Luke was in love with Lilah, and that's
all that really matter. It occurred to him once or twice that
it would be as easy as picking up the phone to find out what
had occurred, to find out what, exactly, he was hiding from.
But the only thing easier than picking up the phone was not
picking up the phone. The only thing easier than facing his
feelings was pretending that he didn't have any feelings at
all. The only thing easier than keeping up his closest friendship
was letting it slip away, a casualty to time, and distance,
and avoidance. And shame.
