18. Chapter 18
Noah
“I want cookies,” Asher says first thing in the morning.
I look at him with one eye open. The sunlight is blindingly bright, and dust motes dance in the air.
“Not just a cookie, but cookies?”
“Yes,” Asher confirms. “I’m hungry.”
“Seems like your addiction affected your appetite, and now it’s returning.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Can you make me some, Noah? Pleeease?” He rolls me over and clings to me, squeezing me tight.
I smile into his embrace; how can I not? “Of course. What sort of cookies do you want?”
“Chocolate chip, of course.”
“Okay.” I yawn, blinking sleep out of my eyes, but Asher squeezes my arm impatiently.
“I want them now. I really want them.” He licks his dry lips. “And coffee. Loads of it.”
“All right,” I tell him, but I can’t help but purposefully delay, wanting to know how he’ll react.
“Come on,” he whines. He climbs on top of me, surprisingly swiftly, as if he’s been awake for hours, just waiting for me to drift out of my slumber.
Last night took a lot out of me. Having Asher top me for the first time?…?I still feel the remnants of it—a soreness, as he put it, and I wonder if that part of me is tinged red, like he was.
I stretch indulgently on the bed, and Asher puts his hands on my shoulders and shakes me, like an impatient child.
“Come on. Let’s go, let’s go!”
My smile widens, and I grab hold of the side of his neck and reverse our positions, toppling him onto his back and kissing him breathless. I feel as hungry as he does, but instead of cookies, I’m hungry for him —his tongue, his cock, his body. Everything about him makes me starved.
“Mmm, stop,” he gasps. “I don’t want to fuck you just yet. I want cookies first.”
“After the cookies, then?”
“Maybe,” he says, eyes glittering. “If they’re good.”
We walk upstairs, wearing nothing but boxer briefs.
“I like you smiling,” Asher says over his shoulder.
“I like you eager.”
“Oh, you just wait.” And he flashes me the most indulgent, innuendo-laced grin I’ve ever seen.
In the kitchen, I uncover Auntie’s old recipe book, even though I hardly need to look at the instructions.
We used to make these all the time. The issue emerges with the ingredients, however: I’m short on butter and eggs, so I can’t make as big a batch as I planned.
Again, I make a mental note to grocery shop, but leaving the house is the last thing I want to do right now.
Even though it seems like Asher has decided to stay with me, leaving him alone in the house, where I’d have no sense of control over his actions?…?I don’t know. A knot forms in my stomach at the thought.
Sure, he could leave me at any moment—while I’m sleeping, while I’m on the toilet—but for some reason, leaving the house feels like a greater danger than I can handle right now. Things are still so new and tenuous between us. One day, I might trust that he won’t disappear from my life, but not yet.
While Asher brews coffee, I mix the ingredients, roll the batter into balls, and flatten them onto the baking sheet.
By the time I insert the pan into the preheated oven, Asher sits on the barstool on the kitchen island, gazing out at the yard with a hot cup of coffee cradled in his hands.
The snow has nearly thawed, revealing the yellowed lawn, now covered by a thin layer of frost.
“Mm, that smell,” Asher says. “Brings me back. Our nanny used to make these all the time for Ethan and me.”
“How about your parents?”
“My parents?” He rolls his eyes. “They were always working. Sometimes, I went days without seeing them, especially Dad.” He looks down at his hands, mouth tensing into a thin line.
I grab his phone from the kitchen counter and slide it over to him. “Here.”
He frowns down at it. “Why would I want my phone?”
“If you want to call someone, maybe.”
As soon as I say it, I regret I even alerted him about the phone, and I regret I even asked about his parents. At the same time, I don’t want to make him feel like he’s stuck here.
If he feels like he’s my prisoner again, he’ll want to leave, but if I’m supportive about his family, maybe he’ll want to stay with me for longer?…?Besides that, I’m curious. I want to know everything about him.
“I don’t have anyone to call.” He pushes the phone away, sliding it forcefully over the kitchen island.
I catch it before it careens over the edge, and I plug it in to keep the battery charged in case he changes his mind.
“How about your brother?”
Asher cuts his gaze up to me. “What about him?”
“Maybe he’d be glad to hear from you.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do,” he mutters. “You don’t know what he’s like.”
I raise a brow, and Asher rolls his eyes.
“Right, yeah, I guess you do know him. I only meant?…?You don’t know what he’s like with me.”
“Then tell me.”
He fiddles with his hands, a sullen pout on his lips. “Well, last time I saw him, he basically told me he hated me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I still don’t know what I?…?what I did wrong.” His shoulders slump miserably, and I want to go to him and hug him and soothe that nerve I struck, but what if he pushes me away?
“Don’t you want to ask him about it?”
“I don’t think?…” Asher inhales a sharp breath, a pained expression on his face. “I just don’t want to.”
“You could just talk to him, without asking him.”
“What would I even say? ‘Hey, bro, I got kidnapped by a weird loner who chained me to his basement, and now I’m showing him the wonders of sex so he won’t try to kill himself again’?”
The words are like needles of ice into my heart, but I don’t let the feelings show. Not on my face and not in the dullness of my voice. “Is that why?”
Asher flashes a crooked smile. “No. Your ass is pretty tight too.”
Sometimes I don’t know if he’s mocking me or if he’s just sarcastic. Either way, I don’t feel good about these things he’s telling me. Us having sex—us making love—is far more than that. So much more.
I slide my hand over the kitchen island. “Ash?…”
He rips his hand away. “What, Noah? What do you want from me?”
“Do you want to leave me?” There it is. I know I’ll regret even broaching the subject, but here we are. “You can, you know. I won’t kill myself.” Lie.
“Do you really think I believe that?” he says, voice shaking. “Besides, I don’t even fucking want to . There’s nothing out there for me. No one cares about me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“At least, they don’t care about me like you do.”
The thought makes me smile. He said he liked it when I smiled, but it seems like the wrong expression to make in this situation. His eyes go dark, and his fingers tap sharply against the marble slate top of the kitchen island.
“What, you like that, do you? You like that you’re the only person in my life who cares about me? Is that fun for you?”
“Ash?…” I reach for his hand again, and again, he rips it away. “I don’t have anyone else either.”
“Yeah, but up until recently, you did. I’ve never had that, you know, what you had with your aunt. She was like a mom to you, right?”
“Yes.” More than that—she was my whole world.
“Well, I have a mom, a dad, and a brother, but since they don’t give a shit about me, it feels like I don’t.”
“How about your friends?”
He gestures sharply to his phone, teeth gritted. “Some friends. No one’s tried to contact me since New Year’s. I disappeared, I fucking got kidnapped, but still, they haven’t cared to check in on me.”
“You’re not kidnapped any longer.”
“Yeah?” His voice sharpens. “Well, sometimes it still feels like I’m stuck here. With you.”
“But you’re not. You’re free to go.” Please don’t go. My hands start shaking along with my voice, and I swallow against the lump in my throat.
“I’m not leaving, Noah,” Asher says, and I cling to the sudden softness in his tone. “I’m staying. Please stop looking like that.”
I meet his gaze with tears burning behind my eyes. I open my mouth to speak, but in that moment, the timer rings. The cookies are done.
Asher licks his lips. “Finally.”
They’re perfect—crispy on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside. Asher rolls his eyes, moaning as he eats. Maybe now that he’s gotten what he wants, he’ll be more inclined to listen to me.
“I don’t have any friends either, Asher. I’ve never had friends.”
He hums with his mouth full. “What was that like in school?”
“Lonely. I took refuge in the forest, like I told you.”
“Sounds pretty fucking miserable.”
“It was.”
He shrugs, and after devouring one cookie, he grabs another. “Well, we went to the same school, didn’t we? If I’d known about you, I’d have been your friend.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I say with a joyless smile.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he agrees.
From everything I know so far, Asher was a regular kid.
He had a social life, and he was compatible with the world and what it expected him to act like, whereas I was a social pariah, an alien.
It must be fate that we met at the time we did, now that we’re old enough for our timelines to converge and our interests to align.
“Are they good enough?” I ask after he’s devoured his third cookie.
“Huh?”
I send him a meaningful look, raising my eyebrows. You promised to fuck me if they were.
“Oh, right.” He grins. “Come here, then.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I round the kitchen island and let him slide his hand into my hair. When our lips meet, he licks the sugary crumbles off the corners of my mouth, and I taste the chocolatey residue on his tongue.
He tugs my head back and devours my mouth, and I moan into the kiss, wanting nothing more than for him to take me like he took me yesterday. And yet something feels wrong. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Sensing my hesitation, Asher breaks the kiss and squints out the window, at the sun and the glittering frost, and I suddenly know what he’s thinking, because I feel the same.
Up here, it feels like the world is watching us, observing the depraved nature of our relationship. Down in the basement—where we got to know each other, where everything happened between us—we feel safe, alone, without the risk of interference.
“Let’s go.” Asher takes my hand, and we descend the stairs, down into the darkness, where we feel whole.