Epilogue
NOAH, ONE MONTH LATER
“Brutal. Absolutely brutal,” I tell Torin as he grabs my hand.
I just walked out of my final exam for my Ancient Civilizations class. The past few days have been full of studying, which Torin took it upon himself to make… interesting.
As in, every time I recited something from the flash cards correctly, he’d stroke my cock.
Every time I got one wrong, he’d pull his hand away, edging me into oblivion.
It was one of the most distracting study sessions I’ve ever had, but by the end I came so hard I shot white streaks all the way up onto the wall behind me, and I managed to memorize every single one of the flash cards in the process.
“Brutal, but you fucking rocked it, because you’re a genius?” Torin says.
“We’ll see. I think I did okay.”
He leans in and covers my face in a million tiny kisses, then we start walking off in the quad.
This summer has been intense.
In all of the bad ways, and then all of the good ones, too.
But one thing I haven’t been prepared for at all is that Torin’s time at Crimson College is coming to an end.
I’ve sort of been dreading this week, like a looming thundercloud in the distance that I didn’t want to acknowledge. Torin and I both have another year left of college, and his school is an hour away.
It’s not that far, in the grand scheme of things, but I worry.
Any amount of distance could remind him what it’s like to be alone, and Torin has always been at his best when he’s alone.
“You ready for tomorrow?” he asks.
“Not really. I feel like your mom is going to somehow know, the moment we walk in.”
He squeezes my hand. “They’re going to have to find out at some point.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to arrive at the summer house with our tongues in each other’s mouths.”
“Mmm. I do,” he says, leaning over to kiss the edge of my mouth. “Kidding, kidding.”
Tomorrow is the first day of a week at the Vancliff summer estate, and I’m nowhere near prepared.
“I just want this week to go well.”
“When do you actually want to tell them?” Torin asks. “Because I’ll get on the roof of that goddamn castle just as quickly as I did Onyx House.”
I snort. “It’s not a castle. Just… a stone building. A big one.”
“A stone manor.”
“And I’m happy you’re going to be there with me,” I tell him, my heart squeezing in my chest. “Fuck, I’m going to miss you.”
He pauses underneath a tall oak, and I see a twinkle in his eye.
“Okay, I’m just going to tell you now. I was going to wait until later tonight, but I can’t stand seeing you sad, so…”
“What’s up?”
He cocks his head to one side. “I got an internship.”
I raise my eyebrows. “An internship? I didn’t even know you were looking for one.”
“I wasn’t. But then I talked to one of the department heads in the Labor Relations building a couple of days ago, asking if there were any nonprofits in need around here.”
Something flutters in my chest. “Oh.”
Don’t act excited.
Don’t get your hopes up, even now.
“There’s a place fifteen minutes from here that puts together meal packages for people who have been injured on the job.
It’s a small operation, but it’s important.
And I’m going to be there three evenings a week.
” He shrugs a shoulder. “So I might need a place to sleep those nights. Know of anywhere?”
I can’t contain my smile.
I was trying to play it cool, but it’s not working.
“I can hook you up with a Motel Six, maybe.”
“Yeah?” he asks, brushing my hair behind my ear.
I wrap my arms around him and he lifts me up, just for a couple of seconds. But I feel like I could skip across the entire quad right now.
“I’m still going to get to see you.”
“Gonna make you absolutely sick of me.”
“God, that is a relief.”
Torin peers at me like he’s confused. “You had nothing to be worried about, Noah.”
“Can’t help it. I give a fuck.”
He grips my arm. “And I love that you do.”
I exhale. “I’m so excited. Holy shit.”
“Listen. I’m always going to be independent. I’m going to travel, and—”
“And I’m never going to have a problem with that,” I interject. “I love who you are. Not some idea of a tied-down, tamed version of you.”
“Mmm. You wouldn’t want to tame me, even if you could.”
“Damn right.”
“But I need you to know something, too,” Torin says. “No matter how far I go, I think I’m always going to feel like I’m at home with you.”
My heart can’t handle what he’s saying.
“I’m so lucky,” I whisper.
“We’re both lucky.”
It’s the first time in my life I’ve actually felt gratitude for the idea of being lucky. It doesn’t feel like I’m spoiled or undeserving. It just feels like the truth.
I’m so lucky to have found a person that makes so much sense with me, even though he shouldn’t. Torin breaks the cycle of my days, shatters the monotony into something that could never, ever be boring.
“So who’s going to get the bigger bed while we’re at the summer house?”
I lean back, narrowing my eyes at him. “The bigger bed?”
“The room from the picture you showed me, with the big doors that open up to look at acres and acres of sweeping, green grass, like you’re a duke in old England.”
“Me, obviously. I’ve had that bedroom every time we go to the summer house for my whole life.”
The look on his face is pure mischief. “Yeah, but I’m going to be there now. Everything could be different.”
“Oh, those are fighting words.”
“Yeah? You going to fight me for it?”
Torin runs off onto the lawn of the quad and I take off after him at full speed, chasing him down until I tackle him down onto the grass.
“You make me crazy,” I say, breathing over him.
“You know I’m going to end up in that bed with you every night, anyway,” he says.
The grass splays out around his blond hair, and the sunlight hits his cheekbones in a way I can’t process.
He looks so good it physically hurts me sometimes.
“I hope you do,” I tell him.
“Noah, I fucking love you.”
He states it so suddenly.
So confidently that I almost feel like the wind is knocked out of me.
I lean over him, closing my eyes for a moment and then opening them again to see his smiling face.
“I love you,” I whisper, like I’m telling a secret.
“I know, baby.”
“I… really, really do,” I tell him. “I think I’ve been in love with you for too long. Way longer than I should have been thinking anything close to that.”
He reaches up and brushes his thumb over my lower lip. “I know who you are, Noah. None of this surprises me.”
I blink. “And you are fucking crazy for loving me back.”
“I am. That’s not going to stop me, though.”
“God, how long is it going to feel like this?” I ask. “This feeling, like my heart’s too big for my chest?”
“Don’t know. But I’ll be here for as long as it takes to find out.”
I collapse onto the ground next to him and he leans over, biting my nipple through my shirt until I swat him away.
We both lie there for twenty minutes, then an hour, and then I lose track of time, watching the sun filter through the trees.
You.
And me.
I think of everything; the summer, the trip, the future ahead of me.
But I’m only really thinking about him.
Something solid, and something so real.
I get to do all of this with someone I love, who actually loves me back. It should be simple, but it’s the best thing I could ever have. Forbidden, and wrong, and exactly what I’ve always wanted.
How long was I searching for someone who would consume me?
Unapologetically, with the entirety of their soul?
And then he was suddenly there, everywhere, invading my world and screwing with my life, fucking with my blank canvas until it was something beautiful, painted, torn, and overflowing with color.
You were always the one.
“Noah,” he says softly, squeezing my hip and floating my mind back toward reality. “You see the roof of that building over there? The music building?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where you’re going to come for me.”
I swallow hard. “Oh. When?”
He lifts an eyebrow, then stands up, reaching a hand down toward me to help me up.
“You already know my answer to that.”
“Holy fuck.”
He cocks his head to one side. “Might want to get up, or I’ll undo that zipper and take your cock out right here on the quad, instead.”
I love you.
I love you so much I can’t breathe.
I grab his hand, and I let him pull me.
Thank you for reading!