Chapter 4
EVAN
Nora lifts her fork and swirls her pasta with a shrug of one shoulder. “It would depend on the person. I guess.”
I clear my throat. “What if it were me?” Heat rises in my chest. “Theoretically speaking, I mean.”
Nate’s right. This isn’t a tool I can lend him to fix a leaky tap or a car he can borrow while his is in the garage. These are serious, life-changing choices, but there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for the two people I care about most in this world.
My pulse throbs in my neck, waiting for their response.
They lock eyes with each other. Silence crackles in the air.
Nate’s knee bumps mine under the table, and I move my legs to give him space. He breaks the tension first with a pat on my back. “You think you’re up to the job, mate?”
“I’m healthy enough. I work out more than your sorry ass. Don’t smoke. I eat a fairly healthy diet.” I bring my fork to my lips and take another mouthful of Nora’s cooking.
“Are we talking hypothetically here?” Nora’s voice is barely a whisper. “Because it’s quite intrusive. You’ll have to undergo a sperm count.”
“Yeah, hypothetically,” I say around a mouthful of pasta.
She must know I’d do anything for her. Jacking off in a cup is hardly intrusive. It’s a teenage boy’s favourite pastime.
Nora regards Nate as if they can communicate telepathically. I’m sure they can. They’ve been together since uni. “It’s something we’d have to talk about.”
Nate drags a hand over his face and leans in, lifts her chin and presses his lips to hers. “I’m sorry. I should’ve talked to you first before running off in search of donors.”
I lift my drink and look away, not wanting to intrude.
But I’ve been around these two for so long that it’s not uncomfortable to watch their public displays of affection.
It’s just a reminder of how fucking lonely I am.
But one thing grates on my nerves. Nate should have come to me.
If anyone’s gonna donate something so important, I want it to be me, not some random bloke they’ve never met.
Nora gives a small, awkward laugh as she picks up her wine glass. “Well, this dinner party got weird.”
I shrug and twirl more pasta onto my fork.
Nate leans back in his chair and raises his bottle. “We’ve had weirder conversations.”
I glance at him with a smirk. “Like that time at uni when you crashed my date with Emilie.”
Nora perks up, eyebrows lifting. “Who’s Emilie?”
Nate groans. “Oh, please don’t.”
I grin. “Come on, it’s a classic.”
Nate leans towards Nora. “She was Evan’s girlfriend.”
“Well, sort of. Until she came over to our dorm and met Nate.”
“Mate, she was always flirting with me. I daren’t be left in the room alone with her in case she pounced on me.”
I can’t stop the rumble of laughter rising up my throat. “She was wild.”
Nora stares, wide-eyed. “Wait—what are you saying?”
I lean forward with a smirk. “She asked if we’d ever considered… sharing.”
Nate covers his face. “I thought she was joking.”
I point my fork at Nate. “She wasn’t. Nate here was bright red.”
“I panicked!” Nate throws his hands up. “It was either run away or roll with it. And I’d had tequila.”
“She sat us both down on the edge of the bed and gave a full-on PowerPoint-level pitch,” I say, shaking my head. “She even had a playlist ready.”
Nora bursts out laughing. “And did you do it? How have I never heard this story before?”
Nate shrugs. “Because we vowed never to speak of it again.”
“Let’s just say we learned a lot about spatial logistics that night.”
Nora clutches her stomach, giggling. “I don’t know whether to be turned-on or horrified.”
“Both are fair,” I say with a shrug and fork another mouthful of Nora’s delicious pasta.
Nate lifts his bottle again. “To weird uni nights and very enthusiastic girlfriends.”
We clink glasses. The tension from earlier dissolves into laughter, and under the table, when Nate’s knee bumps mine again, this time, I don’t move it.
Nora snorts into her wine. “I don’t remember anyone called Emilie.”
“You wouldn’t,” Nate says, pointing his fork at her. “You spent the first term glued to that guy who played guitar outside your halls. What was his name?”
“Louis,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “He used to write me poems. I thought he was deep. Turns out he was just high.”
“That guy was a douche,” I say, remembering how we were both jealous. Nate followed Nora around like a golden retriever. The moment he tasted her baking, he was in love.
Nora shakes her head, grinning. “I can’t believe you both said yes?”
“We were nineteen,” Nate says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “We’d say yes to just about anything with a pulse.” Nate raises his glass. “She had a killer playlist, though.”
“To old times,” I reply, clinking my can with his bottle.
We all laugh, the table warm now with memories and comfort, the earlier heaviness buried under pasta, wine, and old stories.
Nora laughs at another uni story, her fingers curling around the stem of her wine glass. The light catches her glossy, brunette hair as she turns to Nate, eyes sparkling, and warmth floods my chest.
Funny how some things never change.
My smile falters a little as the memory slips in, uninvited but welcome all the same.
Our first week at uni.
Nate and I are loitering in the shared kitchen of our halls, raiding the fridge and trying to pretend we’re not sizing up every girl who walks through the door.
Then she marches in. Long brunette curls fall over her shoulders, cheeks flush with frustration as she tidies the kitchen in a huff.
“Doesn’t anyone wash a pot around here?” she says. “It’s chaos. Absolute chaos.”
Nate chokes on his Fanta.
“You okay there, doodles?” I’ve seen her in class, always doodling in her book, and she’s pretty good at it too.
She narrows her eyes. “If you like living in squalor, that’s your business, but I’d like to keep the kitchen clean, thank you.”
Nate’s smiling. Already leaning forward as if he’s pulled towards her by a magnetic force. “Let me help you.” He lifts a tea towel from the drawer and helps to dry the dishes.
She beams up at him, and I know it’s game over.
He admires her with hooded eyes and a dopey grin. I’ve never seen him like this before. Nate, who usually plays it cool, is acting like a fourteen-year-old with a crush. And I know in that moment, she’s off-limits
Nora’s laughter pulls me back to the present. It’s the same full-bodied laugh she always had back then. She was all curves and confidence, her energy filling a room without even trying.
She leans across the table to steal a piece of garlic bread from Nate’s plate, and he swats her hand playfully, but lets her have it anyway. Just like at uni, he’d give her anything she asked for. So would I.
And I’m still right here. Watching and wanting.
It’s not that I want Nora for myself, I just want what they have.
I’ve never been able to settle down, and maybe that’s because nobody comes close to Nora.
I’ve witnessed firsthand this all-consuming love that’s evaded me all these years.
Maybe it’s not on the cards for me. Maybe I’ll always be on the outside looking in, and I’m okay with that.
Because being able to observe my best friend and his wife, a woman who means everything to me, is beautiful.
Plates clatter in the sink. I roll up my sleeves and grab a tea towel while Nate squirts washing-up liquid into the bowl for the big pan that doesn’t fit in the dishwasher.
Nora brings the last of the plates over to the sink.
“If you guys have the washing up, I’m going to take a bath.
” She rises onto her tiptoes and kisses Nate’s cheek, then her fingertips caress my forearm as she silently thanks me with her eyes for what I’m not sure.
Maybe just being here to take their minds off of everything. Or maybe it’s just for the dishes.
As Nora climbs the stairs, Nate clears his throat. “Thanks for being here, bud.” His voice quieter now, as if he can read my mind.
“No problem,” I say, lifting a plate and loading into the rack. “You know I can never pass up Nora’s cooking.”
Nate nods, eyes focused on the suds. “Earlier… when you said, ‘What if it was me?’” He glances up. “Were you serious?”
I freeze. Heart thudding in my chest. “Would it matter if I were?”
Nate’s jaw flexes. He lets out a breath and leans on the counter. “I don’t know. Maybe not. I’ve just… never thought about that before. But when you said it…” He looks away. “It didn’t feel wrong. Just… complicated.”
I turn around to place more plates in the dishwasher so he doesn’t catch the hurt in my eyes. “You should have told me, Nate.” My chest tightens. “I hate you two suffering like this. I honestly had no idea.”
Quiet stretches between us with just Nate’s heavy breaths. “You’d make a wonderful dad.” His hand rests on my shoulder, and I turn to face him.
“No, I wouldn’t. But you would.” I’ve never once thought about having a kid. I can’t even find a woman I want to settle down with, let alone think about having a kid.
With a sigh, I drop the tea towel on the counter. “I’d do anything for you, Nate. You’re like a brother to me. If I have something you need, it’s yours. You only have to ask.”
Nate wraps both arms around me and pulls me to him. “Thanks, man,” he whispers against my ear, his unshaven jaw scratching against my skin as he pats my back.
The door creaks. “Am I interrupting a bromantic moment?” Nora says.
A chuckle bursts out of me. “Romeo here was just trying to seduce me.”
“In your dreams.” Nate grabs the tea towel and flicks it at me with a laugh.
Nora lifts her glass of wine from the worktop. “Almost forgot this. My first drink since Christmas. I’m not wasting it.”
“Need me to run your bath?” Nate says, drying his hands on the tea towel.
“I got it.” She rises onto her tiptoes and kisses his lips. “I don’t want to pull you from your bromance.” A small giggle escapes her as she climbs the stairs again, the sound of running water drifting faintly down the hall.
Nate opens the fridge, grabs another bottle of real ale, and hands me a nonalcoholic can. “I wonder what Emilie’s up to now.”
“Probably living her best life with about four boyfriends shacked up in a campervan, travelling Europe.”
He laughs. “You were an idiot for getting involved with her. She was never the settling-down type.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Says the man who got involved at the exact same time.”
“That was peer pressure.”
I grin. “Mate, you didn’t need much convincing.”
He points at me with the neck of his bottle. “That was the tequila.”
“And what about the second time and the third?”
He shrugs with a grin. “Maybe it was your constant pleading that wore me down the second time. And the third, well, she did have a killer playlist.”
I clink his bottle with mine. “To killer playlists and bad decisions.” Though as soon as the words leave my lips, I know it’s a lie.
Sharing Emilie with Nate never felt wrong, and neither does this thing hanging in the air with Nora.
They didn’t take me seriously before, but when they’re ready, I’ll be here to give them whatever they need.