Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Every time Eli spied his duffel sitting in the corner, he resisted the urge to remove the sketchbook.
You’ll tell him. Soon. When the right moment comes.
Except moments came and went.
The festival rolled on in a blur of lights and crowds and cocoa.
He and Noah settled into a rhythm, days filled with setup and troubleshooting—“Why is there glitter in the fuse box?”—and evenings split between visiting his mom, staying at Aileen’s, and quiet, warm nights at Noah’s place that made Eli’s chest ache in ways that were both good and scary.
The sketchbook stayed in the bag.
The parade came and went, and Eli loved the imagination on display, from Disney characters to superheroes to sports.
Santa led the parade in a huge red and gold sleigh, and Eli realized it was the high school music teacher, Mr. Michaelson.
Eight reindeer pulled the sleigh, and Eli shook his head in wonder.
“How did they pull that off?”
Noah laughed. “It’s all a case of who you know.”
The crowds cheered and whooped as Santa waved, while kids in elf costumes threw candy canes into the throng.
As Noah had predicted, the voluntary fire crew won for their float based on ‘A Christmas Carol’. They had a huge guy playing the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the kids had flocked to the vehicle as he handed out small gifts from a sack.
Thursday night arrived with a fresh fall of snow, a gentle dusting that made the street outside look as if it had been sifted with powdered sugar.
Noah had texted:
My place tonight? Your call.
Eli glanced at the duffel and came to a decision.
Yeah. I need to show you something.
Three dots appeared. Vanished. Appeared again.
Noah: That sounds very ominous and slightly hot. Come over whenever you’re ready.
Eli snorted despite the knot in his stomach. He pulled the sketchbook out and set it on the bed. It looked innocent, a slightly battered book.
It’s now or never.
Eli spent ten minutes choosing what to wear, then changed his mind and went with totally different choices. He went downstairs to grab his coat.
“I’m going to Noah’s,” he called out.
“Will I see you again this evening?” Aileen chuckled. “Stupid question. Forget I asked. See you tomorrow.”
The wind whipped around him as he stepped outside, and that was enough to make him reach into his pocket for his car keys. He drove carefully, conscious of the snow covering the road. There were few cars out, and he wondered if that meant another storm was on its way.
When he reached Noah’s house, he had to smile.
Colored lights framed the windows, and by the front door sat a trussed-up Christmas tree in a bucket. As he went to knock, the door opened.
“Hey.” Noah’s smile was warm. “Come in before you become a snowman.”
Eli gestured to the tree. “Is this staying out here?”
“I’ll bring it in soon. For now it’s fine where it is.” Noah rolled his eyes. “It’s a tree, for God’s sake, I think it can cope with a bit of snow.”
Eli stepped into the warm interior, clutching his duffel. Noah glanced at it.
“Have you brought pajamas?” He grinned. “Not that you need them. You’re like a walking electric blanket.”
Eli smiled. “Not pajamas, no.”
Noah stilled. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” The scent of whatever soap Noah used filled Eli’s nostrils.
In the living room, a fire burned behind the grate, and lamps bathed the room in warm light. Noah helped him out of his coat, his gaze returning to the duffel.
“The ominous thing… is it in there?”
Eli nodded. “And it is not hot, but maybe a bit weird.” He removed his boots.
Noah grinned. “Weird I can handle. Hot was optional.” He sat on the couch, and Eli joined him, close enough that their knees brushed. His heart pounded as he reached into the bag and withdrew the sketchbook. His hands felt clammy.
This is stupid. I’ve slept with this guy. I’ve watched him fall asleep with his head on my chest. How could showing him a drawing be harder?
But it was.
“Hey.” Noah’s hand was on his knee. “Seriously. Are you okay?”
Eli took a deep breath. “I told you there was something I wanted to say. Something I should have told you when we first met. And keeping it from you feels unfair.”
“Unfair how?”
“You’ve been really honest with me,” Eli said.
“About your ex, this town, how you feel about… us.” The word still felt new.
Precious, even. “I don’t want to be the one holding back big things.
” He slid his thumbs along the sketchbook’s edges.
“This is from when I was fifteen. We’ve already established my teenage years were a mess, so that part won’t surprise you. ”
“Very on brand,” Noah said with a smile.
Eli swallowed. “You know I went to Mapleford High. You were a couple years ahead. So when I was a baby gay disaster with too much time on my hands and not enough language for anything I was feeling… there was this one upperclassman.”
Noah went very still beside him, but Eli kept going.
The only way out was through.
“He was nice to people,” Eli said. “He carried things for teachers. Helped freshmen find their classes. Smiled a lot. Everyone liked him.” He didn’t look up. “And for a while there, I thought he was perfect, in a stupid, intense teenage way.”
His hands shook slightly as he opened the sketchbook, and he flipped to the page. The paper had yellowed a bit, and the pencil lines had faded in places, but the portrait was clear enough.
A seventeen-year-old boy, half turned, laughing at something outside the frame. His hair was long, curling over his forehead. A jawline Eli had tried very hard to get right. And then there were those eyes, drawn from memory, from imagination, from too many stolen glances.
Noah stared at the page in silence.
Eli forced himself to look too, first at the drawing, then at Noah, at the way his expression shifted, piece by piece, each emotion so easy to read: confusion, recognition, disbelief—and something else.
“Is that…” Noah’s voice came out hushed. “Is that… me?”
“Yes,” Eli said, his voice small but steady.
Noah blinked. “Whoa.”
Eli rushed to fill the silence. “I know, it’s weird. I was fifteen, closeted… I didn’t know you. We never talked. I sat in the back of the gym during pep rallies and doodled like a creep. I kept this because—” He stopped, his throat tight.
Because you were the first boy I ever let myself want.
Because this drawing felt like proof I hadn’t imagined you.
“Because?” Noah prompted.
“Because it felt…important,” Eli finished. “You felt important. And I didn’t know how to say that without…this.” He gestured at the page.
Noah was still staring at it.
Eli’s panic spiked. “If this freaks you out, I get it. If you need space, or to laugh, or to run screaming into the night—”
“Eli,” Noah said.
“—or if you want to file this under ‘Eli’s Weird Art Crimes,’ that’s fair, I just—”
“Eli,” Noah’s voice was firmer this time.
He shut up.
Noah tore his gaze from the drawing and looked at him.
Oh my God.
His eyes glistened.
Eli’s breathing caught. “Oh. Oh, God. I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize,” Noah said quickly. His voice was rough. “Don’t you dare apologize.”
“But… you’re crying.”
“Rude observation.” Noah swiped at his eyes. He huffed out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Of course my first real cry of the season would be about a sketchbook.”
“And I get the feeling that’s very on brand for you,” Eli said weakly.
Noah laughed. “You drew me.”
Eli’s face burned. “Yeah.”
“At fifteen.”
“Yeah.”
“You remembered me,” Noah said slowly. “All these years.”
Eli swallowed again. “I mean, I forgot you, too. For a while. Life happened, you know? Breakups. Jobs. Boston. But when I opened this at my apartment, it all came back. When I saw you at Home Depot, I felt you were familiar. It took finding this to help my brain catch up.”
Noah looked down at the drawing again. His fingers hovered above the paper, as though he was being careful not to smudge the lines.
“I was such a baby,” he murmured. “Look at that hair.”
“You still have that hair,” Eli said. “Except now you have better product.”
Noah huffed. “I had no idea you were watching.”
“I was highly committed to you not knowing,” Eli said. “I would have died on the spot.”
“I might have said hi,” Noah said.
“That’s exactly why I avoided it.”
Noah smiled at that, then sobered.
“You weren’t creepy,” he said quietly. “You were a kid. You were figuring yourself out. And you turned all that untamed feeling into art.” He brushed his thumb along the edge of the page. “That’s…kind of beautiful.”
“You’re not weirded out?” Eli asked.
Noah bit his lip. “I reserve the right to tease you about it until we’re old.” His eyes twinkled.
Eli groaned. “Okay, now I’m suffering regret. Immediate regret.”
“But no,” Noah went on, his voice quiet. “I’m not weirded out. If anything, I’m honored, not to mention kinda overwhelmed. And I’m probably going to need, like, three to five business days to emotionally process the fact that you were drawing me while I was throwing tinsel at people in the gym.”
“That’s fair,” Eli said.
Noah glanced up, his brow creasing. “Did you ever feel angry? I mean—at me? For not seeing you, for being oblivious?”
Eli thought about it.
“I don’t think I knew how to be angry back then,” he said slowly. “Not at you. I was busy being scared of myself. You were just a very nice boy with a gravitational field. I was some awkward kid hiding behind a sketchbook. It never occurred to me that seeing me was an option.”
Noah’s eyes widened. “You say that as if it’s fact.”
“Wasn’t it?” Eli asked.
“No,” Noah said quietly. “You’re hard to miss, Eli.”
Eli looked away, his throat tight.
“You wanna know what I remember about you?” Noah asked after a beat.
Eli blinked. “You…you remember me?”