Chapter 4
LUCA
The rug provides very little cushion from the solid floor beneath it, but I feel better being near Noel, and I sleep better for it, too.
His scent all around me and the sound of his breathing above me are all so comforting in their familiarity that I do drop off quite soon after he does, and I know how he sounds when he’s asleep. I recognize it.
In fact, I sleep hard enough that I’m not the first one up in the morning. I’m awakened by Noel creeping across the bedroom with an armful of clothes, and soon after I hear the pipes groan as the shower kicks on.
And I suffer a temporary bout of insanity when I actually throw off my blanket and sit up like I’m about to join him when I realize that he’d probably tear my throat out if I tried that. Also, the door is probably locked. Also, I wasn’t really going to do that. I’m not that stupid. It’s just…habit.
I listen to all my bones creak and crack as I stretch, and my whole body protests when I do finally heave myself to my feet.
I check my phone, reply to Demi’s text asking when I’m planning on coming home with a vague soon and then go out to the kitchen to try to see if I can put breakfast together with whatever Noel has in his pantry.
It’s not much to work with. He’s someone who subsists off basic meals, delivery and fuck all else.
But there is a box of pancake mix of some indeterminate age, and there're some eggs left in the carton, and that’s good enough—and quick, too.
So by the time he does come out of the bathroom, smelling of jasmine and sandalwood and looking adorable as hell in a sleeveless shirt and shorts, I’ve got something to feed him.
He’s not impressed, though. “Yeah, no,” he says, sitting at one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “Make yourself right at fuckin’ home, I guess.”
“Sorry.” I put a plate before him. “You know me. Gotta keep my hands busy.”
“Whatever.”
At least he starts eating, though, and that’s a relief.
I almost expected him to chuck the plate at the wall and scream at me to leave.
I still can’t believe what he’s done to his beautiful tattoo.
The one that is pinned, still, to the top of my Instagram grid as a point of pride, one of my very best pieces.
He’s gone and ruined it with his impulsive bullshit, taken the knife I fought so hard to wrest from his hands that night in March right down the center of it.
I don’t even think it can be covered up or fixed. Such a pointless waste.
But so was discarding him the way that I did. Because now I’m here, all over again. Still so desperately in love with him. Still wanting to wrap my hands around his head and kiss him breathless, to undo all that injury I’ve done to him, or at least lick his wounds clean.
We both eat in a silence that is not at all companionable. He’s replaced the distance between us, built back the wall that briefly crumbled last night. “Did you sleep okay?” I ask him.
“I dreamed about babies.”
“Oh.” I wonder if that’s my fault.
Noel shrugs and pushes his plate aside, turning towards me.
Busted up or not, he’s still got the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.
It’s narrow and almost delicate but for its sharp features, nose and chin, with a broad, pouting mouth and large, slightly down-turned eyes.
He’s got a wild, unfettered sort of beauty, nymph-like; he’s how I imagine some mischievous demigod in a myth would appear.
“Why were you at Anathema?” he asks me, point-blank.
And just as bluntly, I tell him, “I was looking for you.”
He draws his dark eyebrows together. “What the hell do you mean, looking for me? At Anathema?”
“Where else was I going to look for you, Noel? You’ve blocked me everywhere. You moved across town. Presumably you’ve graduated, so I can’t catch you on campus. I don’t know any of your friends so I couldn’t use them as middlemen—”
“They never would,” he sneers. “They hate you.”
“Fine,” I say, “but my point still stands.”
“So you were hanging around Anathema every fucking weekend looking for me?” he scoffs. “I don’t believe you. Not for a second. That is bullshit. And I literally only ever went there the one time.”
“I didn’t just go there—I checked out other places, too. I had a few clubs in rotation.”
“Just looking for me? You are a fucking liar.”
I say nothing. I just look at his gorgeous and angry face, all scrunched up in its burgeoning fury. God, I want to touch him so bad. I’m pretty sure he’ll bite me if I do.
“You expect me to believe you went to this club and that every weekend looking for me,” he goes on. “For how long? And why?”
“Since May, I guess.” My gaze flicks down to his lips and then his hands. They are balled up on his knees, painted nails digging into his palms and I wonder if he is going to hit me. Couldn’t blame him if he did.
“Why?” he asks again.
“Because I needed to see you.” My eyes return to his. “Because I miss you. And I—”
He makes a choked sound that is halfway between a laugh and a sob. “You miss me? What the fuck are you talking about? You’re the one who left.”
“And I was wrong, okay?” The words burst from me with more emotion than I want; I cannot stay cool around him, I can’t.
I lean closer to him and have to fold my arms over my chest so I don’t reach for him.
“It was wrong of me to ask of you what I did. I made a huge mistake. I fucked up so badly and I’m sorry, Noel, for everything I put you through.
I’m so fucking sorry. I want to fix this.
” I’m finally here, face-to-face with him, having dreamed of this moment so many times, and I’m struggling for the right words.
The ones that will make him come back to me.
Noel raises his chin. His tawny eyes are glittering dangerously beneath their lacy veil of lashes, and he’s trembling oh-so-slightly.
“You’ve been fucking other men,” he says, and it is a tremulous accusation, delivered in a hushed voice.
“That’s what you’re doing every weekend. Not looking for me, looking for dick.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.” He’s not crying; at least, not yet.
But there are tears in his eyes and he’s fighting not to shed them, to keep his face composed.
I watch his throat work as he swallows and to his gaze doesn’t leave mine even for a second.
“You went and replaced me because I wouldn’t be your dirty fucking secret. ”
“Noel.” Saying his name again because I’ve missed saying it and I need to get through to him, am so desperate to.
He’s everything, and he’s right here, my heart that I’ve been stumbling along without, and I just want to reach out and seize him and put him back in my chest where he belongs.
“I swear to you, I haven’t touched anyone since we broke up. ”
He’s incredulous. “So you’ve really been hanging around a bunch of gay nightclubs and bars just hoping I’d happen to show up? Not talking to or engaging anyone at all?”
“I went with friends sometimes,” I say. “And I watched a few demos at a couple clubs in Providence. I didn’t participate, and I didn’t like, jack off watching or anything. If that matters.”
“Demos?”
“You know. Like, bondage and flogging demonstrations.”
He scoffs. “Future dad of the year over here.”
Ow. That one does sting. I don’t say anything, though; I’m on the back foot already and sliding. I deserve this anyway.
He goes quiet again for a long moment, long enough that I almost beg him to say something again, and then he finally speaks.
“So let me get this straight,” he says. “You ripped my heart to shreds so you could run off and restart your cozy life with your pregnant wife, and then predictably had second thoughts a few weeks later. So you tried to track me down at a bunch of random clubs. And,” he adds loudly, as I begin to protest, “you’re doing all of this—what, behind Demi’s back? ”
“I told you that my wife and I are just friends. That’s still true. There’s no behind the back anything.”
“So the mother of your child doesn’t care that you’re following your ex-boyfriend around like a lovesick dog, as long as you come home to her?”
“She doesn’t know what I’m doing. I mean, I think she thinks I’m sleeping around, but I’m really not.”
“Holy shit.” He rubs his face. “No one in this situation would know self-respect if it slapped them in the face, huh?”
“It’s working for us,” I say stiffly, because I don’t want to talk about Demi right now.
“Sure it is.” Noel presses his fingertips to his temples like he’s got a headache. “God, you’re a fucking moron. No, worse—you’re pathetic. I think this might be the saddest shit I’ve ever heard.”
Some weak spark of indignation within me flares to life.
“You don’t see me asking about whoever you’ve been fucking in the meantime,” I snap, even though the thought of it, truthfully and unfairly, stirs that unreasonably possessive part of me that has long laid claim to him.
“I’m not even going to ask, because it doesn’t matter to me. ”
“There hasn’t been any, you absolute jackass!” he snarls, teeth bared in my face. “My dick doesn’t even fucking work these days!”
I don’t even know what to say to that. I blink once at him, open my mouth and then close it. Open it again. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m on mood stabilizers,” he asserts. “And antidepressants. Which have kept me from ripping my face off for the last few weeks, but also have completely killed my sex drive. Not that there’s anyone I want to fuck, anyway.”
That’s what was in those bottles, then. “So you’re...you know, doing okay? I was worried—I mean, when I never saw you out…I figured the worst. I know you like to be out.”
“I don’t,” he says flatly. “Anymore.”