Chapter 10
LUCA
We don’t go out or do much of anything for the rest of the night. I make us both some dinner, and we leave each other alone long enough to eat it before we’re right back in bed together, kissing and cuddling and talking quietly. About nothing. About everything.
Noel asks me how things have been for me in the time we’ve been apart, and I don’t have all that much to tell him beyond what I already have.
There is nothing new for me beyond waiting for my daughter to be born and my father finding out, once again, that I’m gay, the latter which Noel is still marveling at.
Not in a mean or mocking way; he seems genuinely impressed with me.
“That’s big for you,” he says to me, kissing my fingertips one by one. “I’m actually so proud of you.”
I don’t tell Noel that I still have nightmares about my father and Arin, or that lately in these dreams, the role of Arin has been played by him.
They aren’t real and Dad’s in no state to hurt anyone anymore, but it’s a fear that’s grown such deep roots in me and has only been fed and watered over the years, instead of culled.
Every time I ever capitulated to my father’s expectations, squashed down how I really felt and who I was just so things would be easy, I cultivated that fear.
No more.
Noel reaches for the sonogram picture on my bedside table, where it leans up against the lamp. “Is this her?” he says, holding the glossy still very carefully around the edges.
I smile. “That’s her. Eighteen weeks.”
He studies it for a long moment. “I didn’t expect her to look like a real baby already,” he says, putting it back. “Do you have any names picked out?”
“We’ve decided on Aster.”
“Aster Karvelas.” He tries it out. “Pretty.”
“I think so, too.” I touch the tip of his sharp nose and trace up along the bridge to his forehead.
He sucks his lower lip between his teeth and gnaws at it. “Can I ask you something?” he says at length. “About the baby?”
“What?”
“When she comes…um…if we’re really doing this…” His words come halting and uncertain. “Like, if we’re getting back together—am I going to be involved at all? With the baby?”
“How do you mean?” I ask, a little surprised.
“You know. Say we get a place together someday in the future and it’s your week to have her, or however the custody stuff works.
I work from home. Do I get to take care of her while you’re at work?
Or is she going to go off to some daycare?
” I blink at him, then open my mouth to answer, but he’s still talking.
“Or like, when she’s just born. Am I allowed to come see her at the hospital? Or help out at all?”
“I—do you want to?”
“Of course I want to. She’s yours. She’s part of you.”
“I guess I didn’t expect you to want anything to do with her.”
“Well, I do.” He plants his face in my neck, which muffles his voice. “Besides, this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to having a kid.”
“That’s not true,” I say. I’m smiling so hard my face hurts, bundling him up in my arms because I thought it wasn’t possible to love him anymore than I already did, but it turns out it is. Now I’ve reached it. “Could always adopt. Or get a surrogate someday. Then they would have your genes.”
He shudders. “Ugh. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
Well, I would. On myself specifically. An adorable little Noel running around—my heart nearly explodes at the thought.
And then I ask Noel about his new job and what it entails (illustrating anatomy textbooks), and if he’s enjoying it or not (he is, very much, he just wishes it paid all his bills).
If he likes his new apartment and its location (meh, and yes).
How therapy’s going and the medication (both okay, but he’d sort of like to stop the latter).
“You missed my graduation,” he remarks, a little sullenly.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Another way I failed him, and not insignificantly.
He shrugs and downplays it anyway. “Whatever. Graduations are all kind of lame, aren’t they?
Wear a stupid robe, walk across the thingy, get a piece of paper saying you paid them enough money to pass.
Con-fuckin’-grats. Meanwhile anyone who gives half a shit is sitting on some metal folding chair waiting politely until they can bail. ”
“You worked your ass off,” I say. “You have something to be proud of.”
His shoulder skims his ear as he examines his nails in a determinedly unaffected way. “Sure.”
I almost don’t want to ask him the next question, but I have to know. “You had people there, right? To watch you walk?”
“My friends did.”
Not his mom, then. Not sure why I expected otherwise. I’ve met her. “I wish I’d been there, Noel.”
“I wish you had, too,” he admits, glancing up at me. “Before everything went to shit I used to think about how cool it would be to have you there rooting for me, or whatever. But I guess it’s not the end of the world.”
It did matter, though. “I’m sorry,” I say again. When he doesn’t answer, I change the subject. “So, um, therapy. I’m glad you’re getting help. I’ve been so worried.”
“About what?”
“That night? With the knife?” And also just in general. His outbursts, the screaming crying meltdowns, biting himself so hard that he’d leave hideous bruises all over his own arms. I don’t see any of those now, at least.
“Oh, right,” he says. “That.”
That. Like that was nothing at all. Like that didn’t leave an enormous and awful scar that was going to serve as a permanent reminder of that night, and the stupid and awful mistakes that I made. The way I hurt him.
And because he might as well be a mind reader, he says, “Don’t blame yourself, Luca. You didn’t make me do that. I just…it hurt so fucking bad. I didn’t want to see a single trace of you anywhere.”
“I know.”
“And, well, I’m crazy. Completely insane. You know that, too.”
“You aren’t. I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“For what it’s worth, I kinda wish I hadn’t ruined it.” He’s watching me with those gorgeous, sweet eyes of his, and I can’t help reaching out to touch his cheek. He turns his face into the caress and brushes his lips against my palm.
It’s not about the tattoo, though, not really.
It’s about us, him, and what could’ve happened if he’d really gone to town.
Or if it had gotten infected, and I wasn’t even sure if he would go to the doctor in that case or not.
He wouldn’t go when he was drugged and maybe worse. He won’t even talk to me about that.
“I’ve been worried,” I say again, very quietly. “I’ve been scared, Noel. For you. When I couldn’t find you anywhere…” And I can’t finish the thought because it’s just so painful, overwhelmingly so. A world without Noel.
He butts his head under my chin in that familiar way of his, and I wrap my arms around him tight. “Don’t worry,” he mumbles against my neck. “Life sucks, but somehow I still wanna be alive.”
It’s not perfect, him and me. We have a long way to go before I can fix what I’ve damaged between us. But it’s a start.
I feel more hopeful than I have in a long time.
The morning comes much too soon, and I make myself wake up early so I can steal a few more moments with Noel. Usually he’s the one who’s up at 8:00 a.m. sharp, bounding out of bed while I’m still dead asleep, but this time I’m awake before he is.
I get to watch him doze in the morning light, his back to me.
His messy dark hair framing a face that is so much more peaceful in sleep than it ever has been in waking.
I trail the most featherlight of kisses from the crook of his neck to the edge of his shoulder and wonder how it is that I ever felt ashamed of how I felt.
I can’t imagine it now, it’s such a foreign and inaccessible concept to me. I simply adore him.
I don’t have to miss him too long because he starts waking up the moment I touch him, he’s such a light sleeper.
Especially here where it’s unfamiliar, and maybe he doesn’t feel altogether quite safe.
Surrounded by the overwhelming evidence that I do have a wife and this is more her turf than anyone’s, even in this bedroom where she hardly treads.
But he turns to me, wrapping his arms around my neck and returning my kisses ardently.
He makes cute sleepy sounds against my mouth and just like that, I’m overwhelmed by my desire for him.
Anytime, anywhere. I take his face in my hands and kiss him all over while he tries to fight an adorable smile that makes me melt.
“Good morning,” he whispers.
I’m so, so happy he’s here. With me. To the point where I feel like I’m going to burst with it.
But Demi will be home at noon, and I need to clean up before she arrives. There’s just no time to do all the things to him that I want.
I drop him off at the Wonderland T stop—he declined my offer to drive him home, said he wanted to get out a bit and clear his head.
So I walk him as far as the platform and wait just so I can snatch a few more precious minutes with him.
His hand in mine feels so good and right, and I’m glad the hungover group of tourists from God knows where can see when I pull him into my arms and kiss him yet again. And they don’t say shit, either.
“I miss you already,” I murmur to Noel, nudging his nose with mine. “You better text me when you get home.”
“Oh—” He digs his phone out the pocket of his shorts. “I guess I should unblock you, then.”
“And add me back on Insta.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He’s tapping away.
I watch him, hesitating before I say, “You’ll be okay, right?”
“What?” He looks up at me, the breeze stirring his dark hair and making it slide across his face.
He quickly hooks it behind one ear. “I’m alright, Luca.
I guess I’m still processing…things.” One bony shoulder rises and falls in a half-shrug.
“But I wouldn’t say I’m bad. Better than I was when you found me. ”
“If you’re feeling bad, will you call me?”
“Depends.”
I don’t ask on what.