CHAPTER 9. Noah #3
“Midleton Very Rare.” He looks up at Connor. “I had a glass of this once, years ago. A client brought it into the office. I’ve never been able to justify buying it for myself.” He looks back down at the bottle, almost reverently. “This is extraordinary, Connor. Truly.”
And then he hugs him.
It’s not a handshake-hug, not the brief shoulder-pat variety.
It’s a full, genuine embrace, one hand clapping Connor on the back.
Connor looks startled for exactly one second before his arms come up and he hugs my father back, and something shifts in my chest that I’m absolutely refusing to analyze.
It’s stupid. It shouldn’t affect me. Connor is being a good fake boyfriend, doing exactly what a real partner would do. That’s all. There’s no reason for my eyes to sting. No reason for warmth to inflate behind my sternum like a stupid fucking balloon of happiness.
I look away and clear my throat.
“I also got you something,” I say, producing the wrapped package from under my arm.
Dad releases Connor, sets the whiskey down, and takes it from me. He tears the paper with the complete lack of ceremony that has always driven my mom slightly insane, then unfolds the T-shirt and mouths the words silently.
Dad Jokes Are How EYE Roll.
There’s a pause.
Then he tips his head back and laughs—genuine, full-bellied, the laugh he saves for things he actually finds hilarious. Mom comes to look over his shoulder, then covers her mouth to hide her smile.
“This is so bad, Noah,” she says, with a hint of respect.
“I’m wearing this to my next shareholder meeting,” Dad announces, pressing the shirt against his chest.
“Daniel, you absolutely will not—” Mom starts.
“I’ve already decided,” Dad says, folding it carefully.
Then he grins at me and pulls me into a hug. “Thank you, son.”
We talk for a little while as the two cooks move quietly around us, finishing the last of the serving dishes. When they’re done, they exchange a few words with Mom, smile politely when Dad thanks them, gather their things, and slip out the front door with a soft click.
It’s just the four of us now.
Mom looks around the room once, as if confirming everything is still exactly where she wants it, then turns to Dad. “Daniel, will you grab the wine from the kitchen? I think we have time for a glass before the others arrive.”
Dad gives her a quick blank look, then seems to catch up. “Right. Wine.”
He disappears through the doorway, and Mom follows him almost immediately, pausing at the threshold. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she tells us, gesturing toward the sofa cluster at the far end of the room.
Then she vanishes too, the kitchen door swinging softly shut behind her.
Connor and I exchange a look.
“Wine?” I whisper.
“Are we being managed?” he asks.
“Almost certainly,” I say, dropping onto the sofa. “There’s a talk coming. I can tell.”
Connor sits beside me, close enough that our knees touch, and leans back with that easy calm of his I find both comforting and infuriating. He drapes one arm along the back of the sofa, which means that if I lean back even an inch, I’ll basically be tucked against him.
The room goes quiet around us, candlelight flickering over the table, and for a moment it’s just the two of us and the distant murmur of my parents’ voices through the kitchen door.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Connor murmurs.
I turn to look at him, my cheeks going hot for no good reason. “What thing?”
Connor watches me, a faint smile on his lips. “The one where you look like you’re about to flee the country.”
I snort.
“I know my parents,” I say. “When they go whisper in another room, it means something’s coming.”
Connor glances toward the kitchen door. “Should I be scared?”
“Yes.”
The corner of his mouth curves up. “You’re very tense, baby. Come here.”
He pats the back of the sofa where his arm is resting, and my cheeks get even hotter.
Jesus. Why is it so flustering when he calls me baby? I know he’s just teasing me. I know this is part of the act.
Still.
“I’m not tense,” I say, then immediately lean back like a liar.
Connor’s arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me into his side, and the contact knocks an involuntary sigh out of me.
Shit. Did I do that out loud?
“Relax,” Connor says, giving me a reassuring smile. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I shrug, still painfully aware of every place our bodies touch. “I don’t know, but I feel like they’re about to give us a sex talk or something.”
Connor chuckles, and a moment later my parents reappear, carrying wine and glasses like they haven’t just been plotting in the kitchen.
They settle onto the sofa across from us, side by side, leaning slightly toward each other, wearing the particular expressions I have learned, over twenty-nine years, to be deeply wary of.
Okay. I was right.
There’s a conversation coming.
“So,” Mom says once Dad has poured the wine and settled beside her, in the exact tone she uses when she’s pretending this conversation hasn’t been planned down to the minute.
“Connor.” She gives him a meaningful look.
“Last night at dinner, you mentioned you were serious about Noah. And very open to eventually settling down.”
My stomach drops.
Of course. This is where this was headed.
Last night, Connor’s answer had sounded harmless enough. Sweet. Mature. Exactly the kind of thing a real boyfriend would say if he wanted my family to trust him. Unfortunately, my mother heard it, believed it, and has apparently spent the last twenty-four hours turning it into a whole lecture.
This is not a sex talk. This is worse. This is a When exactly are you planning to settle down with my son? talk, and I think I might actually combust from secondhand embarrassment.
I know this relationship isn’t real. I know that.
So I shouldn’t feel this embarrassed. Connor knows what this is.
He probably thinks the whole thing is funny.
But he’s also sitting beside me with his arm around my shoulders, looking calm and handsome and so unfairly convincing that, for one awful second, I almost can’t stand how happy my parents are about this perfect future we invented just to piss Rick off.
Connor, somehow, doesn’t even blink. “I did say that,” he says with a nod.
“And obviously the two of you care about each other very much,” Mom continues, clearly encouraged by the fact that Connor is going along with her, while Dad quietly hands us our glasses. “Which is wonderful. We’re thrilled.”
“Mom,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Where are you going with this?”
I’m only trying to slow her down. I know exactly where she’s going with this, and apparently my survival instinct has decided denial is still worth a shot.
“Let me finish, sweetie,” she says, in a tone that allows no argument.
“We’re not trying to rush you,” she adds, which is a terrifying thing to hear from a woman who once planned Maya’s fifteenth birthday party two years in advance, “but your father and I were talking, and if you and Connor are already thinking seriously about a future together, then maybe it’s time to start thinking about what that future would actually look like. ”
I stare at her, unsure whether I should argue or simply leave the room.
Connor’s arm is still around my shoulders, and when I tense, his fingers press lightly into my sleeve, rubbing my upper arm through the fabric like he’s trying to calm me down without making it obvious.
Annoyingly, it helps a little.
Dad clears his throat. “For example, your apartment.”
“Oh God,” I say, because now they’re ganging up on me.
“Noah,” Dad says, perfectly reasonable, “I’ve seen the photos of your building. It’s falling apart.”
“It is not falling apart,” I argue.
“You told us yourself the walls are paper-thin,” Mom says, with the confidence of someone who has been collecting evidence against my apartment for years.
“And the heating is unreliable.” She pauses for half a second, then adds, “And your neighbor plays computer games at two in the morning, shouting like a maniac.”
I freeze, my cheeks going hot.
Shit. That was Connor.
I said that about him a year ago, when Mom was pressing me about why I’d slept until two p.m. on a Sunday, and apparently I decided the best defense was blaming the hot neighbor across the hall for yelling at his computer all night.
I did not expect her to bring it up in front of him. Frankly, I didn’t expect those two parts of my life to meet in this crossover episode from hell.
“That was a figure of speech,” I say quickly, afraid to even look at Connor.
Connor’s chest shifts against my shoulder, and I hear him snort. When I finally glance up at him, I catch him fighting a smile.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Stop laughing.”
“I’m not laughing,” he says, which is a lie, but not one worth fighting him on.
Mom looks between us, and her expression softens in a way that makes my chest ache. That’s the part I hate most. Not the questions. Not the ganging up. Not even the sudden real estate intervention.
It’s the way she looks at us like this is real.
Like she can already see Connor in my life. Not as a guest for one weekend, but as someone who stays. Someone who belongs there. Someone she’s been quietly hoping I’d find for years.
And the horrible part is that I can see it too.
Connor in my apartment. Connor asleep in my bed. The two of us teasing each other in a kitchen where the heat actually works and the walls don’t carry every sound from the neighbors. Kissing because no one is watching, lying around together because we want to, having sex, building a future.
Then reality hits hard enough to make me dizzy.
Connor is not my boyfriend. Connor is not moving in with me. After this weekend, he’s going back across the hall, and I’m going back to pretending I don’t listen for his voice through our shitty fucking walls.