Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
NOAH
I’ve chosen the silent treatment.
I admit, it’s not my normal mode of handling conflict, and it’s one I haven’t used since I was wearing elastic waist pants and eating Fruit Roll-Ups but still. Cade is getting the silent treatment.
The bar of expectations isn’t set too high for Cade. I know he moves glacially slow, and when it comes to something like sexuality, I don’t need him to hurry. I don’t want him to rush. I’m not asking for him to solve himself in a matter of moments so we can immediately be together.
But he wants me. He wants me back, the way I want him, I feel it. I know it.
He could have stayed for a conversation.
I didn’t think he would. In fact, he did exactly what I thought he’d do. And in response, I’m going to give him silence until he’s ready to address things between us. I’m not angry, but this feels like the best way to nudge him into a choice.
After all, I already asked him to stay. I’ve already tried talking. Now, he’s got to pull the conversation from me. And he will. I know he will.
It begins today.
I stare at the stack of unread papers on my desk, all of the words blurring into meaningless shapes as I begin my silence. I was on the phone when he came in, and avoided an obligatory morning greeting, and have been quiet since.
Then tension between us is all consuming, like a boulder or massive stack of books pressing down on my chest. I can’t stop replaying us at my place, I can’t stop tasting his lips, feeling the hot spray of his cum between our bare chests.
I can’t stop remembering his feral little groans and the way his eyes squeezed shut as he allowed himself finally to have what he truly wants.
Concentration is not my friend.
It doesn’t help that Cade sits feet away, his broad shoulders hunched over his laptop, typing with his usual intensity—focused and hot. Most days, his intensity makes my stomach flip. But after last night, it just makes me want to throw something at him.
Yesterday still burns in my throat. The words we didn’t say. The ones he wouldn’t let himself say. So today, I choose silence. Again, I’m aware it’s both petty and childish. But after weeks of this push-pull, this almost that never quite becomes something real, it’s all I have left.
He clears his throat. I don’t look up.
“Dr. Pratt sent out an update on the symposium,” he says, voice lined with the slightest little wobble, almost like he’s testing the waters.
I nod once, sharply, simply acknowledging he’s spoken but keep my eyes on my computer screen.
My fingers fly over the keys, typing nonsense to Tara in a blank email, just to fill the void between me and him.
The clock on the wall ticks aggressively loud.
Every shift in his chair, every exhale, feels like an explosion in the quiet.
He tries again after an hour. “You want coffee? I’m heading to the cart by the library.”
Nothing. I don’t even glance his way. I hear him hesitate, that familiar pause where his body wants to move toward me but his brain yanks him back.
That big fucking brain of his is always preventing him from acting from his heart and listening to his gut.
He sighs, then the door clicks shut behind him.
Alone, I let out a breath. I hate ignoring him but more than that, I hate always being the one to drop the line. I’ve made my position pretty clear, and now it’s his turn. My hands tremble on the keyboard.
Day one of the silent treatment ends like that.
A minefield of unspoken words and stolen glances I pretend (very hard) not to notice.
By the time I pack up after my last lecture, my jaw aches from clenching it, and my gums are sore from grinding my teeth.
Cade lingers at the doorway, waiting for me to go first like always.
We walk together, until the great divide at the end of the hall, where he goes toward the gym or his car, and I go wherever, to slink off to think of him and those fucking glasses and that goddamn restraint.
But today, I brush past him without a word, close enough to smell his cologne—that stupid cedar-and-spice scent that haunts my cock. My shoulder grazes his arm. Electricity pops between us, sharp and painful. He doesn’t move away.
Neither do I, for half a second. But then I keep walking.
Day two is worse than the first day of silence. Or better. Depends on how you look at things. I’m normally an optimist, but when it comes to Cade, every moment we can connect but don’t is agonizing. Torture. A waste of what I know we have.
I arrive early, determined to arrive at the office and get comfortable before him.
But annoyingly, he’s already there. Cade doesn’t do anything halfway.
His hair is still damp from his morning shower, blonde hair curved at the nape of his neck.
I hate how my body reacts to the sight of him fresh from the shower, heat pooling low in my belly and groin, memories of that one night wafting back.
I ignore his morning greeting. I sit. I work. I ignore.
Cade starts humming under his breath around ten. Some old pop song we both like and discussed once on a Sunday morning run. It’s deliberate. A hook cast into the silence. But I deserve more than that, so I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, and stay quiet.
Lunchtime. He orders takeout for two without asking if I brought my lunch, if I’m hungry or if I’m even going to eat today.
He doesn’t just order food but orders my usual, the spicy Thai that makes my eyes water, that I love more than morning coffee and evening bourbon.
The bag lands on my desk with a soft thud.
“Figured you hadn’t eaten,” he mutters.
I push it aside and pull out the gross, dry, awful protein bar I packed, the noise of the plastic wrapper so loud between us that it’s almost comical.
Almost. I don’t even like this protein bar, and the Thai food smells amazing.
Still, I chew off a bite of artificial cookie dough protein bar and take a swig of my water.
His sigh is heavy enough to rattle the windows.
By afternoon, the tension is a living thing, coiled between our desks like a snake. He stands to stretch, arms overhead, shirt riding up to show that strip of tanned skin above his belt. I know he catches me looking. I know because his breath hitches.
I force my gaze back to my monitor, cheeks burning. Don’t you dare break first, Noah. Not this time.
I don’t, and neither does he. But later, when I leave at five, he follows me to the parking lot. “Noah.”
My name on his lips sounds like a prayer and a curse. I climb into my car without responding, heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth. In the rearview, he stands there watching me drive away, hands fisted at his sides.
I grip the wheel until my knuckles go white. Part of me wants to turn around. The rest of me knows that would be a mistake. He has to work harder than simply saying my name.
Day three and I’m fraying at the edges.
The office feels intimate and hostile at once. When our hands brush reaching for the door, I jerk back but he lingers, fingers hovering where mine were.
“You planning on doing this forever?” he asks finally, voice cracking just enough to betray him, all of his feelings nearly tumbling to my feet in that single fissure of his composure.
I type louder. My poor keyboard.
He laughs, but it’s bitter. “Right. Silent treatment. Real mature, Professor Ryan.”
The title stings. We both know what we are to each other behind closed doors—colleagues, yes. But more. Messy, complicated more. And he rarely calls me professor, not unless a student is around.
I stand abruptly, needing air. He blocks the door without touching me, using his body to stand in my way. Tall, solid, radiating heat. His eyes—those stormy eyes—search my face like he’s memorizing it in case I disappear.
“Move,” I want to say. But I don’t. I stare at his chest instead, at the way his shirt stretches across it, and I will my pulse to slow.
Finally, he steps aside. The victory feels shitty. I feel shitty.
By midday, I’m exhausted from wanting and not having. The silence has become its own language: the way he slides my favorite pen across the desk when I can’t find it. The way I leave the window cracked because he runs hot. Small mercies wrapped in resentment.
Then Ethan walks in. And it’s exactly what I need to shake the silence away.
Ethan leans against the doorframe like he owns the place, all easy charm and sharp jawline.
The same student who flirted shamelessly with Cade in lecture last week, the one who challenged him in class with that cocky grin.
This student is clearly about talking himself into better grades, and flirting his way up, too.
I don’t like it, but I’m not surprised. His eyes flick to Cade first before landing on me.
“Hey, Professor Ryan. Got a minute?”
I feel Cade stiffen behind me.
“Sure,” I say, the first word I’ve spoken around Cade in three days. It tastes like rebellion. I turn toward Ethan fully, ignoring the way Cade’s chair scrapes the linoleum.
Ethan’s smile widens. “I was thinking… lunch? That new fusion place off campus. My treat. We could talk about that independent study idea I mentioned.”
It’s not just lunch. His tone makes that clear—low, inviting, laced with possibility.
The kind of invitation that could lead somewhere if I let it.
Part of me wants to. Not because I want Ethan, but because I want something.
Proof that I’m not just waiting around for Cade to decide I’m worth the risk.
Cade stands so fast his chair hits the wall. In a few strides he’s at the door, closing it with a firm click. He doesn’t say a word. Just stands there, back to us, hand still on the knob. His shoulders rise and fall with uneven breaths.
My heart stutters.
“What?” I ask, voice steadier than I feel. I step closer to him, close enough to see the tension corded in his neck. “Professor Mercer?”
He turns. His face is a storm—jaw tight, eyes storming with everything he won’t let himself admit. His mouth opens, only to close again. The words are there, I can see them fighting to escape. The way his chin wobbles, how he nudges his glasses up. I see him churning through his admissions.
Don’t go. Stay. Choose me.
But they die before they form. And the silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
Ethan’s eyebrows rise, but he stays quiet.
Cade’s hand drops from the door knob. He steps back, opening it again.
The defeat in that small movement guts me.
He wants to stop this. He wanted to shout at me not to go.
He wanted to kick Ethan’s ass for even asking.
I know him, after swallowing his strangled cries and witnessing his pure hunger, I know he wants nothing more than Ethan to leave and for me to break this tension filled ice that’s grown between us. But Cade let’s fear win like always.
Something snaps into place inside me—clarity, sharp as broken glasses.
He doesn’t want me to go. But he can’t bring himself to ask me to stay.
Not really. Not in the way I need. Determination floods my veins.
If he won’t fight for this—for us—then maybe I need to force the issue.
Make him feel what I’ve been feeling. The ache. The want. The fucking torment.
“Lunch sounds great, Ethan. I’d love to hear more about your IS plan,” I tell this annoying and quite frankly, slutty student as I grab my jacket. My voice is calm, but inside I’m vibrating. “Lead the way.”
Cade’s eyes meet mine as I pass. There’s pain there. Raw, unguarded for once. It nearly breaks me because he lets me see it. For the first time ever, he truly lets me see the twist of agony he’s feeling in the wake of his confusion.
But I keep walking.
Ethan chats easily as we head down the hall, something about his thesis and weekend plans. I nod at the right moments, smile when expected, but my mind is back in that office. With Cade’s hand on the door. With the words he couldn’t say.
By the time we reach the car, I’m more determined than ever. This isn’t over. The silent treatment ends today—not with surrender, but with war. If Cade thinks he can hide behind his walls forever, he’s wrong.
I want him. All of him. The brooding, the passion, the terrified parts he keeps locked away. And I’m done waiting for him to come to me.
Lunch with Ethan will be… enlightening. For both of us.
Especially when I make sure Cade hears every detail later.
The campus blurs past the passenger window. Ethan’s hand brushes my knee as he shifts gears, casual but intentional. Heat flares under my skin—not for him, but from the knowledge that Cade is watching from the office window. I can feel it.
My pulse races with a dangerous mix of anger and desire. Later this afternoon, when I get back, the silence breaks. One way or another, we’re confronting this thing between us.
I smile at Ethan, letting the flirtation in his eyes wash over me like a challenge. “So tell me more about this fusion place. I’m starving.”
Inside, the real hunger has nothing to do with food. It’s for blue-gray eyes and unspoken words and the man who’s finally going to have to choose.
Or lose me trying not to.