Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
CADE
“Cade,” Zennie greets, her voice soft, her eyes gentle. She tugs open the front door, tossing a white-and-blue checkered dish towel over her shoulder. Her brows pull together as I step inside their place. “Did we have dinner plans? Shit, did your sister forget to tell me?”
I very quickly shake my head, stroking my hand over the top of my styled hair. Though after the three days I’ve had, I’m not sure there’s any style left. If the bags beneath my eyes are any indication of how it’s been going, it’s not been going well.
Zennie takes me in, my rumpled sweater vest, messy hair and the heavy pools of dark beneath my eyes. She rests a hand on my forearm as she keeps her eyes on mine, twisting the locks from memory. “Are you okay, honey? You look sick.”
I feel sick. I am sick.
I’m sick of myself.
I shake my head. “I’m okay. And no, we didn’t have anything planned. I just… wanted to talk to Kat but her phone kept ringing.”
My sister appears in the space between the kitchen and living room, a cell phone pressed to her head, hand over the receiver.
“I’m on the phone. My god, have you heard of leaving a voicemail?
You just kept calling,” she groans, glaring at me for a second before my current state registers.
Her shoulders slump, and she tells her client to hang on, pressing the phone to her belly for privacy. “Hey, are you okay? Is Dad okay?”
I shrug. “I have no idea what Dad is doing but yes I’m okay. I just needed to talk.”
She looks at me—really looks at me. Discerning eyes and a tipped head from the person who knows me best makes my stomach clench. I hold my hands out. “I’m maybe not okay but it’s not life or death.”
Kat promises to be done soon, but Zennie wastes no time in linking her arm with mine, dragging me up to the kitchen table where an assortment of cakes are strewn over gold and silver platters.
“Trying new cakes for my mom’s surprise party,” she says as she fills a sterling silver kettle with water, and slides it over the burner on the stove.
“Come on. Talk to me. I’ll make some tea. ”
Zennie eyes me as I sink my forehead into my palm and let out a sigh that rattles my very soul. I pinch the bridge of my nose after dragging my glasses off, and try to calm myself down with one more deep breath.
She slides into the seat next to me with two empty mugs and a bottle of whiskey. I peer up at her as she unscrews the lid and pours us each some. “Tea didn’t feel right for the state you’re in.”
I finish the drink in one swallow and sink back against the chair, looking at my new sister-in-law. I don’t know what to say or where to start, but when Kat joins us a moment later, she knows just what to say to get things rolling.
“Okay,” she sips her wife’s booze. “You had something happen with Noah. That much is clear. You don’t have to tell us what unless you want to but you do have to tell us exactly what’s going on in your head and heart.
If you want help, that is.” She finishes the drink and pours another, but Zennie snags it with a wink, another private exchange between two people in love that makes my chest go concave with want.
I want to pass looks to someone who knows me better than myself.
And I want that to be Noah.
“If you’re just looking to mope, I can’t do it, Cade.
I’ve let you mope for years. Now it’s time to fess up.
What’s going on?” Kat pushes, stealing the glass back from Zennie.
My sister’s no-nonsense attitude is what got her through so many challenges in her own life, so I embrace her tactic, and spill.
Not after a long sigh, a hand down my face, and a groan of frustration.
“My entire life, I’ve lived with one room in the house completely closed off. I’ve peeked in a few times but largely, I came to accept that there’s real estate inside me meant to stay empty. That part of me just… Isn’t like everyone else. But—”
Zennie cuts in, her tone satiny and gentle, white-gloving me the way I’ve come to need. “Now Noah is challenging that. Because you like him.”
Because you like him.
She doesn’t struggle with the words. She doesn’t lower her voice to indicate they’re a bad, dirty secret, or something salacious. She says them simply. Like “it’s raining outside” or “I made three cakes today” or “because you like him.”
Maybe she isn’t downplaying. Maybe it just is that simple, and I’ve been the one to grossly over complicate things—including myself—for so long. I don’t know. But I sigh, and cut my gaze between them as I nod and say, “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
They stay quiet before Kat pours me more booze. “Is this the first man you’re attracted to?” She doesn’t call me on denying it was Noah when I came over here the other night, and I love her for it. I love them both for that small courtesy.
I nod. “Yes.” Then I admit something I’ve never admitted out loud. “He’s the first person I’ve really ever been attracted to at all.”
I stare at the chipped polish on Kat’s hands as she grips her glass, and add, “I went out with Rhiannon because I thought I should, but I only ever liked her as a person. As a friend.”
Zennie pushes out a breath. “So Noah is your first… everything?”
My cheeks flame and in the privacy of my jeans, I clench.
“Not everything. I mean, I slept with Rhiannon. I didn’t…
” I glance between them, forcing myself to be an adult when all I want to do is write this part on a piece of paper and slide it to them facedown.
“I didn’t finish when we slept together, but we did have intercourse. ”
“Wow,” Kat snorts. “Intercourse. Tell me you didn’t feel the vibe without telling me.”
Zennie subtly elbows my sister, but I’m used to Kat being crass. I’ve come to appreciate it, because it often breaks down barriers better than anything else.
“That’s okay,” Zennie says gently, talking to me while smoothing hairs back behind Kat’s ear with a tenderness I can’t describe, but one that makes my chest tight.
Noah invited me over. He knew I’d come. Whether it was ten at night or two in the morning, he knew I’d show up.
And how did he know? Am I that obvious? I scratch the side of my jaw, disliking the stubble from the day, but getting goosebumps nonetheless.
Stubble reminds me of Noah. Of that night.
When he asked if he could change my world, because everything I’ve been telling him is that I did want my world to change.
I want it to change to a place where he and I exist. And he knew it.
“It’s okay to not feel it with certain partners.
Sex is intimate, Cade. And I know it’s weird to be talking to me about this, I’m sure, but I’m willing to wade through weird as long as you know that it’s okay to not feel it with certain partners.
True intimacy can only be explored and experienced with the right person. ”
I look between them. Kat gives me a half smile, something between sad and hopeful, and it urges my next words out of me with ease.
“He knows me really well.” I clear my throat. “Noah. I mean, sometimes it feels like he knows me and what I need and want better than I do.”
A moment of silence fills the space between us, and Zennie pats my knee as she gets to her feet, chasing an egg timer and an oven. That leaves just me and Kat.
“You could definitely talk to Dad about this stuff.” She smiles. “Not that I don’t want to talk to you. I do. I always do. But according to Elle, this is his literal predicament as well. Being unable to take the steps unless it’s the right person.”
I nod, thinking about my dad and the news my sister has recently shared about his celibacy. “He’ll tell us that, right? When he’s ready?”
She winks at me. “You tell me.”
The back of my neck grows hot at her insinuation. “I don’t have any big thing to tell.”
Kat shakes her head. “I’m not talking about some coming out. I’m talking about simply saying, I like Noah. And saying that to him, in front of people, to people. Because I mean… it sounds like he feels the same way.”
Zennie shuffles around their place in the background, and at some point, her phone rings and she disappears into their office to talk to her parents.
Kat finishes her drink but puts the bottle away, and I’m grateful for my sister knowing that drinking makes talking easier, but that getting drunk makes decision making much worse.
“What’s the biggest thing holding you back from embracing this new relationship with Noah?” my sister finally asks, sluicing through the silence wherein I was lost in my head, dreaming about his hand on my thigh, the rain shielding us from reality.
I let out a long sigh and tell her the truth. “Me.”