Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Cade
The air in the main lecture hall hangs thick and humid, the kind of oppressive Thursday afternoon heat that clings to the skin like pollution and grime.
It’s disgusting, and I hate it. Even with the air conditioning rattling on low, sweat is still crowding the nape of my neck, beneath my collar.
I sit in the back, half-hidden in the shadows, nursing a lukewarm coffee that tastes more like regret than caffeine.
My notebook rests open on the table, blue pen poised, but the pages remain mostly blank.
I’m pretending to take notes. Pretending to focus on the symposium’s lineup.
Pretending that my entire world hasn’t narrowed to the man seated in the front row.
Noah.
He looks unfairly composed in his charcoal suit, the fabric stretching across his broad shoulders as he leans forward slightly, engaged.
Every so often he glances back toward me with that secret, heated smile we’ve perfected over the past weeks—the one that says later, I’m going to remind you exactly who you belong to.
It usually settles the restless thing in my chest. Today, it barely touches the edges of my nerves.
The symposium has been a whirlwind so far.
Panels on narrative theory, queer subtext in modern fiction, the ethics of literary adaptation.
We arrived together this morning, both of us still rattled by it suddenly being a week earlier than expected, our hands finding their way to each other here and there.
Over the center console. Walking up. In the hall.
My heart goes electric when we touch. I feel like my lungs are on fire.
When he smiles at me, it feels so good I think I could actually die.
My chest literally aches so good, I think it could explode from it. It’s an unreal feeling.
Noah gets onstage and talks for two minutes. He is perfect, and my eyes burn the entire time. And I’m beyond grateful my speech was cut, because it allowed me to focus strictly on him.
After Noah is the keynote. A surprise addition, the program said.
I don’t know how there could be a surprise since every speaker has to be approved by the department.
It’s a closed loop. I stroke a hand through my hair and sigh, crossing and uncrossing my legs, suddenly aware of pressure in my groin.
I can’t even watch Noah talk without getting hard now.
It’s… I’m obsessed. Truly. It’s unsettling that it doesn’t scare me. It’s scary how much I want it.
The lights dim slightly as Dr. Pratt steps to the podium, his voice booming through the speakers. “Please welcome our surprise keynote speaker, bestselling author and faculty affiliate, Dr. Eli Morton.”
Noah’s body tenses as he makes his way back to me. He had to sit up front before his speech, but thankfully he’s at my table, along with a few of the other speakers.
His talk was wonderful, but I’d already heard him rehearse it naked, therefore, I’d seen the superior speech in private. Today was wonderful but naked Noah is top tier Noah.
Though the truth is, I love all versions of Noah. And I’m surprisingly not scared of that either.
Dr. Morton walks onstage like he owns the room.
He’s always had that kind of confidence.
Well, he wants people to think he’s confident.
The truth is, he’s insecure. He’s an arrogant prick, I can read it all over his unsettling smile.
I respect his earned title of doctor and my career at the university, but beyond that, fuck this guy.
Noah smiles at me as he makes his way back.
“Thank you for having me on such short notice,” Eli says, voice ragged, probably from cigarettes and booze.
God I cannot stand this man, but everyone loves him.
I think that’s what bugs me most. Everyone loves this guy and I just don’t get it.
“I wasn’t expecting to be back on campus so soon, but some opportunities are too sweet to resist.”
His gaze sweeps the room and deliberately lands then hovers on Noah. A weird smile—a private smile—curves his lips. My stomach tightens, but that overwhelming feeling of sickness splashes up the back of my throat, and I have to force it down.
Dr. Morton begins a story and quickly references his former TAs attending a conference with him.
“One is still with me, Thomas, lift your hand,” he says, blinking into the crowd as if he’s giving a TED talk and can’t see this Thomas guy amongst the slew of fans.
“The other went on to become a tenured professor with his own shining status,” Eli continues after getting a wave from Thomas.
“The previous speaker and king of popular fiction, Professor Noah Ryan.”
Noah’s last relationship. The man he didn't name.
“He cheated with someone we were both close with. I walked in on it. That was the end.”
I look back at Thomas, who looks to be my age, same as Noah, too. He’s blinking up at Eli like… he believes all the bullshit he’s saying.
I glance up at Noah, still trying to make his way through the crowd, back to me. But his eyes are sharp and observant, watching my every move. And noticing that makes my pulse dash.
Noah never wanted to call Eli by doctor.
He said something like, if you knew Eli the way I did, you wouldn’t respect him either.
Or something like that? I think so. I’m almost certain.
I look at Eli again, that fucking smarmy smile, and I look at Noah, his smile a little crooked, a little nervous, his eyes wide, clinging to me.
He’s looking to me as his lifeline, and a few minutes ago, I thought I was.
He gets to me finally, smelling like cologne and the last cocktail he drank, looking like a million dollars in his gray suit. He looks so good, I almost can’t look at him for too long. And yet now when he settles into his chair next to me, I can’t help but look back up at Eli.
Beside me, Noah slides his hand over my thigh, but his eyes are set forward. He’s looking at Eli, too. Watching him, intensely.
Why didn’t he tell me it was Eli? Why didn’t he trust me enough to let me know what happened between them? Why couldn’t he tell me that it was Eli who cheated on him?
Something cold twists in my gut, sharp and unfamiliar. But I know what it is. It’s jealousy. Not the hot flash I expected, but more of an icy coil that spreads slowly and torturously through my veins, making my fingers tighten around the coffee cup until it creaks.
Eli dives deeper into his talk, sprinkling anecdotes from his latest book—a literary novel that has apparently been shortlisted for some minor awards.
Big deal. He’s really working for it, weaving personal stories with other peoples’ literary insight, charming the faculty with self-deprecating humor and razor-sharp observations that again, are not his own.
But he’s not exactly telling them that. The audience is rapt, nonetheless.
Laughter ripples through the hall at his jokes. But my eyes keep flicking to Noah.
Every time Eli gestures animatedly, his eyes find Noah again. A conversation just between the two of them. Because if I’m right, they do have a shared history. They could have had inside jokes, remembered nights, intimacy that a person like myself can only imagine.
Because I’ve spent my life living as someone who I wasn’t even sure I was, missing out on experiences I didn’t think I needed.
They have a history of having unspoken conversations across crowded rooms. Just like Kat and Zennie.
Noah leans forward, nodding, that charismatic grin of his flashing in response to Eli who banters with him from onstage. They have soft banter over the audience, easy and comfortable, in a way that makes my new and very fragile confidence feel tissue-thin.
I shift in my seat. Memories flood without invitation, without warning.
Noah’s patient hands teaching me how to touch him, how to read the hitch in his breath.
The way he whispered mine when I was deep inside him, long arms reaching around, pulling me into his body.
It’s this proud ownership in his tone and touch that makes me feel important and cherished, and I can’t even honestly say I ever thought I wanted to feel that way.
But I do, and it feels so good to be looked after emotionally, and to me, that’s what being cherished feels like.
But Eli… Eli represents everything Noah had before. Experience. Uncomplicated in his desires. Not someone who needs to go slow. Not someone who needs to take things in steps.
The cold twist deepens into nausea as Eli shares a story about a research trip they apparently took together years ago. “Noah—Professor Ryan, rather—kept insisting we climb that ridiculous hill at dawn for ‘authenticity.’ Nearly killed us both, but the view was worth every blister.”
The audience chuckles. Noah’s smile is short, clipped, and forced.
He only holds it for a second before he turns to me.
His eyes are wide, and his voice is low.
The kind of low that would normally throw bumps along my skin.
Needy bumps, bumps that signal to my brain to make my cock hard, and then my nipples follow.
But now, it’s different. It’s a low of sorrow, thick with regret.
“I should have told you my last ex was Eli,” he says, clearly aware that I’ve figured it all out. He shakes his head, the hand on my thigh curving inward, trying to get more of me, trying to use our intimacy against me. I brush his hand off.
“I was hoping I was wrong.”
Noah’s fingers tighten on my leg. “You’re not wrong. And I had no idea he was gonna use me as a device in his speech, or to sell his book. I had no idea he was even going to be here.”
My nostrils flare. “He’s back this semester and this is the symposium. Where did you think he’d be?”
Noah shakes his head, inching closer and closer while the people around us start to take notice. “He’s a flake, Cade. I thought he’d blow this off for, I don’t know, a trip to the bar with his boyfriend.”
Eli’s keynote crescendos with a powerful reading from his book, his voice dropping to that intimate timbre that makes half the room lean forward, but makes me want to stick my head in a barf bag and blow.
I disliked him before I knew that he cheated on Noah.
And by the way, Eli Morton getting Noah in the first place was a Hail Mary.
Cheating on him? Fumbling someone like Noah?
I mean, I can hardly even believe it. But I look up at smarmy Eli, and I can see it. Some people are just that stupid.
When the speech finally comes to an end, the applause is thunderous. He steps off the stage and immediately makes his way toward the front row, clasping hands and exchanging hugs. Then Noah stands to greet him, because Eli is sitting next to us.
Wonderful.
They embrace and his hand lingers on Noah’s shoulder.
People get to their feet all around them, and the crowd starts to form, so I decide to slip out for some air. Right now, my mind is reeling.
I don’t know why he didn’t tell me.
Noah finds me no more than five minutes later. “Hey.” The one word is loaded. His eyes say a million things, too.
“Eli’s quite the speaker.”
Noah studies me, and I hate that he sees my jealousy, he sees my pain, and I immediately have no secrets. He knows me that well.
He steps closer, one hand coming to rest on my arm, his thumb stroking me over my sleeve. His touch is grounding but the image of Eli’s hand on that same shoulder flashes through my mind, reminding me.
“I didn’t want to color your opinion of him professionally.
” He sighs, dragging a hand down his face.
I reach out and tug the end of his shirt, and his hands fall away from his face.
“I didn’t want you to judge me for dating another professor.
And him, too. I mean, god, you think I don’t know what a fucking creep he is?
What a pompous douche he is?” He presses his hand into the center of his chest. “I know he’s all those things.
I am deeply embarrassed to have dated him, to have thought I loved him.
It’s honestly humiliating, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to date me. Because of who I dated.”
I nod, swallowing. I guess I can accept that answer, but still, the pain of their familiarity being a surprise.
It’s still there, stinging, bright. “Seems like he misses you. And you seemed to enjoy his attention.” While I feel those things, I wish I had the self-control not to say them, but I let my emotions beat out my rational mind.
“Cade. Stop. Listen to me.” He takes my hands, and brings his face very close to mine.
Heat rushes down my spine, and I suddenly feel bad for not trusting him.
“I should have told you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t.
I was only smiling and nice because this is public and for work.
Every time he’s cornered me in the halls or the office, I’m an asshole to him. Completely.”
“You two talk on campus?” Another sting in my chest, another burn to swallow down and accept. I’m with him so much, I’ve never seen him talk to Dr. Morton. But this is another thing I didn’t know, apparently.
“Twice. And he called that day in the office. You were there.” He shoves his hands in the sides of his hair and huffs out a stressed exhale.
I see him squirming, working so hard to make me see the truth he’s laying out but the hurt at feeling like Noah had secrets after I shared so many.
I just… I can’t make this okay for him right now. My heart is aching.
“It’s completely utterly over between him and I and I know that you know that. You know I love you,” he adds, brushing his lips over mine, though I don’t move.
We’re brushed apart right then by a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, who came to do a fluff piece on the symposium to drum up interest in the university.
And money, of course. He tries to beg off, peeling the reporter’s hand from his arm, but then Eli is there, and Dr. Pratt, too, and the camera is flashing and the reporter is shoving them in frame.
He just said he loves me and he’s now smiling with Eli. The photographer is holding his camera up, and now the truth he just spoke—all of it has to wait.