Noah bites his lip to dim his smile and dips his head, but Adrian can still see the pink flush on his cheeks. It always reaches around to his ears. It’s so endearing that Adrian is overcome with the urge to kiss him. But Noah doesn’t know him, and that would be weird.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Adrian,” Noah says, proving Adrian’s point.

  The realization that they really are strangers hits Adrian like a freight train. Everything he wants to say is caught on his tongue, burning his mouth like acid. He swallows it all down and it burns then, too.

  “Right, pleasantries are over,” Conrad says. “Take that box from Noah and put it in the kitchen, don’t be rude. Noah, you can head into the living room. From the sounds of it, I’d say Lucas is losing miserably again. That’s always a good time, trust me.”

  Adrian hears the instructions, but he’s still frozen in place trying to process how he’s meant to simply exist around Noah, as if seeing him hasn’t thrown his entire world off its axis. He isn’t sure how to treat Noah as if he is a stranger to him, and not someone who still has Adrian wrapped around his delicate pinky finger. But he can try, starting with doing what Conrad says and taking the box from him.

  It’s heavier than he expects and he almost drops it when his fingers brush the skin of Noah’s forearm because he swears electricity shoots up his spine like he just stuck a knife in an electrical socket. He can barely look at Noah. Definitely won’t make eye contact, because he’s worried that if he does, he’ll get so lost he will never find his way out.

  “It’s okay,” Noah says to Conrad. “I’ll help Adrian unpack the leftovers. There’s a lot there.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Conrad argues. “You’re a guest.”

  “So are you, and you’ve been talking about seeing Ben all day. So go. See him. I’ll be fine,” Noah finishes with a real smile—the kind that shows his teeth and pulls at his cheeks and makes Adrian feel a little bit sick—and waves Conrad off with a flick of his wrist.

  Conrad rolls his eyes, but he goes.

  The last thing Adrian wants right now is to be alone with Noah for longer than he has to be, so he heads straight for the kitchen and tries to ignore Noah walking behind him.

  “You have a nice place,” Noah says. Adrian grunts his thanks, heaves the box onto the counter and opens it. He starts pulling out platters and Noah helps, setting them haphazardly on the counter. Adrian shakes his head and shuffles them until they’re all aligned.

  They work in mostly silence, but every now and then, Noah will give Adrian directions like, “That doesn’t need to be reheated,” or, “No, put that one in the oven. Do you have a salad bowl?”

  Adrian tries to focus on the sounds of his friends yelling in the other room, and not on the way Noah is staring at him like he’s trying to figure him out. Adrian doesn’t want to be figured out. Not by Noah. Not this time.

  “This might sound weird, but do I know you?”

  The question is innocent enough, but to Adrian it’s a bucket of ice water being dumped on his head when he isn’t expecting it.

  “No,” he says, probably too quickly, but he needs to shut it down before it starts. He won’t let even the idea of friendship settle into Noah’s consciousness. Adrian knows that if they become friends, he will want more. He already wants more, and this is already too much. “We’re done here, right?”

  It’s not much of a question, which Noah must hear because he frowns at the remaining leftovers still scattered over Adrian’s kitchen.

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. We can finish this later, if everyone is still hungry.”

  “Great,” Adrian infuses the word with far more animosity than is required and he shoves past Noah. The touch makes Adrian feel warm and golden, but he lets that feeling go as he marches away.

  Adrian forfeits his position on the leaderboard for the rest of the night, choosing instead to settle into the corner of the sofa furthest away from Noah and nurse his second beer. Watching him like this—kneeling on the carpeted floor of Adrian’s living room, laughing with Adrian’s friends and drinking Adrian’s beer—Adrian can’t help but feel a little voyeuristic. This is a moment he shouldn’t be privy to. This is a moment that shouldn’t have happened.

  It’s a little suffocating. Noah is close enough to touch, but Adrian is not allowed to. He wants to curse out the universe, scream and cry and beg for answers he knows he will never get. Why was Noah ripped away from him and then given another chance at life, just to end up here, sitting in front of Adrian like a carrot on a stick. Something he wants but can never reach. An unattainable dream.

  Noah throws his head back and cackles like a wicked witch at something Maggie says. The sound is sudden and ugly and familiar and endearing. Adrian knows he’s in trouble then, realizes how easy it would be to fall in love with Noah again. As if he ever fell out of love with him.

  Around him, the room starts to spin. The air is too thick, all warm and tacky and it sticks to the back of Adrian’s throat when he tries to breathe it in. He wants to open his mouth and suck the muggy air down in gulps so big he chokes on them, because at least then he won’t have to be here. Looking but not touching. Loving, alone.

  A bead of sweat forms in his hairline and trickles down his forehead, hitting his left eyebrow and sliding down his temple. Noah laughs again. The sound sends an arrow straight through Adrian’s heart.

  “I need some air,” he announces, standing abruptly. The group glances over at him, and where his close friends all nod and smile and wave him off like this is something that he just does and they’re used to it, Noah’s eyes linger. Every hair on the back of Adrian’s neck stands with the electricity of his gaze.

  “Is he okay?” Noah asks quietly, words not intended for Adrian to hear as he retreats.

  “Yeah,” Ben answers, equally quiet but with an understanding fondness that makes Adrian feel like there’s a fist closing around his heart, “He just gets a little antisocial sometimes.”

  A laugh bubbles in his throat but bursts before it can escape his lips, and he silently thanks Ben for his overly polite phrasing. When it comes to Noah, Adrian thinks he doesn’t have much dignity left but he’s grateful for the little of it Ben is managing to scrape off of the floor and into Noah’s hands.

  The air outside isn’t much better, but it doesn’t cling to his skin as closely and that’s good enough for Adrian. He grips the wrought-iron railing of his tiny balcony until his knuckles turn white. Cool metal against his clammy palms, if he clenches his fists tight enough the square-cut railing digs into his skin just enough to hurt. He closes his eyes and focuses on the dull pain, on something real, something he can control.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on the exhale. Feel everything become soft.

  There are two small taps at the glass sliding door that leads to the balcony, and Adrian hears it slide open with a reluctant screech before he can turn to see who it is. He expects it to be Ben or Conrad coming to check on him, or maybe even Maggie. Lucas has never been good in these situations. When Adrian’s feelings are too big for him to carry their weight, Lucas has never known how to share the load without taking it all on himself, and that doesn’t help either of them, so he sticks to the sidelines, offering words of encouragement that don’t do much to help, but Adrian appreciates anyway. The last person he expects to see standing there is Noah.

  He’s even closer now, the sliding door closed behind him. Even though it’s made of glass, and the railing offers no privacy at all, Adrian feels trapped. Claustrophobic. But then he sees the way the moonlight is reflecting like a shimmer in Noah’s green eyes, and the hustle and bustle of the city streets below all fade into the background. Noah offers a small smile and Adrian’s world stops turning.

  “Hey,” he says it so casually, as if he can’t see that Adrian is completely in love, holding his barely beating heart between his scathed hands and offering it to Noah like it’s worth anything. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

  Adrian doesn’t quite know what to say to that, because he was doing okay. He is absolutely fine, thank you very much, and he has been absolutely fine right up until the moment Noah walked through his front door and back into his life. A life he was never supposed to have, but was gifted anyway. A life that was meant to remain completely separate to Noah’s.

  Now, Adrian doesn’t know if he’s okay anymore. He doesn’t think he is, not when he can feel his heart thump, thump, thumping hard against its cage. But Noah is standing in front of him, alive and happy and healthy, so shouldn’t Adrian be happy too? Shouldn’t he be okay with that?

  The silence must last a beat too long, because Noah prompts, “Are you?”

  Adrian opens his mouth to speak, but he doesn’t know what to say. All his words catch on each other and tumble on their way out until they’re all trapped in a painful lump in his throat.

  When he tries again, his words are abrasive. He has a mouthful of sand and he spits it in Noah’s face with his question.

  “Who are you?”

  Noah flinches, taken aback by the aggression, but he stands his ground.

  “I’m Noah,” he says, and then to jog Adrian’s memory, “Conrad’s friend?”

  “No, I know who you are. I mean why are you here?”

  “I just told you. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Why?” He repeats the word forcefully, leaning into the mix of confusion and frustration he feels simmering away beneath his skin. The easiest way to resist temptation is to remove the temptation. If he can’t fall in love with Noah, maybe he can make Noah fall in hate with him. “You don’t know me.”

  Noah gives a weak shrug, and he doesn’t move but he looks down at his feet. Adrian knows him well enough to know he’s shrinking away, second-guessing himself. Adrian hates the satisfaction he feels for winning at this moment. He’s never wanted to lose so badly before.

  “I don’t know. Conrad talks about you a lot, so I feel like I kinda know you. He’s kind of my only friend right now, and you mean a lot to him so…”

  Noah has never sounded so small. It makes Adrian feel sick. He wants to bend over the balcony and empty the contents of his stomach, not that there’s much in there at the moment anyway. Noah has always preferred to keep to himself. Even in their other life, Noah could count his friends on one hand—Adrian, Biscuit and his parents. Later, that list would grow to include Ben and Conrad, and eventually Lucas and Maggie too, but the similarities between Noah Then and Noah Now still feel like a knife to the gut.

  It was easier for Adrian to imagine Noah Then and Noah Now as separate people, but he’s right here, proving that they aren’t. Now it is so painfully clear that the Noah he fell in love with then is the exact same Noah that’s standing before him.

  “We aren’t friends,” Adrian retorts, taking the knife from his gut and driving it right into Noah’s heart.

  “I know that,” Noah whispers to the ground. “I was kinda hoping we could be.”

  “Sorry, man,” Adrian twists the knife. “Not interested.”

  Noah’s face crumples, and it takes everything Adrian has not to reach for him, because Noah isn’t his to touch. Not anymore.

  Adrian doesn’t say anything else before he heads back inside, grabbing another beer on his way back to the party. Noah doesn’t look at him for the rest of the night. Adrian tries to pretend like he doesn’t either.

  History is doomed to repeat itself. Adrian learns this the hard way when he stops by his usual coffee shop, because it’s routine, only to find it closed. Valued customers, we are closed today due to unforeseen and extenuating circumstances. Adrian’s read it all before.

  A little down the road and around a corner, there’s a campus coffee shop with a terrible pun for a name and a barista who greets everyone with, “Hey there, what can I get you?” Adrian knows this shop like the back of his hand, because he’s found himself there every Wednesday morning for the better part of a year.

  The first few weeks in this new world without Noah were hard, but manageable. Adrian found himself content with the knowledge that, somewhere out there, Noah was okay. Until he woke up one night, panting and dripping with sweat from a dream of losing Noah all over again. It dawned on Adrian in the middle of that humid summer night, staring blankly at his ceiling fan, that if anything does happen to Noah, in this life, Adrian would never know. He hadn’t been content since then, and despite his better judgment, curiosity won out. Since then, Adrian has stayed close.

  Close enough to ease his worried mind, but enough of a distance so that Noah wouldn’t notice him. Not that Adrian considered himself particularly noticeable anyway.

  New York is home to some 8 million people, and Adrian has never given much thought to the anonymity this city provides him, but in the early hours of the morning, watching the sun rise over the city streets as people in suits with briefcases clutched in their hands and phones pressed to their ears filtered in, and stragglers from the night before crawled out with bleary eyes and alcohol in their veins, he was grateful for it.

  But Noah knows him now, in this life, and it’s too risky. He will have to settle for going to Conrad’s bakery a few blocks down. The journey would cost him more time than he had, but Adrian could afford to be a little late once in a while. Especially since his days getting free coffee from Conrad might be numbered, because he will be leaving that little bakery on Second Street as soon as his business takes off. Adrian expects that will happen any day now.

  Adrian isn’t looking when he walks in, too busy sending a quick text to his colleague who is concerned that he isn’t already at the office, sitting behind his desk, answering emails as he sips black coffee. He texts back that he’s okay, just an off day, and he doesn’t see the daggers Conrad is shooting him.

  “Hey,” His tone is light and casual, almost lazy, but then he looks up. Conrad’s gaze is so sharp it pierces Adrian’s casual demeanor.

  “The usual?” Conrad asks, but it doesn’t sound like he wants an answer. A nod is all Adrian offers in response, not willing to try his luck speaking just yet.

  Without so much as another syllable thrown in Adrian’s direction, Conrad punches in his order and stomps over to the machine to make it. Adrian gives it a few seconds—thirty, to be exact. He counts them in his head—before speaking.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  He sincerely hopes that the answer is no, because Conrad is one of the gentlest souls Adrian has ever been so lucky to know, but he has a mean streak a mile long. Maybe even two miles, if provoked enough.

  Adrian has never been on the receiving end of Conrad’s anger. That emotion is usually reserved for people who hurt the people he love. Or Ben, on the odd occasion he pushes the wrong button during a fight. Adrian has heard enough impassioned rants and seen enough icy glares to know better than to cross that line. He worries now that he has.

  “I don’t know,” Conrad mutters, keeping his eyes on the coffee machine. “Did you?”

  Adrian feels suddenly like a child being scolded for drawing on the walls, then swearing someone else did it.

  “No?” He says it like a question.

  In response, Conrad slams his coffee down on the counter between them. Americano bubbles and bursts at the lip, spilling onto the plastic lid. Adrian wants to take it and run, but he’s also a little scared to move.

  “Why were you so rude to Noah the other night?”

  Adrian’s mouth opens, then closes. It does this too many times, and he looks like a fish snatched out of its bowl as he stumbles over his words trying to find the right ones. What comes out is all wrong.

  “I wasn’t rude,” he says meekly. Pink blossoms over his cheeks at the blatant lie, and the apples of Conrad’s cheeks glow red, though Adrian is sure it’s for a wholly different reason.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Conrad deadpans. Adrian can practically see the smoke billowing out of his ears, filling the small cafe with a burning smell. Maybe he should evacuate now. “I talked you up so much and he was so excited to meet you, then you acted like he wasn’t even there!”

  For a moment Adrian is stunned, racking his brain trying to figure out why Conrad would need to talk him up at all. Then it clicks.

  Realization smacks him across the face. “Were you trying to set us up?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “Oh my god,” Adrian says, both incredulous and smacking himself for not seeing the signs earlier. It all made sense now. Why Noah was watching him so closely. Why he seemed so insistent on getting him alone. Why he followed Adrian outside. Why Conrad would even want to bring a friend in the first place. “You were!”

  “You’d really like him if you just took a second to get to know him! I don’t know why you’re so against it.”

  Adrian has to bite down on his tongue to stop the hysterical laughter that threatens to come out at that. The irony is too much, even for him.

  It’s been a long time since Adrian has wanted to disappear so completely, but he wants to now.

  “I’m not —“ he starts, and he’s grateful that Conrad stops him because he doesn’t know what he would say if he had the opportunity to keep speaking. I’m not against it. I do like him. I have been in love with him for longer than I’ve known him.

  “Whatever, Adrian. I know you well enough to know when you’re self-sabotaging, even if I don’t understand it. You deserve to be happy, whether that’s with Noah or not. But either way, he’s my friend and he’s going to be around. Do what you have to do to make peace with that.”

  Adrian thinks that maybe he’s cursed. Or maybe he’s blessed, but either way, he’s starting to feel like he is destined to know Noah.

  Conrad’s confession has him rattled. All he has thought about since then is Noah. Kissing Noah. Laughing with Noah. Losing Noah.

  Adrian needs a distraction, a night off from being in love with someone who shouldn’t love him back, so he takes himself out to the screening of some new horror movie showing at an old theater. The kind with a film projector and a few letters missing on the marquee outside. Adrian knows he wouldn’t remember the title even if all the letters had been there. The ticket was purchased on a whim, with no thought about the contents of the movie aside from the mindless gore it promised. It’s hard to think about romance when some pretty young thing is having their insides ripped out in a literal sense, Adrian reasons.

 

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