by Morgan James
Noah looked at him consideringly. “I’m sorry?”
“Don’t be.” Finley waved the idea away, careful not to drop any stitches this time. “I’ve not suffered for it. They forgave us for our bohemian lifestyles long ago.” He winked. “Besides, I do my best to make up for my ridiculously spoiled upbringing by doing my best for others. I give a lot of free art classes, donate pieces for charity auctions.” Finley wrinkled his nose. “It might sound like I’m bragging, but truly I’m just trying to assuage my white guilt.”
Noah barked a laugh, looking surprised. He smirked. “You poor baby. What a difficult life you lead.”
Finley grinned.
“Noah?” The boy, who’d been managing the till, hovered nearby. He was dressed in a peacoat and scarf and held a pair of gloves. “Um, I’ve locked up the shop and closed the register. So, uh, I’ll be on my way.”
“O-of course. Thank you, Mark.” Noah slid his work down the needles and put the project in a bag that looked made for the purpose. Then he stood and followed Mark to the door. “Good night,” Noah said, waited a beat as Mark said something too soft to hear, and locked the door behind him.
Finley followed Noah’s example, slid the stitches down, away from the needle points, and put everything into the Purls of Wisdom–branded bag. Then he cast a jealous look at the stiff-sided, basketlike one Noah had left on his chair.
“Well, I guess I better be off,” Finley said when Noah rejoined him.
Noah nodded somewhat stiffly and disappointment curdled in Finley’s belly. He’d thought the evening had been going well, but the shuttered look of Noah’s eyes was not encouraging.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help with this project. I know you’re not open on Monday, but maybe Tuesday evening I could come back again, and you can check up on my project.”
Noah shrugged—not encouraging either—and admitted, “I will be working that evening.”
Figuring he should take wins where he could—and doing his best not to jump to any conclusions—Finley gathered up his coat and scarf. “Well, thank you again. This is really very helpful.”
Noah nodded once again, sharply, and Finley gave one last smile before hurrying out of the shop. Maybe Noah was anxious to lock up for the night?
“HE’S A moody fucker who hates people,” Hazel said over her wine while arching one naturally perfect eyebrow. “Everyone who’s ever met him knows that. Honestly, Finley, if he talked to you for an hour about nonknitting topics and didn’t simply grunt at you or give you banal responses, then he might actually be smitten.”
“Mngh,” Finley said into the throw pillow he’d face-planted onto.
He’d arrived home with takeout in hand shortly after seven thirty, and they’d settled in the living room with food and wine to talk about their days. She’d ranted about the pains of grocery shopping and admitted to soothing her nerves through impromptu lattes with Toni down the hall. Then Finley told her about his evening while she delicately finished her chicken pad thai. By the time he’d recounted the end of the lesson, Noah’s coldness stood large in his mind, and he’d been moved to despair. Surely yesterday’s optimism had been sheer folly on his part.
“Finley, stop being a drama queen and sit up. You did not bring me nearly enough calories to put up with your hysterics.”
Finley sighed and flopped over onto his back. Hazel used her chopsticks to take a bite, and Finley envied her dexterity. Maybe Noah had intuited Finley’s chopstick deficiencies and had decided to steer clear.
“I’m going to be alone forever,” he groaned. “I should just buy ten cats and be done with it.”
“You can’t have cats, darling, they require regular feeding.”
She was right, damn her. Finley forgot to feed himself on occasion. He probably shouldn’t be in charge of another creature. He moaned. “I’m a failure as a functioning adult.”
Hazel scoffed. “You keep yourself clothed, fed, and clean, while you spend most of your time helping those less fortunate than yourself. Now stop pouting, sit up, and eat. Your moping is counteracting our home’s feng shui.”
Finley grumbled—this place had never been feng shuied in its life—but sat up and grabbed the remains of his red curry. It had cooled, but Finley persevered. Hazel was right about one thing: starving himself would solve nothing.
“I need a battle plan,” Finley said some minutes and half a carton later. “I need a plan for wooing.”
“Yes,” Hazel agreed placidly and emptied her wineglass.
“Will you help me?”
Hazel eyed him for several long moments and then said finally, “Maybe you should speak to him in his own language.”
“What?” Finley frowned. “Are you suggesting I learn Hebrew?” Because that sounded a terrible idea, not least because Finley had no talent for languages and the bald offensiveness of the plan.
“Knitting, Finley. Dear Lord, sometimes I wonder about you.”
“Gee thanks. Here I am, spilling my guts out—”
“And taking all the attention as per usual. God, your love life is demanding.” She poured herself more wine.
Finley paused and looked at his oldest friend. “What’s wrong?”
She slugged back her wine. “Toni got back together with Matt.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I know you were hoping….”
“Yes, well. It seems neither of us have much luck in love right now.” She gave him a wobbly smile, and there was nothing for it, Finley had to hug her. He wrapped her up tight and squeezed.
“The worst, love, just the worst,” he murmured and pushed away thoughts about handsome shop owners for the rest of the evening.
Knit Five
“ALL I’M saying, my dear, is that if you are going to be late for Friday dinner because of a boy, then you should be prepared to tell us all about him.”
Noah sighed over the crumbs of challah left on his plate. “He’s not a boy, Mom, and neither am I.”
“He’s got a point, Mara.” His dad winked at him while his mom was busy with the fish.
“No, he hasn’t. I’m perfectly aware that he’s not a boy, he’s a man. A man who has never brought another man home to meet his parents, but who sees fit to be late on Friday for one.” She shot her husband a look. “I want to know all about what makes this one so special.”
Noah thought unwillingly of Finley’s big eyes and easy smiles. “Nothing. He came into the shop desperate for help. He made some sort of bet with his wife and so needs to knit his first project by Christmas.”
Her face fell. “Wife?”
His dad’s lips twitched. “All we ask, Noah, is that you bring home a nice Jewish boy.” His eyes danced with mischief. “And instead you find yourself a taken goy?” He shook his head. “So disappointing.”
Noah grinned. “Neither good nor Jewish, I’m afraid. And if he doesn’t pass your approval, Dad, I guess it will never be.”
“Bah!” His mom threw her hands into the air. “I don’t know why I expected either of you to take anything seriously.”
Noah chuckled around his next bite and watched his dad lean over to press a loving kiss to his mom’s cheek. She waved a hand at him and thumped him gently in the chest, but she was already softening and smiling. She was long used to his dad’s strange sense of humor. She muttered, “You idiot,” and kissed him, and as had happened so often before, Noah felt a sharp pang of longing, the wish to have something like this for himself, a man to call his own.
A man like Finley.
But Finley wasn’t an option.
Maybe, Noah reflected as he ate his fish and watched his parents bicker, he should give in and let his mom set him up with Gali’s sister’s nephew after all. At thirty-six, Noah should probably admit defeat on the people-meeting front and let others give him the help they’d been so eagerly offering.
“WHAT DO you mean you’ve never been skating at Rockefeller?” Finley’s mouth was open, and he’d stopped knitting to stare at Noa
h.
Noah shrugged, self-conscious. “I don’t know. I’ve just… never done it.”
“Never….” Finley blinked, then looked at his watch. “Okay, no, this needs to be rectified immediately. Put away your knitting and grab your coat.”
Bemused once again, Noah watched as Finley tidied up his knitting and put on his jacket. His cheeks flushed and his eyes glowed; he was a man on a mission. Noah’s stomach flipped.
“Noah! You’re not moving!” Finley waved his hands in a hurry-up motion.
Noah put his mother’s shawl away and stood with a stretch. It was Wednesday and their second lesson of the week. Though admittedly this one had been rather less productive than yesterday’s. Finley was high on holiday spirit. He’d stumbled into the shop, red cheeked and beaming, and had barely shut the door before saying, “Hazel and I went down to Rockefeller last night!” They had taken their annual pilgrimage to see the lit-up tree and to have dinner. The date had apparently gone so well—Noah refused to think about how well it might have ended—that Finley still glowed almost twenty-four hours later.
He’d been basking in memories of the Christmas season in Rockefeller when Noah had casually admitted that he’d never been skating. He hadn’t meant to start something by it, but clearly he had.
“I need to check in with Mark first,” Noah said and wandered to the front of the shop. Mark was settled comfortably behind the counter, reading one of his many textbooks. Noah asked if he would be all right to close up shop on his own.
Mark glanced at the clock, turned back to Noah, and said completely sincerely and earnestly, “I can manage the last twenty minutes just fine on my own. Go have fun.” He blinked at Noah as if to suggest he’d never had an impure thought in his head, but Noah rather thought he was insinuating something. Perhaps about the sad lack of social life Noah usually displayed.
“Well, if you’re sure.” Noah rolled his eyes.
Mark opted to be the bigger man—or maybe he didn’t notice the sarcasm—and happily waved him off.
Noah returned to the back of the store to find Finley dressed and hopping impatiently from foot to foot. Bemused, Noah shook his head. “I’ll need to go upstairs to gather my things.” He waved to the door behind him.
Finley stopped bouncing. “Upstairs?”
“Yes, there is an apartment on the second floor.”
“Oh.” Finley tilted his head, apparently taking this in.
“It was a house when my uncle bought it, but the neighborhood changed around him…. It made more sense to convert the downstairs to a shop than to sell and move elsewhere.” Noah didn’t know why he was telling Finley this, except maybe that Finley looked so earnest and interested when people spoke, and Noah wanted to keep those startlingly blue eyes focused on him for as long as possible.
Which was stupid and dangerous.
Noah turned away and headed for the stairs. “I’ll only be a moment. Unless you’d rather come up—there’s a street entrance from the apartment.” It would be faster and easier than walking back through the shop.
He followed.
Finley was a mystery, Noah thought over and over again that evening, as he found Finley snuggling Katz and whispering secrets to her. As they traveled to Rockefeller on the subway, pressed close in the rush-hour traffic, laughing as Finley whispered outrageous theories about the other passengers, who they were and where they were going. As he practically bounded all the way from the subway to the rink, his cheeks pink in the cold, babbling about how much Noah was going to love skating there. As Finley realized that Noah wasn’t exactly surefooted on skates—an understatement—and laughed at him for not saying something sooner, you silly man, but took Noah’s hand all the same and led him around the rink. As Finley never once let go, no matter how hard Noah squeezed, and sometimes looked up at him like maybe he was flirting, maybe he felt the electric current flowing between them and also wanted this to be a date date and was thinking that now, now would be the perfect time for a kiss.
Noah cleared his throat and looked away. “Hot chocolate time?” he asked, desperate for something, anything, to distract him from the pressing need to kiss that bow mouth, even if that was hot water with a vague cocoa taste.
He should have known better. Finley didn’t buy him a hot chocolate made from an instant mix, but instead he brought him to the closest location to sell the real deal, made with milk and real chocolate and topped with whipped cream. When Noah took his first sip, he nearly moaned in pleasure. When he opened his eyes, he found Finley staring at him with laughter dancing in his own.
“I’m sorry,” Finley said through trembling lips, “but you’ve got a little….” He reached up and swiped his thumb over the tip of Noah’s nose. Heat bloomed from the point of contact, and Noah blinked down at him, doing his best to ignore the desire to kiss Finley, kiss him now. He wanted to lean forward, and for one wild, delusional moment, he thought Finley might want that too—
“Excuse me.”
Noah turned to stare at an impatient woman.
“You’re blocking the counter.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Finley ushered Noah out of the way. “My apologies. So sorry again,” he called over his shoulder at the woman, who was clearly not listening.
“I don’t think you said it enough times,” Noah said dryly.
“Pardon?”
Noah’s lips twitched. “‘Sorry.’ You didn’t say it enough. Perhaps you should go back and apologize another five times?”
Finley stared at him. His lips twitched before he pulled a scowl. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you didn’t say it once. If anyone should be mocking anyone, I should be mocking you for your outrageously poor manners. Standing in that poor woman’s way and not even saying sorry for it.” He tsked.
“Well, it was your fault. You’re the one who distracted me with cocoa and cleaning my face.”
Finley pinked and looked surprisingly pleased by the accusation, instead of abashed, and didn’t say anything more. And like everything else Finley did, his quiet pleasure hit Noah straight to the core.
It was definitely time to call his mother and accept that blind date.
Purl Six
PERCHED ON a chair he had dragged closer to Purls of Wisdom’s counter, Finley watched Noah as he worked on a new project. He’d finished the shawl for his mother, and since they’d last seen each other, Noah had started knitting mittens for his father. He used thicker yarn, though not as heavy as what Finley used for Hazel’s gift, in a bright blue. But then, after he’d finished the cuff, Noah pulled out a bag of what looked like scraps of wool and started to… add them to the knitting.
“What are you doing?”
Noah had been at the back of the store serving a customer when Finley had arrived, his head and shoulders visible over the shelves and stacks of yarn. Finley left him to his work and happily made himself at home, dragging the extra chair closer to the till. Smiling, he settled under the punny cross-stitch. Noah hadn’t commented on Finley’s rearrangement of furniture. He’d simply rung up the customer’s bill and picked up his knitting.
“Hm?” Noah looked up, then looked at his project. “Oh, it’s thrums. You take some roving, twist it up, and add it to some stitches so that the ends stick out on the inside, see?” He showed Finley how the two ends of the seeming wool scraps did indeed stick out, in two little loops.
“Why?” Finley asked, totally flummoxed.
Noah smiled his barely there smile. The one, Finley was learning, that indicated genuine amusement, more than the bright customer-service flash of teeth. “Well, when it’s done, the inside of the mitt will be filled with them, and over time they mat and felt together, and the mitten has two layers then, one of which shouldn’t have any holes.”
“Oh.” Finley blinked at the project in wonder. It was both simple and complex, like all of knitting. While he’d known Hazel’s hobby had magic in it, he hadn’t understood how much until he sat next to Noah, night after night, and watc
hed him, manipulating yarn and needles at a speed which Hazel would envy. “That is… so cool.”
Noah chuckled, low and incredibly sexy. “I can’t take credit for it, unfortunately.” He worked some stitches and added in another thrum. “The first pair I made my dad are getting old.”
“Thoughtful of you to replace them.”
Noah shrugged, clearly uncomfortable, so Finley let it drop.
“Of all the things you’ve made, which is your favorite?”
Noah jerked, turned considering eyes onto Finley, and then looked down at his hands. Finley waited, having learned that sometimes Noah wanted to collect his thoughts before speaking. Something Finley rarely indulged in but admired in others.
“About six months after I got to Iraq, a parcel arrived from my dad. It had yarn in it, beige. It can get a bit chilly there at night. So I made some socks. And then I kept making socks, and each pair I gave to someone in my unit.”
“Oh.” Charmed, Finley pressed himself harder into his chair, the wood pushing back uncomfortably against his bones, to curb the impulse to launch himself at Noah. He wanted to hug Noah and kiss him and declare his undying love for this surprising man who knitted socks on the battlefront for his comrades in arms. “I’m sure they loved you for them.”
Noah’s cheeks turned rosy, and he tried to hide his face. “They called me Grandma because of it.”
Finley barked a laugh. “Of course they did. Do you keep in touch with any of them?”
Noah shrugged. “I talk to Ice sometimes, but she lives in California. Genie’s in town, so we go running together.”
“Ice and Genie?”
Noah rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. You get so used to using nicknames in the service, you can’t turn it off. Kinda embarrassing.” His nose wrinkled. Finley wanted to kiss it.