Not Today

by MC Lee

  “I wanted to see you in action,” I said.

  “Can you stay and have lunch with us?”

  The hope barely disguised in his voice and brimming in his eyes clutched at my heart. He deserved better than a boyfriend who was never there for him. His eyes widened when I nodded, and the grin on his face grew impossibly wider.

  “Give me ten minutes to change.” He turned toward his sister. “Hey, squirt. Don’t bother Emmett, okay?”

  Hannah turned her nose up and didn’t deign to respond. Instead she slipped her arm through mine possessively, ignoring her brother’s indulgent laughter.

  HALF AN hour later, we were sitting in a booth at Five Guys, the table in front of us overflowing with food. This time I didn’t feel the need to offer to pay my share; even I knew that when parents were involved, you let them spring for everything. Of course I also knew that the price of this generosity was to expect the third degree.

  “So, Emmett, how are things at school?” Mr. Davis asked.

  I swallowed carefully before answering. “They’re good. Noah is tutoring me in math. I was falling behind a little.”

  “I’m glad you’re getting help,” Mr. Davis said. “There’s nothing more important than a good education.”

  I could think of a couple of things, like putting food on the table and paying the mounting bills, but those weren’t the kinds of things the Davis family ever had to give a second thought. I wasn’t being snide or feeling sorry for myself. It was what it was.

  “I hope your father is feeling a little better,” Mrs. Davis said.

  I stared at her blankly for a moment, until Noah’s sharp kick under the table jogged my memory about the lie I’d told them. “Much better, thank you.”

  “I suppose your parents will be at the school’s open house next month?” Mr. Davis said. “It’s never too soon to start planning which college you want to attend.”

  I’d completely forgotten about the open house, or, more honestly, I’d barely registered that it was taking place. College was not something that was in my future, at least not until I knew what was going to happen with Dad. I couldn’t exactly see uprooting him and moving him to some new town or imagine what I’d do with him while working two jobs in order to pay tuition and all the rest of our bills. If I’d ever harbored any ambition to further my education, and I honestly wasn’t sure at this point, it was long since gone.

  I made a noncommittal answer that passed as assent, grateful when Noah changed the subject back to the game. Hannah’s too-watchful eyes were searching my face, and I got the distinct impression she wasn’t fooled.

  When we’d demolished the food, Mrs. Davis stood up. “What do you boys have planned for the rest of the afternoon?”

  Noah flashed me a questioning look, his eyes growing round when instead of flailing about trying to find an excuse, I simply shrugged. “I’m up for anything.”

  “Maybe play a couple of video games back at the house?” Noah said quickly.

  “Sounds good.”

  Noah smiled so sweetly I felt my heart melt.

  “Okay. Enjoy yourselves,” Mrs. Davis said. “You’ll find plenty of soda in the fridge, and there are some snacks in the pantry.” She turned toward Hannah. “Your father and I are taking you to the mall. You need some new shoes.”

  Hannah looked so patently disappointed I had to turn my head away to hide my smile.

  “I want to hang out with Noah and Emmett,” she whined.

  “Another day,” Mrs. Davis said firmly. “Today, you need shoes. Emmett, we’re eating at around seven. You’re welcome to stay….”

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but it’s Irish stew tonight. I’m under strict orders not to miss it.”

  She smiled kindly. “Next time, then.”

  She leaned in and kissed my cheek, and I felt a hot flush creep up my neck. Ours had never been a tactile family, even before our world crumbled. I couldn’t get used to all this casual hugging and kissing.

  When they left, Hannah throwing a wave over her shoulder, Noah turned to me. “You’re really free for the rest of the afternoon?”

  “Yep. Mrs. Sweeney is at the house watching Dad and making dinner. I’m all yours until seven.”

  Noah’s grin lit his whole face. “What are we waiting for? Let’s bounce.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the Jeep squealed to a halt in front of Noah’s house, and moments after that, we were closing his bedroom door behind us, its satisfying thud echoing through the empty house.

  When Noah turned toward me, his heavy-lidded eyes were hot with promise. He stepped forward and caught me by the arms, pulling me sharply against his hard body. He smelled of the cheap liquid soap from Whitmore High’s locker room, and underneath that was a trace of clean, earthy sweat that his too-quick shower hadn’t washed away. We tore at each other’s clothing, and I didn’t resist when he backed me up to the bed and then tumbled me onto it, following me down until he was braced over my prone body and looking down at me.

  Our hips were aligned, and he rolled forward slowly, and then just as slowly slid back. My breath hitched and turned into a garbled plea, and a shiver started at the base of my spine and crawled up my back as he snapped his hips over and again, driving us higher. My gaze was caught by his, and I couldn’t look away. I could only ride the crest of the wave that was building, starting somewhere deep inside and ending with my hot, ecstatic release. Noah followed me over the edge and then slumped against me in a boneless sprawl, and when I reluctantly moved him, crushed as I was under his weight, he rolled off with a smothered laugh and tucked up against my side.

  I rode the aftershocks of pleasure, unsurprised when Noah drifted off to sleep beside me. He’d played a full game, loaded up on carbs, and then spent his last reserves of energy on me. It was little wonder he was exhausted.

  As our bodies cooled, I twitched a blanket up over us and drifted sleepily. Noah had been magical on the field today, reminding me of another time, another player, and images of Jamie swam into my mind. He’d been equally brilliant on the football field, strong and agile and endlessly strategic. He’d taught me so much, had spent hours taking me through the tactics of the game and pointing out inspired moves when we watched the pro teams. It was the only time the three Callaghan men bonded, hunched around the TV in the living room, dissecting the greats.

  Noah shifted, and I stroked a hand through his close-cropped hair until he relaxed again with a gusty sigh. As I drifted along, half in sleep, half out, I realized that this was peace: the absence of anxiety and stress, relief from the constant need to deceive and hide, the certain knowledge that, in this moment at least, there was nothing on earth to fear.

  I tried to fix it all in my mind, the cool, clean sheets smelling faintly of lavender, the bright, airy room flooded with sunlight, the profound silence punctuated only by Noah’s steady breathing, and the feel of his warm, trusting body pressed against mine.

  Trying on this borrowed life was the best I’d ever felt.

  I should have known it couldn’t last.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “YOU COMING to practice after school?”

  It took me a minute to realize Foster was speaking to me.

  “I dropped out of the team, remember?”

  Foster waved an impatient hand. “You can come back any time, Easy. You know that.”

  I glanced at Noah, wondering if he had anything to do with Foster’s sudden transformation from shithead to human being. But he just shrugged.

  “I’ll give it some thought,” I said.

  There was no way it was going to happen, but it felt weirdly good to be asked. I thought about what Noah had once said and wondered whether I’d been a total idiot. Maybe I’d misinterpreted Foster’s hard-on for me as homophobia when all the time it had simply been my own oversensitivity and isolation coming up against his innate stupidity. When Foster turned his attention back to his buddies, Noah glanced at me and lowered his voice.

  “There’s no way
you can come to practice, is there?”

  I shook my head.

  “I could come to your place later. If you want to hang out.” His expression was carefully neutral.

  My heart surged, and then thudded loudly as reality hit. I hadn’t had any friends over since Jamie died and Dad started his slide into dementia. And nobody from north of the tracks had ever crossed the threshold. I didn’t know how Dad would react to having a stranger in the house, especially one who looked like Noah, and it twisted something inside to anticipate all the ways it could go catastrophically wrong. But the longing to see Noah was strong, almost like an ache, and before I’d really processed it, I blurted, “Yeah. Why don’t you come over after practice?”

  His relieved smile eased my pounding heart and sent a thrill of desperate hope through me. This might work. This just might work.

  I WAS still feeling optimistic later in the day. Dad was docile when I got home, and I got him fed and cleaned up and settled in front of the TV by the time Noah’s Jeep pulled up outside. Dad raised his head at the knock on the door, but he didn’t have that deer in the headlights look that he got when he was totally confused.

  I opened the door and felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth when I saw Noah standing on the porch, looking uncertain but determined.

  “This okay?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Let’s see.” I stood aside and Noah stepped into the house and hovered in the doorway of the living room. Dad turned his head, and my heart sunk at the look on his face. It wasn’t confusion; it was clearly animosity.

  “Who’s this?” His angry tone made my stomach clench, but Noah either didn’t read the anger, or was brave enough to ignore it.

  “Noah Davis, sir. Pleased to meet you.” He stepped forward and held out his hand, and I sucked in a sharp breath when Dad left him hanging, his cold gaze raking Noah from head to toe. Noah dropped his hand, his smile quickly fading.

  “What are you doing in my house?”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” I said quickly.

  “Why is he here?”

  “We’re just going to do some homework together,” I improvised.

  Dad frowned and jerked his head, and I tugged Noah’s shirt and pushed him toward the stairs. It was only when we were safely in my bedroom with the door firmly shut that I breathed again. I turned to see Noah looking at me with an unreadable expression.

  “He didn’t seem too happy to see me.”

  “He’s not always all there—”

  “It was something else,” Noah cut in. He inclined his head and looked at me closely. “Was that the door you walked into?”

  Nobody from Whitmore would have asked that question. I hadn’t realized how transparent my father’s hostility was until now. “Drop it, Noah,” I said distinctly.

  “But—”

  “I asked you to drop it.”

  If my dad’s mood was easy to read, mine must have been too because Noah threw up his hands in surrender.

  “You want to leave?” I asked. I could feel my muscles clench, and it wasn’t until Noah answered that I pinpointed the emotion coursing through me. I wanted him to stay. I wanted him here, in this house, his presence momentarily dispersing the fog of despair that had settled over the place.

  “I want to stay,” Noah said, and I felt myself sag in relief. He sent me a tentative smile. “We probably should hit the books. You want to tackle math or biology?”

  “Biology,” I said quickly.

  His smile turned into a genuine laugh, the first this room had heard in a very long time.

  “You want a soda or something? I could probably find something to eat if you’re hungry….”

  Noah shook his head. “Nah. I’m cool.”

  I sat on the edge of my bed and waved Noah into the chair beside my battered desk. He considered it for a moment and then dropped onto the bed beside me and began rooting around in his backpack before pulling out his biology textbook with a triumphant flourish. We both squirmed and shuffled until we found a comfortable configuration, me sitting up with my back against the headboard, and Noah splayed out on his stomach across my rumpled bedspread.

  He soon became engrossed in his work. I pretended to, but really I was too busy sneaking peeks at his beautiful body, imagining what it would look like without the layers of clothes that hid him from my curious gaze.

  “Quit checking out my ass and crack open that book.” Noah didn’t raise his head from his own book as he spoke, and I smiled at his certainty. He wasn’t wrong. My gaze kept getting drawn back to his fine ass, and my palms itched to smooth a path over the whole length of his body and feel its coiled power.

  I’d never had a boy in my room, not one I wanted to jump anyway, and I was a little shocked at how reckless it made me feel. If not for Dad barely more than a few feet away, I’d have given in to the urge to flip Noah onto his back, pin him to the bed, and plunder his soft mouth with mine.

  Instead I sighed heavily and forced myself to focus on my textbook. It pretty much worked too, right up until I heard Noah’s quiet voice. “Is that your family?”

  I glanced up to find him pointing at a photograph on my bedside table. It had been taken a couple of years back, before Jamie joined the Army, when his hair was straggling over his eyes and his grin was so wide it made the whole photograph glow. Mom was standing next to him, her own smile soft and dazzling, and I was beside her, trying to look cool, but not fooling anybody. It was my favorite picture of them, and the one that broke my heart the most.

  “Yeah, that’s them,” I said, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.

  “They look amazing.”

  I made some kind of noise in response and tried not to let Noah see what this conversation was doing to me.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked gently. He had rolled up into a sitting position and was facing me, his sweetly solicitous expression tearing me in half. Part of me wanted to shove the pain back down as deeply as possible and never face up to it. And for the first time ever, part of me wanted to lean forward and pour out all the grief and anger and hurt. I could feel the bitter knot in the pit of my stomach start to ease, could almost taste the words forming on my lips, felt the yearning for release tug at my heart. And just as I opened my mouth, still not certain I’d have the courage to say anything, there was a horrendous crash downstairs.

  I leaped off the bed and flew out of the room, with Noah right on my heels, and I jumped down the stairs and landed at the bottom with a thud. Dad was in the kitchen, standing in the middle of a sea of broken dishes.

  “Jesus, Dad. What the hell did you do?” I cried, my voice rising sharply.

  “It slipped,” he said vaguely.

  I waded through the mess and grabbed his arm.

  “Point me to a broom and dustpan,” Noah said.

  “Cupboard under the stairs.” I glanced over my shoulder. “You don’t have to—”

  “Look after your dad,” Noah ordered.

  I turned back to Dad. “What happened?”

  “I wanted a drink.” His expression had gone from blank to belligerent.

  It looked as though every dish in the house was broken, and I realized he must have upended the drying rack when he couldn’t locate a glass quickly enough. I’d meant to put all the dishes away as soon as I got home, but I’d let myself get distracted with the thought that Noah was coming over. I silently cursed my own stupidity and laziness. I knew better than this.

  Noah was busy dumping the last of the broken glass into the garbage pail when Dad turned his head.

  “Who’s he?” The tone was not pleasant.

  “I already told you, Dad. This is Noah. A friend.”

  Dad’s brows drew together. “I don’t know him.”

  “You’ve met him before—”

  “Who’s he? I don’t want him here. Why is he here?” His voice rose shrilly, and his face reddened as he became more agitated. Noah’s eyes widened, though he quickly masked his alarm.
r />   “Calm down, Dad,” I urged.

  “I don’t want your kind in my house,” Dad snarled. “Get out!”

  I shuddered at the look of naked hatred on his face. Although I knew some part of this was the disease, I also knew there was a bigger part that was just Dad. When I’d talked about Noah’s “kind” I’d meant other rich kids. It was obvious to me that Dad meant something very different.

  Unfortunately, Noah realized it too. His expression slowly transformed, became shuttered and hard. He glanced over at me, and I winced. It was painful to read betrayal and hurt on his face, to see him struggle to keep it together.

  “Mr. Callaghan—”

  “I said get out. You’re not welcome here.”

  “Dad!” My voice cracked across the room, cutting through the growing tension.

  “It’s okay,” Noah said quickly. He propped the broom up against the wall and put the dustpan onto the floor. “I need to go anyway.”

  I couldn’t blame him for wanting to get the hell out as quickly as possible.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Callaghan,” he said.

  Dad grunted and turned his head away.

  “I’ll walk you out—”

  “No need,” Noah cut in quickly. “I’ll find my own way.”

  He turned and started toward the door, and I shot out of my seat and followed him. “Noah, please….”

  He pulled the door open and stepped out, and I caught his wrist and forced him to turn around. “He didn’t mean what he said—”

  “Which part?” Noah’s tone was carefully modulated, and all the more chilling for it. “It’s pretty obvious he doesn’t like me. And it’s not much of a stretch to figure out why. What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “He’s sick, Noah,” I said quietly.

  Noah closed his eyes briefly, and I saw the struggle that tracked across his face. When he opened his eyes again, he seemed calmer. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know he’d be… like that.”