Taking a Knee

by Sean Ashcroft

  Jace had gone silent, so Noah didn’t even bother showing him the photo. He understood how uncomfortable this was for Jace, and he was grateful for everything he’d done so far. Noah didn’t feel like he deserved a man like Jace, even as a best friend.

  He uploaded the photo to his own Facebook account. Thinking of a caption made him pause, but then he realized that the truth would be the best thing.

  I love this man, he typed. His stomach swooped as he hit post. While he knew it was true, he’d never said it out loud before. Or typed it online, which was more or less the same thing.

  Noah knew his mom would see it, but it wasn’t the first time he’d posted a drunken selfie like this, potentially with a stranger. It would only have significance to people who knew who Jace was.

  He would eventually have to explain about his marriage to her, but today wasn’t that day. He could worry about it later.

  They couldn’t fight Rafe directly, which he knew would bother Jace. Jace was the kind of man who liked to be told what the problem was and how to solve it, and be allowed to do that. That was why he made such a good nurse. This wasn’t that kind of problem, though.

  “You wanna go home?” Jace asked, whispering close to Noah’s ear. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, his body responding to it with anticipation. Noah knew intellectually that Jace wasn’t about to kiss his neck, but he expected it instinctively anyway.

  He was ready to go home, regardless. Between the game and Rafe coming back to haunt them, Noah was exhausted and wanted to curl up in bed until the morning.

  “Yeah,” Noah said, draining the remainder of his beer. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When he’d suggested kissing Noah, Jace had thought it was the perfect plan. He’d imagined he could put so much feeling into it that Noah would realize he meant it, and they wouldn't have to have any awkward conversations.

  Then Noah had kissed him on the cheek instead. That had put a dent in Jace’s master strategy.

  Now that he knew what he wanted, though, he’d have to act on it. Patience had never been Jace’s top skill, and while Rafe resurfacing had probably stopped Noah from potentially running back to Joe, he couldn’t get the thought out of his head.

  He wanted to kiss Noah, for real. The whole drive home, that was all he could think about.

  Noah had laughed at the idea of being scary to approach, but there was so much at stake here. They lived together. They had a great, functional relationship that allowed them both to have comfortable, productive lives.

  Jace didn’t want to ruin that. The thought that they might lose the great thing they had tied his stomach up in knots.

  But not knowing whether he was missing out on having something even better was killing him, too. Noah could so easily have been his soul mate. Jace wasn’t sure he believed in that kind of thing, but he’d never connected to anyone else the way he did to Noah. It had taken him too long to see it, because he’d been convinced until recently that he wasn’t interested in guys.

  Jace was learning a lot of things about himself, lately. One of them was that he maybe didn’t know as much about his own sexuality as he thought he did. Brian said he could be bi, that liking just one guy was enough to qualify, and Jace was starting to believe he was right.

  It didn’t quite make sense to him—none of this did, not yet—but it made way more sense than trying to tell himself he was one-hundred-percent straight. He obviously wasn’t. He just hadn’t met the guy he’d go so far as questioning his straightness for until he’d met Noah. Until he’d been married to him, until he’d had to kiss him and start sharing a life with him.

  He really, really wanted to kiss Noah again.

  “You’re very quiet,” Noah said on the way up to their apartment.

  “Hmm?” Jace glanced over at him. “Uh. Tired, I guess,” he lied. Now wasn’t the moment. Noah was pissed about Rafe, exhausted from the game, and probably not in the mood to deal with Jace’s self-discovery crap.

  “Me too,” Noah said, obviously buying the lie. He must have been tired if Jace could fool him. “It was a good game, right?”

  “Yeah, it was. Joe seems nice.”

  Jace could have kicked his own ass for bringing Joe up. He didn’t want Noah thinking about him. He didn’t want to lose Noah at the last minute, just when he’d figured out his feelings.

  “He’s… okay. An acquired taste. You don’t have to pretend to like him.”

  Jace didn’t like him, but he did seem nice. It sounded as though Noah’s feelings were more mixed, though, which was a relief. Noah didn’t sound like he was angling to get to see Joe on the side, which Jace had been worried about.

  “I don’t wanna be rude about your ex. You picked him at one point, so you must have seen something in him.”

  Why wasn’t he changing the subject? Why was he trying to sing Joe’s virtues to Noah?

  Running from his feelings, probably. If Noah went back to Joe, then Jace would never have to tell him how he felt. That was a much simpler solution than having to tell Noah that not only was he not straight, but he had a thing for him.

  He’d been worried about Brian laughing at him, but Noah laughing at him would have been infinitely worse.

  “I guess I did, but I’m looking for something different now. I just… Joe’s pretty and flashy and he’s a genuine self-made man, and all of that is really cool, but he’s not… what I want. Not anymore. Which is probably really boring to you, sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Jace said. “I’m happy to listen.”

  “I dunno.” Noah sighed. Jace wasn’t sure if he was going to continue, but then he took another breath to speak.

  “I guess I want… stability. I want someone who comes home every day and curls up on the couch with me and lives out a really normal, boring existence. All I want is to be loved by someone with kindness in their heart.” Noah laughed a strange, sad laugh. “I want you, basically, but the gay version of you.”

  Jace turned to look at Noah just as he was getting his keys out. Their bodies were only inches apart, so close that Jace could feel the warmth rolling off Noah. He could smell stale beer, and aftershave, and the scent that was just Noah, one he couldn’t describe but knew from the way the smell of the apartment had changed. They were so close they were practically breathing the same air.

  Jace’s stomach clenched. This was his moment. This was the opening he’d been waiting for, this was the perfect time to mention that actually, Noah could have him. He was completely into the possibility of curling up on the couch and living a normal life. He wanted the things Noah wanted.

  Noah leaned in, and for an instant, Jace was sure he was going to kiss him. His breath caught in his throat, his heart started trying to beat its way out of his chest. This was what he wanted. This was so what he wanted.

  He just wanted to be loved, too. By someone who got him as deeply as Noah did. Jace wasn’t convinced he’d ever find anyone else like that. Noah was it, and he couldn’t just give that up.

  At the last second, Noah changed direction and leaned forward to pick something up off the ground. Jace didn’t even see what it was. He was too busy being disappointed and kicking himself for thinking that Noah meant he wanted him.

  What Noah meant was that he wanted someone he could be friends with. Noah made friends wherever he went, so that could be just about anyone. It didn’t have to be Jace. Just someone like him. Someone more to Noah’s taste.

  “Yeah, I get what you mean,” Jace said.

  Noah’s only response was a soft hum. Jace’s stomach sank. He’d screwed up his clear opening, but he couldn’t risk it. Noah meant the world to him, and he couldn’t risk losing that over maybe wanting to kiss him.

  He didn’t know how he felt. Not really. What if he got to the part where clothes were coming off and freaked out? He couldn’t put Noah through that, and he didn’t want to go through it, either.

  It was easier to be friends
. What they already had was great, and Jace was stupid for wanting more. His crush on Noah was probably just loneliness talking, anyway. He’d get over it.

  “I hope you find someone, someday,” he said eventually. “I want you to be happy. That’s why I’m doing this.”

  He could almost convince himself that Noah being happy was enough.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Noah woke up in as bad a mood as he’d gone to sleep in. Rafe’s reappearance was still making his stomach hurt, fear that he’d be deported any second because Rafe had decided it was time to go to the authorities about him clinging to the back of his mind. He was still technically overstaying his visa, since his green card hadn’t come through yet, and wouldn’t for another couple of months at least.

  He also remembered confessing to Jace last night that he was, in Noah’s mind, the perfect man, and having Jace more or less shrug. This marriage had been a terrible idea, though he couldn’t have known how quickly his feelings for Jace were going to develop into something more than a minor crush once they were together all the time.

  He remembered moving closer to kiss him, and Jace gasping and backing away. That stung. Jace didn’t want to kiss him at all. It had been a joke to him when he’d tried to goad Noah into it. The idea of Noah wanting to kiss him was a joke.

  The thought that the day couldn’t get any worse had just finished crossing his mind when Noah opened his email inbox to see an email from his mother with the subject line You got married!?

  Noah didn’t have the patience to deal with life today. He ignored the email at first, instead responding to clients and catching up on the news, even though it was a Sunday.

  Anything to avoid having to explain his sudden marriage to his mother.

  She wasn’t going to be happy for him. She was going to be critical and judgmental, probably say some cruel things about Jace, and generally act as though Noah had done the worst possible thing he could have.

  Noah didn’t want to talk to her. He’d avoided going back home to Montreal partially because he didn’t want to be close enough for her to come and see him in person regularly. He was much, much better off with her at a distance.

  None of which she understood. As far as she was concerned, she was a model parent, gracious and giving, responsible for all of Noah’s successes in life. And absolutely none of his failures. Noah just didn’t want to have to discuss his marriage with her.

  He couldn’t avoid her forever, though, and the longer he left it, the guiltier he felt. He had to respond. He had to at least read it.

  Taking a deep breath, Noah clicked on the email.

  The first line made his stomach bottom out.

  A man called Rafe Addison contacted me on Facebook to tell me you’d gotten married.

  If it was possible to be a bigger asshole than Rafe was, Noah couldn’t imagine how someone would go about it. The email went on to say that he was claiming it was a sham marriage and that Noah’s new husband was straight, but that she didn’t believe that was true.

  At least Noah wasn’t going to have to try and convince his own mother that his marriage was legitimate. Although, she was probably only saying that because thinking otherwise would have required her to admit that Noah wasn’t perfect. She would never have wanted to admit that to anyone except Noah himself.

  He sent an email back to say that he’d eloped, that it was sudden because of his visa status but that he’d been dating Jace for a while and they were happy together, and to send a few photos Noah had of them together to convince her that Jace really did exist.

  Noah couldn’t decide whether deportation or his mother finding out was a worse fate. He’d hoped to avoid both. If she did figure them out, he’d never hear the end of it.

  He could hear Jace moving around in the apartment, but didn’t want to face him just now. Jace probably hadn’t realized what Noah meant by what he’d said the night before—he would have been blinded by not being even a little attracted to him—but Noah still felt humiliated.

  What if he’d actually poured his heart out to Jace and asked him to love him, or at least not leave him? Jace would obviously not have known how to deal with that, and it would have ruined their friendship after all. Noah was glad he’d played it safe, after all.

  Today was not going well, and Noah didn’t want to deal with any of it anymore. He crawled back into bed, giving himself the excuse that he was still sore and tired after yesterday’s game, and curled up under the blankets. His bed wouldn’t judge him or reject him.

  He’d get over Jace. He’d have to, if they were going to survive the next three years with their friendship intact.

  Sleep came easily, Noah’s general exhaustion with life making it no effort to let his mind switch off again.

  He woke with a start an unknown amount of time later, heart racing. His mind supplied a vivid play-by-play of the first wet dream he’d had in years, starting with Jace coming to explain to him that it had all been a misunderstanding, he had wanted to kiss Noah, he just didn’t know how to approach it.

  They’d kissed, and by way of dream-logic ended up naked on the bed, Jace covering Noah’s body with his own, his hard cock rubbing against Noah’s stomach. Dream Noah didn’t need any prep time, he could take Jace in one stroke, arching his hips as Jace filled him.

  Jace was so hot inside him, making him gasp and moan and beg for more. And he loved Noah. In Noah’s mind, in his own dream, Jace was in love with him and wanted to be with him. It wasn’t just sex.

  It was really good sex, though. Not artful, not sophisticated, but raw and needy and loving, pleasure-focused. Jace stretched him full, held him close, kissed him and rocked against him so sweetly that even the memory of it made Noah feel as though his heart was about to burst.

  Noah could have let Jace pin him to the mattress forever, feeling their bodies slide together, Jace’s cock hitting every sensitive spot he had and a few that real-world Noah didn’t. Jace had whispered that he loved him between harsh breaths, biting down on Noah’s shoulder as he came inside him. Still rolling his hips as he finished, as Noah wrapped his legs around Jace’s waist and pressed their bodies as close together as he could get them.

  The dream had ended before Noah came, but he woke with a sticky mess in his underwear anyway, and a dull ache in his gut. He’d been given a taste of everything he wanted, but he couldn’t actually have it. Jace wasn’t really about to come and confess his feelings for Noah.

  He wasn’t inclined to get up and talk to Jace just yet. Between the almost-kiss of last night and the perfect dream he’d just woken up from, he wasn’t sure he could face him.

  If things were going to be like this all the time, it was going to be a very long three years.

  Chapter Twenty

  The moment Jace saw Brian heading for him, he felt like a coward all over again for not telling Noah how he felt. He’d spent all of yesterday going back and forth over whether he should tell Noah or not, what would be best for both of them in the long run, and he still hadn’t come to a conclusion he was happy with.

  “So? Did you tell him?” Brian asked the moment he was within conversation distance. Jace kept walking, continuing his rounds, fully aware that Brian was going to follow him.

  He could have said he didn’t get a chance, but Brian would be able to see right through him. “What if you’re wrong? What if he’s not interested after all, and I make things weird between us?”

  Brian snorted. “I’m not wrong. And isn’t it weirder to not at least try? You’re both adults. On the off chance I am wrong—which is minute, but present—you’ll handle it. You would not be the first best friends to want slightly different things to each other. Except you don’t. Noah follows you around like a puppy. A puppy in heat.”

  Jace wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think that’s a flattering thing to say about him. Besides, you saw Joe. If Joe isn’t good enough for him, how the hell am I meant to compete? I’m broke, I’m a nurse, and I don’t look like a goddamn und
erwear model.”

  “Are you sure he broke up with Joe because he wanted a richer, more model-like boyfriend?” Brian raised an eyebrow. “Because Noah isn’t a shallow person, and that’s not a flattering thing to say about him. At least puppies are cute.”

  “He said…” Jace sighed. He remembered what Noah said, and it was the thing that kept coming back to haunt him. If he told Brian about it, Brian would think he was a total and complete moron.

  “He said…?” Brian repeated. Jace would have to tell him, or he wouldn’t drop it.

  “He said he wanted someone like me, okay? But he didn’t say he wanted me, he said like me. That means not me specifically.”

  “That… you… how have you survived this long if you’re this dense?” Brian stared at him. “Oh my god. You’re unteachable. He said he wanted you and you didn’t jump on that?”

  “He said someone like me. Besides, what if…” Jace swallowed. “What if I can’t have sex with a guy? What if I freak out?”

  Brian blinked at him again. “You’re a nurse. There is literally no kind of sex you can have that is more intense than shit you go through on a weekly basis. What do you think you’re gonna freak out about? Don’t say anal, I swear to god if I hear a goddamn nurse worried about butt stuff I will walk into traffic.”

  Brian had a flair for the dramatic, but he was right.

  Jace thought he was probably supposed to be a little apprehensive about the possibility of anal sex, but he’d had his fingers up enough asses in professional situations that it wasn’t really something that bothered him. There was no reason for him to worry about it, and it wasn’t even as though straight guys didn’t try it. His emergency room rotation while he was training had taught him many things about what straight guys would put in their butts.

  Anything else was totally, completely something he’d done with a girl. There was nothing to worry about unless he really didn’t want to see Noah naked.

  And he did. He wanted to see that a lot. He had no idea how any of this was done with guys, but he knew it was meant to be different. Everything he’d ever learned had told him it was meant to be different.