Taking a Knee

by Sean Ashcroft

  “I think… I dunno. I’ve never done it before. Not with a guy. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “I don’t actually want to know the answer to this, but did you freak out over your first time with a girl? Or were you too caught up in getting to have any kind of sexual contact at all that you didn’t have time to?”

  Jace knew the answer, and he could see what Brian was getting at. “Okay, yeah, I see your point. But Noah’s still…”

  “Got exactly the same equipment you do. And between you and me, is going to know exactly what to do with it, and doesn’t need as much work to get off. I like girls, but sex with other guys is awesome. I promise you that.”

  Jace could feel himself blushing. He was glad he was only gathering supplies and wouldn’t have to check on any patients for another few minutes, because he wasn’t handling this conversation well.

  His mind went back to the glimpse of Noah’s ass he’d gotten in the locker room. Asses were gender-neutral, and he could objectively say that he liked what he’d seen. Thinking about it just made him blush harder, but maybe that was the clue that he’d be okay.

  Noah didn’t seem different to a girl, except in the most obvious ways. Jace was still attracted to him. Still wanted him. There were also definitely feelings going on. Big, scary feelings Jace didn’t want to examine too closely just yet. The kind of feelings you were really not supposed to have about your best friend.

  “Okay, Dr. Love.” Jace smirked, but maybe Brian was right. Maybe he knew what he was talking about, and he was worth listening to. He was the one with all the experience, here. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You know, if you don’t want him, I could go for trying my hand with Noah. He’s cute. Not my type, but cute.”

  “No,” Jace said immediately, before he could realize that he was being baited. Brian wasn’t interested in Noah. He was just interested in getting a reaction out of Jace.

  “See? You do want him, and you won’t be happy if someone else gets in first. You can’t let a little nervousness get in the way of that.”

  Brian was right. It’d kill him if Noah got away. “Fine. You’re right.” Jace sighed. “Don’t you have sick people to heal?”

  “My shift is over, so I can actually annoy you for as long as I want.” Brian grinned. “But I can take a hint. You should go for it, though. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

  Jace raised an eyebrow. “I’m a nurse, I know better.”

  Brian laughed at that, patting Jace on the back. “You’ll thank me later.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jace said as Brian walked away.

  He was right. Jace would have to man up and face his fears, tell Noah what he wanted and hope that they were on more or less the same page.

  He’d do it after work. As soon as he got home. No more excuses.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Noah caught himself pacing for the dozenth time and forced himself to sit at the kitchen table. Everything was going to be fine. There was no need to panic. He and Jace could handle anything the world threw at them.

  Even if that thing just so happened to be Noah’s mother, known to her friends and relatives as the single most destructive force on Earth.

  He heard Jace come in, and couldn’t stop himself from standing up and going to greet him at the door. Noah knew he probably looked like a toddler on a sugar rush, but he figured Jace wouldn’t judge him once he knew what was going on.

  “Please don’t get mad at me,” he said, hoping the smell of dinner—mac and cheese, one of Jace’s all-time favorites and absolutely not a coincidence—would put him in a good mood.

  “Why?” Jace narrowed his eyes, not fooled by the delicious smell wafting from the kitchen.

  Noah made a small sound of distress, and decided that all he could do was confess and throw himself on Jace’s mercy. “I screwed up. Rafe told my mom about us, and she emailed me and I told her everything was legit and we’d been dating for a while and… she’s coming to see us. I couldn’t stop her.”

  Jace looked at him as though he’d completely lost it, shrugged, and walked past him toward the kitchen. “So? Parents like me. I am actually the guy you do bring home to your mom.”

  “Other people’s moms, sure. Not… not mine. Not because you’re not wonderful and a real catch and all the rest of it, but because she’s… she’s who she is. She’ll eat you alive.”

  Jace laughed. “Dude, chill. She’s your mom, of course you think that. She’s not my mom.”

  Noah could see that Jace didn’t understand the full gravity of the situation, and he wasn’t sure how to make him grasp it. “She would not hesitate to turn us in if she thought for a second we weren’t serious about each other. Which is also why she invited herself to use the spare room.” Noah rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

  “So we’re sharing a room for a few days.” Jace shrugged. “I promise not to get handsy with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Noah pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. Jace wasn’t going to take this seriously, no matter what he said. “Okay, fine. You wanna ask me when she’s coming?”

  “Will you calm down if I do? Because I’m starting to worry about you maybe having a stroke over this.”

  “I am calm!” Noah shouted. He paused, took another deep breath, and then tried again. “I’m fine, everything’s fine.”

  “When is she coming?” Jace asked.

  “She wants to see the last game of the season. She was very enthusiastic about it.”

  Finally, some level of understanding dawned over Jace’s face. “That’s this Saturday.”

  “No shit,” Noah said. “Do I freak out over nothing? Am I a highly strung person, Jace?”

  “Well, kinda…”

  Noah glared at him, going to the oven to take out dinner. “You know, I expected you to be mad at me,” he said, finally. Jace was taking the sudden invasion of his space very well.

  “I don’t see why. I was vaguely aware that I was marrying your family when I married you. And I think you’re blowing this all out of proportion.”

  Noah set the baking dish down in the middle of the table and sat heavily. “I’m so not. But you know what? You’ll see. Don’t come crying to me when my mom takes your balls as a trophy.”

  “Dinner looks great,” Jace said, apparently not about to dignify Noah’s panic. He’d see. And then he’d be sorry that he hadn’t taken him seriously.

  “I wanted to have something nice for you to soften the blow.” Noah sighed. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve asked you for so much already, and it just never stops. I feel like I’m not giving you anything in return.”

  To Noah’s surprise, Jace reached out and took his hand. “I asked you to marry me. Practically begged. And maybe I didn’t do that for the usual reasons, but I did it fully intending to honor every vow we had to make and to come out the other side still friends. You don’t have to feel guilty about any of this, okay? It’s just life. This is what friends are for.”

  Noah could feel himself tearing up at Jace’s sincerity, and sniffed to stop himself from actually crying. “I must have been a saint in a previous life.” Noah rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. He was stressed, and worried, and he didn’t want Jace to end up resenting him. The knowledge that Jace didn’t—that he wouldn’t—was such a relief he didn’t know how to handle it.

  “I doubt it.” Jace chuckled. “But you’re a pretty good person in this life, which is why you deserve all of this. I get that you don’t see everything you do for me, but trust me, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Who else would make me mac and cheese?”

  Despite himself, Noah laughed. “I guess you have a point. It’s even got a little kick in it, since you said you liked it that way.”

  He was proud of the mac and cheese. The sauce had come up exactly as he’d imagined it, and he knew Jace was going to love it. If he couldn’t love Noah, he could at least love his cooking.

  Noah
could only hope that his cooking would be enough to balance out his mother. There was every chance Jace would divorce him over her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The news that Noah’s mom was coming to stay, and that he and Noah would have to share a room because of it, had put Jace’s plans to tell him about his huge, surprise feelings about him on hold.

  It wasn’t the kind of thing you sprung on a guy who was about to be forced to pretend to be in love with you. That would have been awkward for everyone involved.

  Brian had given him hell over it, obviously. Jace couldn’t fault him. If he’d been in Brian’s place, he would have been frustrated to see a friend so close to happiness and unable to take the step that would, in theory, get him there.

  He couldn’t force Noah’s hand, though. If they were going to have a relationship that meant anything, that lasted at all—even for the three years they were stuck with each other—then the timing had to be right.

  At least, that’s what he’d told Brian. It was getting to the point now where Jace felt as though he was keeping a secret from Noah, and he didn’t want that, either. Every time they brushed against each other, Jace felt guilty about it after. Noah didn’t know how much those little touches meant to him.

  Now, he was about two minutes away from meeting Noah’s mom. He couldn’t hang around in the hall outside forever. He had to go inside.

  Even though he was sure Noah’s mom wasn’t as bad as he’d made her out to be, he still felt a jolt of nervousness as he opened the door. At least if it really was bad, he could claim he needed an after-work nap to escape.

  Jace headed for the kitchen, where he could hear voices, and saw Noah and a woman he would have instantly known was Noah’s mom sitting at the table. She had the same dark hair and eyes Noah did.

  “You must be Mrs. Levesque,” Jace said as walked in, offering his hand with as cheerful a smile as he could offer after twelve hours on his feet.

  “Ms. Harvey,” she corrected. “I’m divorced.”

  That explained why it was only Noah’s mom showing up. It also explained what Noah meant about her. The way she looked at Jace when he’d gotten it wrong made him feel as though he’d seriously disappointed her. Which was stupid, because she wasn’t his mom.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. Noah gave him a sympathetic glance.

  “Anyway, this is Jace,” Noah said, forcefully upbeat in a way that suggested he was minutes away from snapping. He reached out to take Jace’s hand, and Jace didn’t hesitate to offer it. Noah looked like he could use some hand-holding.

  “I know,” Noah’s mom said. “You can call me Carolyn.”

  Jace swallowed, unsure if that was a test. He wanted Noah’s mom to like him—as a vehicle to getting Noah to like him—but that was going to be a harder task than he’d first imagined.

  “Thank you,” Jace said, for lack of anything better to say. “I love your son,” he added, for good measure.

  The words came way more easily than he’d expected them to. He was in way over his head with Noah, and he hadn’t said anything to him about it yet.

  “We’ll see,” she responded. Jace’s heart sank. “Noah tells me you’re a nurse?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Jace nodded. “Pediatrics.”

  Carolyn hummed. “Not a doctor?”

  Noah squeezed Jace’s hand. Jace wasn’t sure if it was as a warning not to jump at the bait, or to stop himself from jumping at it. “I like having more hands-on time with the patients,” Jace said.

  “My ex-husband was a doctor,” she said.

  Jace chewed on the inside of his lip, wishing for a hole to open up under him and take him away from this situation. Everything Noah had said was true. The weekend was going to be hell.

  Thankfully, it was only for a weekend. Tomorrow was the last game of the season—only a week after the previous one, because the multi-purpose stadium they used was being closed for repairs on Wednesday, and wouldn’t be reopened for three months. Carolyn was going home on Sunday night.

  Sunday night suddenly seemed an eternity away. Jace didn’t have a shift between now and Monday, having called in the Thursday shift favor to get the weekend off instead of getting to pick his Christmas vacation days.

  “That’s not my dad. She means my step-dad,” Noah said. “Her third husband.”

  Jace knew there was no good response to that. This was clearly something between Noah and his mother, and now he was in the middle of it. Noah had tried to warn him, but he hadn't listened.

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that being a doctor is bad, just that it’s a different style of medicine. I’m more of a caretaker, I like to be on the front line,” Jace said. He knew he’d be putting a foot wrong by saying it, somehow, but he was too tired to predict how it was going to go wrong for him.

  “Well, he cheated on me with a nurse, so I’m not fond of any part of the profession. I’m sure you’re very nice, though,” Carolyn said.

  Jace opened his mouth to apologize, but stopped himself short. That would only get him in trouble in some new, unforeseen way.

  “So I hear you’re coming to the game tomorrow,” Jace changed the subject. “Ever seen roller derby before?”

  “No,” Carolyn said. “Noah did figure skating in high school. I always thought he should have gone on to the Olympics.”

  Jace turned to look at Noah. “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  Noah shrugged. “I didn’t want to come along saying I knew what I was doing. What if I’d been terrible at derby?”

  “Well, it’s a little rougher than figure skating,” Jace said to Carolyn before turning back to Noah. “But now I really wanna see you in a sparkly leotard. You must have been so cute.”

  “I’m still cute.” Noah sniffed. “But also very tough, obviously.”

  “Obviously.” Jace chuckled, squeezing Noah’s hand more gently than Noah had squeezed his earlier. He wasn’t having the best afternoon, but he’d learned something about Noah’s past, so it wasn’t a total loss.

  “You should go nap before dinner,” Noah said, giving Jace the graceful exit he desperately needed. “I know how tired you get after a shift. I’ll come get you when it’s ready.”

  Jace smiled a genuine, warm smile at Noah, relieved to have an escape from this conversation before he said anything else Noah’s mom wouldn’t like.

  “Thanks. It was lovely to meet you, Carolyn, and I promise to be better company at dinner,” Jace said, forcing himself to smile at her.

  As he walked past Noah again, he leaned down and kissed him on the temple. “Love you,” he murmured, just loud enough for Carolyn to hear it.

  It came shockingly easily. It felt good to be casually affectionate with Noah.

  Jace kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the bed, closing his eyes for a moment. He could survive this. Noah hadn’t been exaggerating as much as Jace thought, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle for three days.

  Or at least, he hoped it was nothing he couldn’t handle for three days.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I am so, so sorry about my mom,” Noah said as he climbed into bed beside Jace. Normally, the night before a game would see him edgy and unable to settle, but his mother was exhausting, and he expected to be able to sleep pretty much immediately.

  Jace’s bed smelled of him, too, which would help. Jace had been a steadying force tonight, and Noah was grateful. Without him there, Noah might have snapped.

  “I’m sorry for not believing you about what she was like.” Jace rolled over to face him. “I figured anyone who raised you would have to be pretty cool.”

  “I get my competitive streak from her. Everything else, I take after my dad. She always said that like it was a bad thing. I was never ambitious enough for her, and neither was he. And now he’s gone and she’s all I’ve got.”

  Jace reached out and took Noah’s hand, holding it between them on the bed. “You’ve got me.”

  Noah swallowed. “I know.”


  He was enjoying the increased level of affection between them, even though he knew Jace was faking it. It didn’t feel fake. Jace was nothing but comforting and soothing, and it only made Noah’s heart hurt all the more for not being able to have him.

  “C’mere,” Jace murmured.

  “What?” Noah asked. He thought he’d heard right, but he couldn’t process what Jace was asking him to do.

  “Come over here. So I can hug you. If you want.”

  Noah hesitated. On the one hand, he did want a hug. On the other hand, he didn’t want to impose on Jace. Noah had already taken over half his bed and made him deal with his mother. A hug seemed like too much to ask.

  Jace was waiting for an answer, and Noah’s need for touch won out. He scooted over on the bed, but didn’t have to move much before Jace grabbed him and pulled him in the rest of the way, squeezing him tightly. It reminded Noah of a cat hugging one of its toys out of fear it’d be taken away.

  “Better?” Jace asked after a minute.

  “Better,” Noah agreed. He sighed and let himself relax against Jace’s chest, letting their legs tangle together. He’d worn sweatpants to bed, not wanting to subject Jace to sleeping next to another man who was only wearing a t-shirt and underwear. Jace hadn’t bothered, but Noah wasn’t exactly unused to sleeping with other men.

  “Don’t worry about your mom. We’re gonna go out and kick ass tomorrow, and if she can’t be proud of you for that, then there’s something wrong with her. And there’s nothing wrong with you, anyway.”

  “Thank you,” Noah said, tucking his head under Jace’s chin. He needed all the comfort he could get right now, and Jace was being generous with his affection. Noah intended to take as much as he could get.

  “You wanna tell me about your dad?” Jace asked.

  “He was a good man.” Noah snuggled a little closer. “Drove a long-haul truck. I remember going on week-long trips with him in the summer, when school was out. He taught me to fish, and to make a campfire, and showed me some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. When I came out, he told me he’d known for years and he was proud of me. He never treated me any different. He died about five years ago now, and I still miss him all the time.”