The memories of that day wove them closer. Every shift of their fingers, their toes, their hair had felt electric.
Only now, Noah wished . . . if they had kissed after the drive home, if it had happened in Port Ratapu after their spontaneous stay-over faded, he’d feel more secure that he and Wade . . . were a ‘he and Wade’.
The doorbell chimed and Zach’s hungry feet crunched through the cottage. His brother had been all hectic, pacing, hopeful nerves since returning from work.
Air stirred through the house when Zach flung open the door.
“Noah! It’s for you.”
Noah leaped to his feet, book tumbling to the floor. He picked it up with trembling fingers and set it on the side table. A wild current took him hostage and he paused a moment to process it before calmly moving to the front door.
He caught Zach’s expression as he took in Noah’s guest, still obscured by the angle of the door. A curious grin tilted his lips, disappointment barely recognizable. Zach had been hoping for his . . . boy-that-was-a-friend, and Wade—because it had to be Wade—was the second-best possibility to find at the threshold.
Or maybe third-best possibility, if his brother were honest with himself. But. When it came to Brandon, Zach was excruciatingly clueless.
Zach stepped aside, and Noah filled his spot.
Wade surpassed every memory. Golden light haloed his tall form, made his shoulders appear broader, like they could carry all the weight of the world and most certainly any worry Noah might impart. Their eyes clashed like cymbals; the reverberation coursed to Noah’s heels.
Wade smiled brilliantly.
And then, like a cloud passing the sun, it all dimmed. Didn’t disappear, exactly, but the transcendent quality of it did. Like being brought very quickly to earth after a glimpse of heaven, and gosh, he was thinking like his brother.
Nothing to dramatise here. Wade was tired, that was all.
“Wade, how . . . come in.”
“Thanks.” Wade toed off his boots and reached outside for a box the size of a toaster.
Noah eyed the paper wrapping and coarse string, and Wade passed it to him. “Housewarming gift.”
Noah took it and beckoned him to the dining room. “Tea?”
A laugh, slightly tinny. “So long as you make it better than I did.”
There, again. That spark in a shared smile.
Noah grinned and set about heating water. He spoke as he worked, not always aware of what he was saying. All the requisite questions and musings. Like he might with any acquaintance stopping by.
Wade responded in kind. A conversational veneer, to mask all the insecurities they clearly both had.
But that was okay. It’d been two weeks since they’d been in one another’s company. A moment to adjust was natural. Especially considering how very new, how very fragile what they’d started was. Perhaps, even, a start was all they would have. Perhaps, with the distance, Wade had reconsidered his feelings.
Perhaps he was here to tell him that.
“Uh, just one sugar.”
Noah looked down at the teacup and the mound of sugar piling at the bottom. He laughed, tipped the granules into the sink, and started again. “One.”
Noah had never thought one might hear the sound of fidgeting, but he heard it plainly in Wade’s chuckle.
Hot tea warming their palms, they sat opposite each other at the dining table, the boxed gift between them. Their gazes hop-scotched, once meeting in the same space, and quickly parting.
Noah knocked over his teacup as he reached for the gift.
Wade seemed to have anticipated that, already bouncing off his chair for a tea towel. All this, and their conversation flowed cordially. New Plymouth was much as he’d left it, beautiful mountain surging out of the landscape overlooking the coast; he’d stayed at Luc’s place; they’d needed to paint it before they left; his brother had let them crash with him in Wellington, and a bout of food poisoning kept them there another day.
“It’s strange having the family back together—minus Dad, of course. Robby is such a man now. Has a master’s under his belt and transferred down here to do his PhD.”
The awe at his younger brother’s achievement was palpable, and Noah admired Wade all the more for it. No nasally ring of jealousy there at all. Just simple respect, amazement, hope that Robby would go far in life.
And yet, under the words, another dialogue was forming, Noah’s clumsiness asking his question: what about us?
Wade mopped up Noah’s spill and wrung the towel out in the sink. Over the sugar, and something about the image of it dissolving had a shiver scuttling up Noah’s spine.
“Try again,” Wade said, passing over the gift as he reseated himself.
The box felt weighty in Noah’s hand this time, but perhaps he’d just exhausted himself with his mental aerobics.
He plucked at the string and peeled back the paper.
“They’re . . . beautiful. Thank you.”
