“You don’t have to hang them if . . .” Wade coloured. Took a long sip of his tea.
The veneer was cracking. Noah suddenly wished it back. His heart pounded too loudly.
He spent an inordinate amount of time studying the series of five square-framed images laid out before him, colours mostly a blur, Wade’s outline in his peripheral vision perfectly clear.
Phone calls had disturbed them before, but only for this one was Noah grateful.
Wade fished his phone from his pocket and excused himself to the garden to take it.
Almost immediately, as if he’d been hovering in the hallway eavesdropping, Zach dropped into Wade’s chair. “What are those?” No doubt he was aiming for curious, but Noah caught the sceptical edge in his tone.
“Art. For our walls.”
Zach plucked one up and looked over it at Noah. “I mean, I love him if you do, but his taste in art is . . . I mean, it’s a little up himself?”
Noah looked down at the four remaining pictures. “No, I don’t think so.”
“But . . . they’re all cars.”
“Look a little closer, Zach.”
Ford Falcon, Datsun Bluebird, Reliant Robin, Pontiac Sunbird, Packard Hawk.
Zach frowned.
Noah didn’t try to explain. The magic of them belonged—right now—to him and Wade. A special kind of intimacy. Pictures said a thousand words, and these said even more than that.
A melding of their hearts.
Wade returned, flushed from the fresh air. “Sorry about that.”
Noah stood, body bursting into light at the sight of him. He yearned for privacy, for something to do. “Should we go for a walk? The beach here is—”
“Yes. Sounds great.”
They walked the coastal pathway, strong winds whipping away their half-formed sentences. At an opening between tussocks, they moved onto the beach. Everything swelled with sound, and Noah hated it as much as he needed it.
They gave up talking and absorbed their surroundings. Noah felt the prickles down his right arm as their jackets brushed together.
Suddenly, Wade stopped and turned toward him. Noah’s shoes slipped between his on the carpet of pebbles that gave this beach its name.
All this wind around them, and no breath.
“Noah.” The form of his name on Wade’s lips rather than the sound.
Whatever Wade had been about to say, he abandoned. “There were no openings at the local garage after all. I’m the first they’ll call if they need anyone.”
“I’m sorry, I think?”
“Don’t be. I’m relieved.”
Clouds shifted and a stream of sinking sun glittered over the choppy ocean and their choppier conversation.
“I’m only a couple thousand off, I might start . . .”
The conversation he’d overhead between Francesca and Mrs Ferrars pummelled into him like the next gust. He had to tell Wade.
Carefully, delicately, he did.
Wade had looked away as Noah recounted the conversation, but he didn’t look surprised. He only sighed at the end of it.
“So maybe if you ask, she’d give you—or if not give, certainly loan—the money?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He still didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I didn’t think it was my place, and I never wanted to stir uneasy feelings between you and your family. But this is your dream. I want you to have it.”
“No,” Wade smiled, sincerely, hand lifting to shoulder and squeezing. “I trust your judgement more than anyone’s. I wouldn’t have wanted to know, except for this possibility.”
Noah raised his hand, but Wade’s slipped and Noah dropped his again, acutely aware how ridiculous his hope must have looked. He flushed and stepped away.
Wade, oblivious or pretending to be, bent and scooped little stones into his hand. He filtered them through his fingers until he landed on a smooth, flat one. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the stone and it skipped, like Noah’s heart, across the water in short bursts before sinking. The water wasn’t right for this.
Yet Wade, and then Noah, picked more and tried again.
When Noah managed four skims, they erupted into a laugh and a childlike high five.
His heart thundered between anxiety and delight, and when the sun kissed the horizon and they moved back toward the road, Wade searched for one last stone. He placed it on Noah’s palm, a cool weight.
Goosebumps cascaded through him as Wade closed Noah’s long fingers around it.
Without a word, they hiked back to his Mustang.
Noah stared at the road long after the car disappeared.
In the cottage, surrounded by cars that were birds, he loosened his grip around the stone and stared at its beautiful, marbled surface.
Zach skidded to a halt beside him, a steaming plate in his hand. “Brandy’s chicken curry for you.” He set it down, and his eyes fell on the stone.
“Did—did Wade give you that? Like a penguin?” It came out in disbelief and awe. A whisper.
Noah swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”
“So he—”
“Don’t.” He couldn’t hear the words for fear of jinxing it. That Wade had given him this . . .
