Page 44 of A Series of Rooms
Liam grabbed Jonah’s chain before he could swing away, keeping him close. “No,” he said. There was an intensity in his gaze that Jonah couldn’t look away from. “What you did in the past does not make you deserving of what’s happening to you now. You were only trying to survive.”
Jonah was unmoored by the sudden closeness, their foggy breath mixing in the scant distance between them. It would have made him retreat if it were anyone but Liam, but itwasn’t anyone else. It was him, and Jonah didn’t want to pull away.
“Maybe you’re too forgiving of me,” Jonah said.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
I could kiss him right now.The thought landed soft and sure, like a snowflake on the tip of his tongue, melting into him on contact.I want to kiss him.
But he was frozen in place, too afraid of closing the gap, and Liam, because he was Liam, took that hesitation at face value. He was the first to back away, releasing his hold on Jonah’s swing.
“It’s cold,” he said. “Your nose is turning red.”
He didn’t point out that every inch of Liam’s exposed skin was wind-bitten pink. “Where should we go?” Jonah asked.
“I have somewhere in mind.”
The diner where Liam worked was open twenty-four hours. It was just after one in the morning when they arrived.
It was mostly dead at the late hour, so they didn’t have to feel bad about taking up residence to warm up with refills of coffee (for Jonah) and hot chocolate (for Liam).
Jonah had spent so much time wondering what Liam’s life looked like outside the confines of their isolated Friday nights. He had wondered about this place in particular, after enjoying the takeout boxes Liam brought with him, smelling the remnants of fried food that clung to his skin and his hair, and catching glimpses of his uniform poking out from hisbackpack. It was almost surreal to be inside of it now, like he had been transported into a world from a book he’d once read.
The place was quaint, with checkered floors and vinyl booths. Music floated in from an actual, functioning jukebox in the corner. It was the kind of vintage that wasn’t engineered to fit a trend; it was justold, as evidenced by the cracks in the tile, the wood-paneled walls, and a waitress who looked like she had been built into the place with the beams. Liam called her Darla, and she ruffled his hair like she was genuinely happy to see him there on his night off. Jonah liked her immediately.
The Christmas decorations, which surely hadn’t seen an update since the 1980s, added to the idyllic charm. Strings of rainbow lights stretched around the interior perimeter, accented with gaudy ropes of red and green tinsel.
Under the table, their shoes knocked against each other every few minutes, a byproduct of Liam’s long legs, which he apologized for repeatedly. Jonah should have told him there was a comfort in the small moments of contact, but he kept that to himself.
There was a dreamlike quality to the scene. Jonah couldn’t shake the thought that he had been shrunken down and transported into a snow-globe, encased behind glass as a picture-perfect snapshot, far from the realities outside. He never wanted to leave. He knew the night would end, that the glass would crack when morning came and send himspilling out into the world, but he wouldn’t think of that now.
Jonah had switched to decaf after his first cup, and his eyelids were starting to feel heavy.
“Tired?” Liam asked, catching him mid-yawn.
Jonah shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Liam smiled, seeing right through it. “It’s okay if you are. It’s been a long day, and it’s late.”
A glance at the clock told him it was past two in the morning. The tables around them had steadily cleared out over the course of an hour. The only people who filed in this point were the post-bar crowd, stumbling in after last call in search of something greasy.
“I was wondering,” Liam started, his hands fidgeting on the table, “if you might want to go back to my place? Just to get a few hours of sleep,” he added quickly.
Jonah blinked at him. “You... want to take me to your house?”
“Technically, it’s my parents’ house,” he said. “And not that they would mind if I brought a friend over anyway, but they’ll be dead asleep by now.” He must have read Jonah’s silence as a rejection, because he followed up with, “We don’t have to, if that makes you uncomfortable. We can always catch a few hours in the car instead.”
“It’s not that,” Jonah was quick to assure him. But then, what was it? The fear that this excursion into Liam’s personal life was an invasion, leaving tainted footprints in his wake? The guilt of leaving his mark on his world, when Jonahcouldn’t really be a part of it? That was hardly something to bring up over coffee. “Are you sure?” he asked.
Liam tilted his head, as if it never occurred to him to be anything but. “Of course. I even cleaned in anticipation of company.”
Of course he had.
“Okay,” Jonah agreed.
The bell on the diner’s front door, accompanied by the commotion of drunken chatter, signified the entry of a new group, fresh from the bars. Liam and Jonah were in a corner booth, secluded enough to reduce them to background noise, but when Liam glanced over Jonah’s shoulder, he went rigid.
“Shit,” he hissed.
