Page 15 of Doors & Windows
Minutes passed, and the tension began to ebb under Liam’s steady ministrations. Jonah’s jaw unclenched, the stiffness in his neck receded little by little. Liam must have sensed him relaxing into his touch, because the movements changed a little on his next stroke, his thumb dragging a smooth line of pressure along the inner edge of his shoulder blade.
Jonah sighed his encouragement, and Liam repeated that same pattern a few more times before bringing his other hand to the opposite shoulder. The mattress shifted as Liam settled onto his knees behind him.
“Still good?”
Jonah reached for his voice. “Yeah,” he managed. “It’s good.”
Liam wasn’t particularly skilled at the art of massage. His hands were awkward and uncertain, struggling to find the right pressure and hit the right marks, but it was so earnestly Liam, and it was exactly what Jonah needed.
When the last embers of his panic burned out, a residue of shame was left in its wake. His hands no longer shook, but they were damp with cold sweat as he placed them on his thighs.
“I think…” Jonah pulled in a breath, his words careful and steady. “I’m okay now. I can try again.”
Liam’s hands stilled on his shoulders, then pulled back entirely. The sudden loss of his touch was like stepping off a moving walkway and onto solid ground, a jolt to Jonah’s equilibrium that had the world rocking beneath him. The bed shifted again as Liam crawled toward the edge, swinging his legs off so that he was sitting next to Jonah. He didn’t touch him, but his gaze was a steady burn against his cheek.
“Jonah, you don't have to do that.”
“Ican. I know how to do this.”
He thought he saw Liam flinch in his periphery and only then realized how that sounded. “You can understand how that might not be the most encouraging thing to hear?”
Jonah shook his head. He was messing this up again. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant… I’m really okay now, I just—”
“Nothing has to happen tonight,” Liam said. “It’s okay.”
Jonah grimaced down at the floorboards between his sock feet. “I made you come all the way here for nothing.”
“‘For nothing?’”Liam leaned down to try and catch his eye. “I came here tobewith you, Jonah. Because I wasn’t ready for the night to end. It was never about…” Hewaved a hand in the general direction of the bed behind them.
Jonah pinched his eyes shut, shaking his head. “There’s usually a certainexpectation”—he swallowed the word—“when your date invites you back to their house.”
“Jonah, I’ve shared a lot of rooms with you. Most of them with beds. We’ve never had to take our clothes off for you to hold my interest.”
That was exactly why Jonah wanted to now.
“I want this.” Jonah’s voice was raw when he finally looked up at him. “I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve wanted this with you for a long time, and now that I—we—finally have the chance, I…”
“You what?”
What indeed?
Jonah swallowed. “I told you, back in Chicago that I didn’t know how capable I was of doing something like this. I had hoped that by now things would be different. I thought they might have been. I don’t like that I was wrong.”
Liam’s expression was so genuinely sad that Jonah had to look away again, until Liam called his attention back to him with a soft, “Hey.” Jonah looked up. “Do you remember what I said back to you that night?”
Jonah did. Liam had promised that he wouldn’t put time constraints on Jonah’s recovery, and Jonah had clung to that promise for months with bleeding fingers.
“Did you think there was an expiration date on that?” Liam asked. “There wasn’t. And even if therewas, I’m sure it would stretch further thanmonthsafter everything you’ve been through.”
“I’m sorry.” Jonah didn’t know what else to say.
“Don’t you dare,” Liam told him. “If I can’t apologize for this, neither can you.”
Exhaustion draped over him like a weighted blanket. His body reeled from the peak and the subsequent crash of adrenaline. He couldn’t push back against Liam’s claims, and why would he want to? He was offering Jonah an out he couldn’t afford not to take.
Liam’s hand landed on the mattress between them, palm down on the sheets. Jonah didn’t need to think twice before placing his own on top and pushing his fingers through the spaces between Liam’s.
“It’s okay,” Liam told him. “Everything is going to be okay.”
