Page 30 of Doors & Windows
“I don’t care about that.”
“You should.” Jonah’s expression darkened. “You should be angry at me. You deserve better than that.” The unspoken words rang just as loud in the empty house:You deserve better than me.
Liam took a step closer, slow in his approach. “You’re the one who taught me that first, you know,” he said. “That I deserve better. You’re also the one who showed me whatbetterlooks like.”
Jonah turned his head away, a thin glow of moonlight tracing the strong line of his nose. He didn’t have anything to say to that, so Liam went on.
“What you said back there... You asked if I saw a victim when I looked at you. Is that really what you think?”
“Maybe that’s all that I am.” Jonah’s voice, low and gravelly, was nearly stolen away by the wind off the ocean at his back. “We can’t pretend I’m someone different now. A piece of me is always going to be stuck back there. I’m always going to be that boy in the hotel room, in my memory and in yours.”
Liam moved closer. “You’re right about one thing,” he allowed. “Iwillalways remember the boy from that hotel room, and all the ones that came after. Because that boy turned my entire world upside down.”
He made it to the threshold of the glass sliding door and stopped, leaving them on opposite sides of the opening. Liam was close enough now to make out the twitch in Jonah’s jaw, a clear tell that he teetered on the fault line of warring emotions.
“You’re right about another thing,” Liam continued. “Youarethe same person you were then. And when I look at you, Jonah, I don’t just see a collection of your saddest stories. You’re so much more than that, and you always have been.”Liam so badly wanted to take his face between his palms, to make him see the truth staring back at him, but he kepthis distance. “Even when you were in that horrible place, the things that happened to you were never who you were. I wasn’t drawn to your circumstances, but I didn’t run from them, either. It was always just about being close toyou.”
Jonah finally looked at him, and his expression shattered on impact. Tears cut down his cheeks, catching at his jawline. “You’re the only one who ever deserved any part of me,” Jonah said. “And now I don’t have anything left to give. What if they took it all before I met you?”
“They didn’t,” Liam whispered. “You’re still here. You survived despite them all. That’s what matters.”
“Liam, comeon.” Jonah dragged a hand through his hair. “How long can you keep writing this off? You’ve always been too nice to me, but eventually evenyouwill reach a limit. It’s been a year since we met. Ayear, and I’m still falling apart. I was happy tonight.We were happy,and then I was losing my shit and running away, and it’s like nothing ever—” He cut a singular, sharp shake of his head, like the matter was decided. “You deserve to be with someone who doesn’t freak the fuck out when you try to touch him.”
“I don’t want them,” Liam shot back. “Whatever hypothetical person, whatever alternate reality you’ve created for me in your head where you think I would be so much happier, Idon’t want it.I wantyou. I know exactly what I signed up for, and nothing has changed on that front.”
“It could,” Jonah said. “It might. You say you’re fine with it now, but what if one day you wake up and realize you’ve changed your mind. I’ve lost so much inthe last few years. I don’t think I could stand losing you and knowing it was all my fault.”
Liam finally breached the doorway, planting both feet on the terrace, only inches left between them.
“None of this,” he said, “is your fault.”
He held out a hand, and after a moment, Jonah took it, staring down at where their skin touched like it was something from a dream.
“I want this,” Jonah said. A tear ran to the tip of his nose and clung on. “I want this with you so badly.”
“You have it,” Liam promised. “Iloveyou, Jonah. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jonah’s breath escaped him in a sob. Liam was close enough to catch him when he crumbled. He crushed Jonah against him, and Jonah clung on with everything he had left, finally letting Liam take some of his weight.
If Jonah deserved everything, the whole experience, flowers and chivalry and all, then he deserved this too:someone who would cross the city in the rain for a tear-soaked declaration of love.
They had loved each other for so long now without needing to speak the words. The things they’d done for each other, the gentle handling of each other’s hearts, had always spoken louder. But tonight, there was power in saying it out loud.
“I love you,” Liam repeated, Jonah’s soft hair brushing his lips. He kissed his head, felt his body shaking against him, and said it again. “I love you.”
They stayed like that long enough for the rain to transfer from Liam’s clothes to Jonah’s, leaving both of them damp and shivering but warm where their bodies touched. Liam made himself remember every sensorydetail of this moment. Jonah’s breath tickling his neck, the weight of him against Liam’s body, the ripple of the water behind the house.
When they finally pulled apart, Jonah’s tears had dried, but the toll this night had taken was evident in the lines of his face.
They borrowed a couple of old zip-ups from Ellis’s truck and brought them back upstairs—they’d already done the breaking and entering, they might as well stick around for the sunrise. They peeled out of their wet shirts in silence, just the whisper of fabric and the spread of goosebumps across naked, moonlit skin. There was something intimate about it; not touching but not looking away either. No room for shyness or shame in all the love between them.
At the first smudge of bronze light on the horizon, they sat on the terrace, side by side. They watched the glow spread across the sky in perfect silence, hands linked on top of Jonah’s thigh. When the sun was high enough to chase the shadow on the terrace up to their ankles, Liam dared to break the silence.
“You don’t ever have to run when it comes to me.” He rolled his head to the side so he could study Jonah in profile. “If you ever feel like you did tonight, please don’t go. Stay with me. Let me help you figure it out.”
After a moment, Jonah nodded. He dropped his gaze on their joined hands, running a free fingertip over the prominent vein in Liam’s wrist. “I think I’m going to look for a therapist,” he said.
Words were pedestrian in the wake of an admission like this. Instead, Liam wrapped a careful arm aroundJonah’s shoulders and pulled him close once more, burying his lips in the nest of his hair.
