Page 10 of Doors & Windows
Jonah tilted his head, considering. “Yeah, I could probably be persuaded.” And then, before Liam could toil any further over the pros and cons of going in for a goodbye hug, Jonah stepped forward, hesitating only the barest moment before touching Liam’s cheek and planting a kiss on the other.
The pure, unexpected sweetness of the gesture left him stunned to stillness. “Text me when you’re home safe?” he said when he could find his voice again.
“You’re the one hoofing it back uptown at midnight. You’ve got my ten-minute walk beat.”
“Still,” Liam insisted, and Jonah conceded with a nod.
“Okay,” he said. “You text me, too.”
They turned their separate ways, but Liam only made it one step down toward the platform steps when Jonah called out to him.
“Liam, wait.”
He turned back, people stepping around him as the ground began to vibrate with the signal of an oncoming train.
Jonah looked almost nervous, fidgeting with his hands in front of him, but his voice was steady when he asked: “Come back with me?”
Something jolted in Liam’s chest. “To your house?” he asked, like an idiot.
“If you want.”
Of course Liamwanted, but the invitation was the last thing he expected. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” There was something like hope in Jonah’s eyes when he nodded, not an ounce of uncertainty present.
At the bottom of the stairs, Liam’s train was arriving. Without another thought, he stepped back onto the mezzanine and let it leave without him.
It wasn’t technically the first time he had seen Jonah’s bedroom in the Queens house, but it was a different experience in person. The pixelated view through a phone camera couldn’t capture the essence of Jonah that enveloped him as he stepped inside. The innate, familiar scent of him mingled with something lived-in. Cozy, like well-worn wood and clean linens. The space suited him, though there weren’t many personal adornments that marked it as distinctly his.
There was a mahogany dresser on the right and a small bed on the left, dressed in maroon fittings that he remembered Jonah had picked out on his first day in the city. The room’s singular window was an arch ofcolor above the desk—an abstract mosaic of stained glass that spoke to the age of the home. It was muted now, given the late hour, but he could imagine the way the sunlight dappled the walls during the daytime, passing through to paint Jonah’s life in shades of rainbow. The thought made him smile.
Then Liam’s eyes fell to the nightstand. He stepped forward, running a fingertip over the smooth, plastic film that covered the first in a stack of library books.
“This is my favorite book,” Liam observed. He shiftedthe top book an inch to the side, revealing the one underneath, and then the one beneath that. Realization crackled to life, a bonfire he could have warmed his hands with forever.
“Jonah, these are all my favorite books. The ones I used to bring with me.”
The words floated delicately between them—one of the rare instances they spoke directly about the string of hotel rooms that had woven their lives together last fall.
He looked up at Jonah, unsure of how to hold this inside himself; this new knowledge of how deeply Liam had been seen. Not only had Jonah tucked away these small pieces of Liam’s heart, hoarding them for safekeeping, but he had held them close, cracked them open, and looked deeper in a way no one else had ever bothered to do.
Jonah plucked at the hem of his shirt, a nervous tell. “I’ve been borrowing them on rotation,” he admitted. Then, with a softness that betrayed his vulnerability, “They were something familiar in a new place. A little piece of you here.”
Liam blinked. Then blinked again, because his vision was starting to go watery, and he wasnotgoing to lose his cool inside this man’s bedroom, on what was technically still their first date. But Jonah couldn’t justsay stuff like thatto him and expect him not to die.
Liam thumbed over the stamp of ink on the edges of the pages—Queens Library—then slid the book back into place.
“I’ve missed you.” The confession fell out of him before Liam could stop it. Not that he wanted to. Not that he would have. He didn’t realize until he’d said it just how desperately he’d needed to get the words out. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Jonah studied him. Then, taking a deliberate step toward Liam, he extended his hand. Liam eyed the stretch of his arm, bronze skin glowing in the lamplight in invitation. His outstretched fingers trembled just enough to be perceptible, and Liam felt the echo in his own limbs, all his nerves resurfacing at once.
“You’re here now,” Jonah said.
All the distance that had ever tried to separate them—in miles or in circumstance—had finally dwindled to nothing, drawing them closer, leading them here to this room.
Liam took his hand. He let himself be drawn across the final distance. Hands found his waist, warm and solid through his shirt. Jonah curled his fingertips, pressing into Liam’s flesh like he was anchoring himself with the contact. When had the faint tremors from the walk home escalated to a vibration that hummed through their bodies? He could feel it in every place they connected: Jonah’s hands on his sides,Liam’s fingers sliding over the strong shoulders he had dreamt of touching since that day in the stairwell.
They were so close now. Their record of physical intimacy was a limited one, but Liam preserved each memory like a historian. The night in his bedroom in Naperville, their bodies pressed together in the tight confines of a hospital bed, a private parting kiss before Jonah climbed into his mother’s car in the hotel parking lot. A carefully curated museum of Jonah etched into his body.
