Page 7 of The Grave Between Us
Katie glared. Cole grinned.
“Homework?” Noah asked.
“I did it all during homeroom.” Katie grabbed her shopping bags and her backpack but left her cheer duffel and her boots on the kitchen floor. She headed for the stairs, stopping to kiss the top of her dad’s head over the back of the couch. “Don’t worry, Dad. It’s a good dress.”
Cole grabbed a beer from the fridge and joined Noah on the couch, collapsing beside him with a sigh. Noah took his free hand and threaded their fingers together, laughing softly as he rolled his eyes at Katie’s heavy footfalls upstairs. “How does she sound like a Clydesdale? She’s basically a gymnast. Aren’t they supposed to be light on their feet?”
Cole downed a third of his beer in one long pull and squeezed Noah’s hand. He eyed Noah’s iPad, still facedown, and then set his beer on the coffee table. “Katie tattled on you at dinner tonight, hon.”
Noah’s eyebrows shot up. Cole reached for the iPad, flipping it over and powering on the screen. A flush rose on Noah’s cheekbones. He clenched down on Cole’s hand.
The screen displayed an article about a gay couple’s wedding, from one of those sappy wedding websites. Photos from the extravagant indoor reception, in what appeared to be an opera house, littered every other paragraph, everything from a four-tier cake to a candlelit dance floor to guests wearing Venetian masks. “This doesn’t seem your style,” Cole said softly.
He waited, Noah seemingly frozen beside him. His Adam’s apple bounced like a blade, and his eyes drifted from photo to photo. “No, not really,” Noah finally forced out. “It’s a little heavy.”
“Yeah. The two-story velvet curtains are a bit much. I kind of like the masks, though. That’s fun.” Cole scrolled down, eyeing more photos. “I don’t think I know this many people. They have alotof guests.”
Noah choked out a single laugh. “I think there’s around twenty people I could invite. Maybe only ten I would really want to be there.”
“Hey, we’ll save on catering costs.”
Noah barked out another tiny laugh. He sighed a moment later. Licked his lips and ran his thumb over the back of Cole’s hand.
“Katie said she found your tabs when she needed to use your iPad. ‘Need’ might be a bit of a stretch. Maybe she was overly curious about what you’ve been looking at so intently. I was curious, too, but I thought you were just reading.”
“I have been.”
“Reading a book, I mean.”
Noah’s gaze slid to the carpet.
“Are you nervous about being married to a man?” Cole asked. “I know you’re not just looking at all this to pick out a color scheme.”
“No,” Noah said quickly. He frowned. “No, I’m not. I’m not afraid of being out. You kissed me in front of the entire Omaha command team today.”
Cole waited. Silence was a potent choice in any interrogation.
“Everyone looks really happy, don’t they?” Noah scrolled through the article, scanning the photos. He flipped to another tab he had open, this time an outdoor wedding. Somewhere sunny, in a meadow, with oak trees and paper lanterns. Two grooms in suits and matching yellow roses on their lapels.
“They are happy. They’re marrying the love of their life.”
Noah flinched, and Cole’s stomach dropped. “I don’t think I was that happy at my wedding to Lilly,” Noah whispered.
Oh.
“Noah—”
Everything Noah had been holding in for two months suddenly came tumbling out, like a river rushing right for Cole. “I wasn’t a very good husband in my last marriage. I tried, but then I stopped trying at some point, and… I feel like I gave up. I was a lousy husband, and I don’t know if that’s because I’m not good at being married, or if there’s something wrong with me, or—”
Cole leaned forward, kissing Noah on the lips and cutting off the flood of his words. “Noah,” he whispered, “there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I don’t want to screw this up,” Noah breathed. “What if I treat you badly? What if I hurt you?”
“You won’t.” He took hold of Noah’s face, his fingers sliding into Noah’s dark, ruffled hair. Noah must have run his own hands through it at least a dozen times that night, and the top was fluffy, sticking out in all directions. “Were you happy when I asked you to marry me?”
“Deliriously happy,” Noah whispered. Cole could hear Noah’s smile, feel it spread against his own lips. “For months, I’d just been hoping I wasn’t screwing up so badly that you’d pack up and move back to DC.”
Cole still remembered it, every detail vivid. He’d waited, tucking the two small boxes out of sight until the books and makeup and bottles of whiskey had been unwrapped. Katie was basking in the Christmas morning glow, Noah was fiddling with his new Bluetooth headphones, and Cole got down on one knee and pressed a square box into Noah’s palm. Noah had gone bone white, Katie had screamed, and Cole’s world had sharpened to a pinpoint, nothing mattering but Noah’s face and the feel of his pounding pulse against Cole’s fingers.
