Special Episode: Follow
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The sea is still churned up from yesterday’s storm. Along the rocky coastline, glittering waves break, go off like fireworks, and disappear. The surface of the water is roughed-up, the air outside late-autumn cold, even though it’s summer. Tangles of pale green beach plants cluster up at the edges of the dark and wet blacktop road. A few last flutters of chilly rain sift down from the grey clouds.
But inside Raj’s truck, it’s nice and warm.
Noah stares out through the window, fidgeting with his lip piercing, trying not to look at Raj.
He normally feels pretty comfortable around Raj. Real comfortable, actually. Noah hasn’t felt this perfectly at home with someone in as long as he can remember. Being around Raj has Noah so relaxed that he’s even starting to let out some of his old goofiness, which he’d mostly forgotten about. He thought he’d lost that somewhere along the way. But every time it makes Raj laugh, more of it comes back.
Everything has been so good, hanging out with Raj. Only problem is that sometimes Noah feels like - this. How he feels right now.
It’s an unnameable but unmistakable feeling that Noah only gets around Raj, and it perplexes him right down to his soul.
And there’s an added layer of stress, at this particular moment. Surprises really haven’t been good for Noah in the past. Matter of fact, they’ve been pretty fucking harsh. No one ever wants him for anything that’s nice to be a part of.
He’s all tensed up in the passenger’s seat, reflexes poised for anything.
“Where are you taking me, Raj?” he finally asks, breaking his eyes away from the window to look at him.
Raj smiles, relaxing back against his seat, his wrist resting easily on the wheel. It’s cold out, but he’s got his window rolled down, one elbow folded on it. The salty breeze is rolling through his soft tumble of onyx curls, the grey light turning warm against the rich color of his skin.
He looks over at Noah, gives him a little grin.
“Heaven, man,” he answers.
Noah stares at him, then lets out a nervous, scoffing laugh. “Heaven, okay. Just how the fuck do we get there? There’s no map, so far as I know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Nohea.” Raj casts him another small, warm smile. “There is, and I’ve got it.”
His dark brown eyes stay on Noah’s face for a second before they flit back to the road. Deep, glowingly warm eyes that really look at you. Really see you. They stay on your face longer than most people’s do. They always linger.
Noah, on the other hand, quickly tears his gaze away and stares out through the window again.
“Hey.” Raj reaches over the console and gives Noah’s arm a gentle swat. “Trust me, man. You and I, we’re headed to a land full of treasures.”
He said it in kind of a jokey voice, and he stops there, but Noah understands what he left unsaid.
It’s nothing bad.
Noah lets his gaze flit back to Raj, who meets it, making silent promises with his dark eyes. Noah watches him for a moment, then feels himself sink back more comfortably in his seat. Raj smiles again, more brightly than before, and Noah returns it a little bit.
A big burst of gratitude to Raj warms Noah from within.
Raj can see that Noah is unusually subdued and closed-off, but he hasn’t gotten pissed, isn’t holding it against him. Hasn’t even said anything about it. He just understands, he just rolls with it, the way he rolls with everything. Nothing ever puts out that infinite warmth in his eyes.
Noah is mad jealous of that. Or no, jealous isn’t the word. But he’ll be damned if he can think of the right one.
“Sweet, we’re here!” Raj guides the pickup over a rough patch of gravel, then over smooth sand, then puts it in park. “C’mon, get your jacket!”
Raj scrambles out of the truck with such eager, puppy-like enthusiasm that Noah finds himself laughing as he rushes to follow. He shivers as he steps out into the exposed, open cold, but he powers through it to join Raj.
The wind tears the elastic right out of the loose bun Noah had his hair in. Noah tries to catch it, watches helplessly as it’s instantly carried off on the wind. Then he lets out a stream of violent curses, some of them very visual, very graphic. Raj lets out a burst of laughter as Noah stops beside him at the edge of the tiny parking lot.
They both fall silent, a little out of breath, staring out at the beach.
The sea is a greyish-blue, glittering in the rainy light, crashing in giant waves that send up explosions of white bubbles. The sand is blanketed with the wreckage thrown there by the storm. Driftwood and tangled piles of seaweed, broken pieces of coral. Here and there, an empty water bottle or food wrapper.
There’s a subtle salt spray in the air. It reaches Noah’s face, along with the occasional fluttering raindrop.
“Shit, man,” Noah says, after a moment. “I fail to see how this is heaven. Matter of fact, the beach never looks worse than after a storm. Everything’s all wrecked and fucked up.”
Although it is weirdly beautiful, in its own way.
“Are you kidding me, man?” Raj stares at Noah like he’s missing something unbelievably obvious. “After the storm is when you find all the best stuff. The storm shakes out all the real treasure.”
Noah stares at Raj, baffled, his now-loose hair whipping around his shoulders. Raj tosses his head at the beach, then starts making his way down the sand dunes, weaving through the blonde beach grass.
“Dude, what-?” Noah begins, but Raj isn’t gonna hear him over the wind, so he gives up and sets off after him.
Raj stops on the flatter part of the sand, and Noah stops behind him, stuffing his cold hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket.
“What the fuck, Raj? Hope you’re not about to say we should go for a swim.”
Raj laughs, and something bright sparks in Noah’s chest. He loves how easy the laughter comes with Raj. Sincere, warm laughter. So much of it, and sometimes over so little.
“Nah, man. Look.” Raj points down at a big driftwood log in the sand before them, then bends down, smooths a hand over it. “Treasure.”
Noah understands all at once.
Raj is always doing stuff like this. He pulls over to go through junk stacked on the curb, through the boneyards of mechanic’s shops, through the broken bits and pieces left behind tile showrooms. The damaged-out inventory stacked by the dumpsters of contractor supply warehouses, glass design shops, and furniture stores.
All the stuff that nobody wants, the broken things that got left behind. Raj will stop at any time to carefully go through them.
And he’s always finding treasure.
It never looks like it at first. But Raj has some kind of deep intuition, an eye that sees right through the surface and into what’s inside, waiting to be carved out. Noah has no fucking idea how he does it, but Raj just understands what things are supposed to be. And he has the skilled craftsmanship and natural talent to lovingly bring it out.
A bunch of thick, mismatched glass panels, in all different sizes, left behind a glass contractor’s building. Ruined with time and poor handling, the surfaces slightly rough to the touch, the clear glass turned frosty. Some panels more opaque than others, but none of them actually transparent anymore. Junk.
Raj brought it all home, then had Noah help him take out the narrowest wall in the house. He rebuilt the wall with the heavy, misty glass. It’s not see-through, but the sunlight diffuses through it, makes it glow. Now the kitchen somehow always feels open to the outside.
A small chunk of wood leftover from one of the recent house projects. Raj has been slowly and painstakingly hand-carving it into a little zebra, which he’s going to paint when it’s done. He’s making it for the baby he’s got on the way, he explained to Noah.
“Figure I can finish one, maybe two animals per year. By the time that kid grows up, I want them to have a zoo.”
Everything transforms like magic in Raj’s practiced hands. Everything he touches leaves his fingers more beautiful than it was before.
Noah nods at the driftwood log. “So, what is it?”
“It’s a big part of the mantelpiece for the house,” Raj murmurs. Instantly, and with total confidence, the straight-razor lines of his face softened by the glowing expression in his eyes. “Don’t forget where this is! Actually - let’s just say this is where the pile goes, right?”
“The pile?” Noah repeats, but Raj is already wandering along the beach, roving his gaze over the rain-wet sand.
He stops to pick up a rough, black little hunk of rock, mossy on one side. “What’d I tell you, man? Bam. Another perfect find.”
“That looks like nothing,” Noah laughs, but Raj has already rushed back to put the rock against the log.
He straightens up, bright with energy, and tugs on the sleeve of Noah’s jacket. “Come on.”
Noah can’t help but smile as he falls into step with Raj.
The two of them instinctively draw closer together in the cold. Noah lets his eyes roam over the beach for any good finds, but they drift back to Raj after a moment.
The wind is combing through Raj’s curls, which are increasingly wet from the drizzling rain. The raindrops are speckling his angular face, but he looks like sunlight shining right through it.
There’s something inherently warm in every detail of Raj’s features. His eyes, his mouth, even his eyebrows and cheekbones somehow all naturally come together to give him a look of being immensely, genuinely happy to be around you. He always looks ready to smile or laugh.
Even when he’s really, honestly angry, he ends up looking kind of playfully pouty. Like someone who’s just pretending to be mad, who’s about to laugh and say nah, I’m just playin’, it’s totally fine.
Anger isn’t something Noah sees on Raj all that often, but every time he does, he’s amazed all over again by how sweet and harmless it is.
Raj turns his bright eyes on Noah, and Noah hastily drops his gaze to the sand. He’s not worried about what they’re doing here, anymore. But he does still feel tense, and randomly kind of self-conscious, and he can’t trace the feeling to its source. He takes deep breaths of the salty air, trying to get a grip on himself.
His eyes dart back to Raj, then blink when he realizes that Raj must have said something. He’s looking at Noah, waiting for an answer.
“What?”
“I said that driftwood piece was one hell of a find.” Raj grins happily at Noah. “That log probably fell in the river, floated all the way out to sea, and then finally got brought back to shore by the storm. Think of the fucking journey it went on to get to us! We’ve got something special, something with history.”
“That’s just like you, to find something special here.” Noah lets out an affectionate laugh, then turns his eyes out to the crashing water again. “Bet this doesn’t look like shit after the beaches in Hawai’i, huh?”
“Honestly, man, I don’t even think of them in the same category of thing. The beaches in Hawai’i are something else. You’ll see when I take you there.”
Noah tries to make a face like he’s annoyed, but it’s hard as hell. “Why do you keep saying we’re gonna go to Hawai’i together, dude?”
“Because we are. It’ll be great, bruh! We’ll surf China Walls! We’ll pick up Kono’s, and go eat on Kailua Beach-”
Raj keeps talking enthusiastically, but his words fuzz out to silence in Noah’s ears. He’s feeling an overwhelming burst of serious warmth.
He’s always afraid of being kicked to the curb. He’s so desperate not to fuck everything up with Raj, because he knows that could be it. As soon as Raj is tired of him, or pissed off at him…
Every time Noah thinks he senses that coming - every time he makes a mistake, or knows that he said the wrong thing - he’s inwardly on the verge of complete and total panic. Raj is the first real happiness Noah’s had in ages, and in those moments, it feels like it’s all slipping through his fingers.
Noah hasn’t said any of that to Raj. He hasn’t said a word about just how badly he wants to stick around.
But here Raj is, with all these plans for the two of them. He’s talking about it with so much certainty. With this dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, like he can already picture it.
“We’re gonna have a blast, trust me,” Raj finishes, then throws an arm around Noah’s shoulders.
Noah blinks as he’s crunched up between Raj’s arm and his side, pulled in for a tight squeeze. He turns his head to look at Raj, caught off-guard, and Raj leans over, pops a kiss onto Noah’s forehead.
Noah lets out a startled laugh and shoves him away. Raj grins at him, then stops, his eyes caught on something in the sand.
Good, because Noah needs a second. His face is suddenly burning. He lifts it to the rain for a moment, struggling to catch his breath.
Raj has dropped to a crouch near one of the rock pools. He’s carefully freeing something from a tangle of sandy seaweed. He straightens up with it, and Noah leans in closer to see.
It’s a curved, fan-shaped shell. The inside looks like flowing white silk, but with a subtle glow, a sheen of silver over top. It looks almost multicolored when it moves in the light with Raj’s hand. Iridescent, Noah thinks that’s the word.
“Wow,” Raj says quietly. “Look at that. I think it’s mother of pearl.”
Noah finds himself looking at Raj, not the shell. He likes the voice that Raj gets when he’s seeing a creation in something. The look in his eyes, like he’s already skillfully carving away.
Raj glances up at Noah excitedly, then does a double-take. He looks closely at Noah, then slowly holds up the shell beside Noah’s face, so that his nearest fingertip is close to the little geometric tattoo by the corner of Noah’s eye.
“It’s the same color as your eyes, Nohea,” Raj murmurs wonderingly, looking back and forth between the shell and Noah’s face.
Noah blinks at him, confused. He doesn’t remember his eyes ever looking anything like that. It’s too bright, too brilliant. Shimmering silver, instead of grey.
“Perfect match,” Raj says breathlessly, his eyes staring right into Noah’s.
The wind is powerful, rushing against the two of them as they stand there looking at each other. The deep, dark sea beside them is heaving, and Noah’s long hair is being blown all around his shoulders, up into his face.
Raj suddenly reaches out with his free hand, catches Noah’s hair in a fistful, then gently holds it in a bun behind his head, so he can go on looking into Noah’s eyes. His calloused fingertips brush lightly over the back of Noah’s neck in the process.
Noah freezes. An ocean of wild feelings breaks over his head before he even has time to see it coming, much less brace himself for it.
Staring back into Raj’s eyes, Noah suddenly feels unbearably exposed and helplessly bewildered, his terrified heart beating too hard, his every muscle tensed up. But he also feels lit up from within like he can never remember feeling before. Some glowing red fire sparks, then roars in his heart. Little ecstatic thrills roll through him like flames, burning with breath-stealing bliss. The salty air Noah inhales doesn’t seem to reach his lungs at all.
The whole world seems to open up in front of him, and then to center itself completely around Raj.
Noah can’t stop staring at him. Can’t even make himself blink in the blustering rain. No matter how badly he wants to tear his gaze away, which he really fucking does. He has no idea what the fuck is happening to him right now, but he knows somehow that he would be mortified if Raj knew about it.
But there’s something going on in Raj’s eyes, too. And there’s a faint knitting of his dark eyebrows, some kind of sudden tension and uncertainty in his face. A muscle in his jaw flexes for a split second.
He lets go of Noah’s hair and breaks his eyes away, releasing Noah from where he was held suspended in them. Noah blinks, realizing abruptly that he and Raj were only looking at each other for a handful of seconds. Jesus Christ, it felt like forever, like the sand in the hourglass was falling in slow motion.
Noah darts his gaze out to the water, his heartbeat hammering in his ears. Raj tosses his curls out of his eyes, then lowers the shell and looks down at it, his hands keeping it safe from the wind.
Noah watches as Raj takes the soft navy blue scarf from around his throat. He carefully folds it up around the shell, even as goosebumps spread over his neck from the sudden cold wind against it.
“Here,” he says softly, and pushes the wrapped-up shell into Noah’s hands. “Keep that safe, yeah?”
Noah is still reeling, but he looks down at the soft bundle in his fingers. The fabric of the scarf is still warm. “What’s it going to be?”
“I’m - not sure yet,” comes the unexpected answer. And then - “Something good, though.”
Noah steals a glance at Raj as the two of them set off walking along the beach again. Raj runs a hand over his neck, trying to warm it now that his scarf is gone. Through the rifts of light, drizzling rain, Noah catches a flash of gold.
Raj’s engagement ring.
Right. Raj has a fiancée, and soon enough he’ll have a wife. They already have a baby on the way. Raj is gonna be someone’s father, and someone’s husband.
Noah usually does his best not to think about any of that, but now it crashes back into his head before he can put up any kind of fight against it.
And suddenly, all at once, Noah is crestfallen. No, he’s a million miles past crestfallen. The thought of Raj’s wedding is making his soul scream in agony, like something is slowly ripping his heart in half.
Out of nowhere, and for no fucking reason Noah can name, he wants to seize hold of Raj and cling to him tightly and beg him not to do it, please don’t do that to me, don’t do that to us -
Oh my god, Noah thinks blankly, horrified and ashamed of himself. What the fuck am I even thinking about, right now?
He turns his face away sharply, struggling to get his breath back, toying with his lip piercing. He’s an experienced hand when it comes to keeping his feelings far away from the surface, but Raj must sense that something is off. He gives Noah’s back a light little slap.
“You okay, man?” Raj tips his head forward, trying to catch a glimpse of Noah’s face, one of his curls falling over his concerned eyes. “Hey, if this whole thing is too cold and wet for you, we can go home. We already found two gems. I’m all set. You wanna leave?”
But Noah can tell that Raj doesn’t want to leave yet, and honestly, Noah doesn’t want to either.
“Nah,” he says. “Not yet.”
Raj smiles happily, and Noah does his best to try and match it.
Life is coming to take Raj away from him. The engagement ring is hard proof of that.
And if there’s no way around it, Noah needs to make the short, precious time they do have together count.
Every minute, every second needs to be full of treasure.
~~~~
That’s a little better, I guess, Noah thinks miserably, staring up with blurred eyes at the ceiling of his bedroom at Raj’s house.
He’s all cried out.
He spent his first few nights living here crying alone in his bed, the kind of deep crying that almost hurts. Feeling the stab of all his broken connections, everything and everyone that he’d lost, all the mistakes he’s made.
But he hasn’t been doing that anymore, not recently. So he honestly can’t figure out why he got home from the day he spent at the beach with Raj, crawled into bed, and bawled his eyes out.
It wasn’t like it was a bad day. It was the opposite of that. Noah and Raj roamed the beach for hours, found all kinds of things to load up into the back of the pickup. They even found a box of small glass tiles, half-buried in a bed of blue sea holly.
“Probably forgotten here when someone built their beach house,” Raj had said, glancing at the cottages further down the stormy beach. “Shit, Noah, look at these! They’re intact! Kitchen backsplash, right?”
Noah saw instantly that Raj was right. The beautiful sea-green tiles, delicate glass with a subtle rippling pattern - it was perfect for the kitchen at the house. Raj was brimming with obvious delight, practically glowing on the rainy beach, and Noah found himself doing the same. He forgot about everything else.
He was just happy, there with Raj.
On the way back, they pulled over at a food truck near the beach and bought hot baked potatoes. They ate sitting in the back of the pickup, the melty cheese sending up steam, the soft foil packaging warming their frozen hands. Raj let out a burst of sputtering, startled laughter when Noah snatched Raj’s baked potato and then tried to eat both of them at once. He practically shoved Noah flat on his back to stop him, which nearly sent both potatoes flying over the side of the truck.
They ended up sitting in the back of the truck, talking and laughing and hanging out, for way longer than they planned. It was cold out, but both of them seemed to forget about that. They stayed long enough that they were both hungry again by the time they were getting ready to go, and they ended up going back to the food truck for something to eat on the way back.
They talked more about Hawai’i on the drive home, and then about France. Dusk was falling beyond the truck windows. It was dark everywhere, except for the low-glowing lights of the bars and shops they drove past, reflecting on the rain-slick road. It made the inside of the truck feel like its own smaller, cozier world. Raj’s eyes, which had been honeycomb-colored in the rainy sunlight, turned their usual darker and richer color. More like smooth, sugary molasses.
But the subtle light that’s always there within them was just as visible, stirring as Raj turned his gaze on Noah.
The endless warmth of his eyes, his voice, his laughter, his hand when he reached over to put his hand over the stupid, cross-eyed expression Noah was making at him.
“Guess it’d be cool to see some pirates in real life,” Noah said at one point, which made Raj’s eyes blink over to him, startled.
“Pirates, what?”
“If we ever do go to Hawai’i,” Noah explained, even though he knows they never will.
“Are you s-? There are no pirates in Hawai’i, man.”
“None?” Noah asked, with such obvious disappointment that Raj’s eyebrows shot up.
“Did you… think there were?”
Noah could sense that he had said something stupid. He felt his cheeks start to go red, and instantly wished he could take it back. “No. Totally not, I was just fucking around-”
“Oh, my god.”
“I just thought somebody might be keeping up the tradition,” Noah protested, hating himself, wishing he’d never opened his mouth. “I don’t fucking know-”
“You idiot, Noah,” Raj laughed.
Yeah, this feels more familiar, Noah thought, lapsing into silence, his heart sinking. And then -
“Aw, man,” Raj sighed happily, tipping his head back against the seat, casting Noah a sidelong smile. “I love the way you think, dude. Makes everything seem so full of, like - possibility.”
Yeah, Noah really can’t explain to himself why he came back to the house after a perfect day spent with his best friend, and as soon as he was alone, burst into helpless tears.
He can’t explain a lot of stuff to himself, recently.
Not that he hasn’t tried. He’s fucking desperate for answers, but he’s getting nowhere with trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with him. The symptoms are more confusing than helpful. He’s even wondered if Raj is fucking with him, in some exceptionally mean way that Noah hasn’t figured out yet. The fuck would he be trying to pull, though? And it honestly doesn’t even seem like something the guy would be capable of. Not his Raj, he wouldn’t do that...
Yet Noah feels like he’s walking dangerously close to the edge of something. Sometimes he feels like he’s already in free fall, and trying to catch himself on any little thing that might stop him. The fact that Raj is such a hands-on kinda guy, for example, and Noah doesn’t like anyone’s hands on him, with very few exceptions.
But that doesn’t work, because for some reason Noah doesn’t hate it when Raj touches him. Noah drops right past that and keeps falling, and nothing can even slow him down, and he doesn’t know what any of this shit means.
He’s walking through worlds unknown to him, feeling around in the dark with no map. He’s never felt so completely, helplessly lost and bewildered in his life.
And the thought of Raj’s wedding is tormenting him in ways he can hardly stand. It’s enough to drive a man fucking crazy.
Noah sniffles, pushes a hand through his hair, then slowly sits up in bed. He wanted to go to sleep, but he feels electric and restless, wide awake. He wants to run somewhere, but he has nowhere to go. He wants to drive, but he has no wheels.
At the very least, he can have a cigarette.
He goes to the mirror and gathers up his fucked-up hair. He twists it, then drops it to hang down one shoulder, lets it unfurl over his inky collarbone. He swipes the tears away from his eyes and drags his fist beneath his nose. He’s wearing only his tattoos and piercings and CK boxer briefs, so he feels around in the dark for a pair of sweatpants.
When he straightens up from pulling them on, his eyes catch on something in the mirror, and stop there.
The bundled-up seashell. Resting on his dresser with the box of tiles, where he left both when he rushed into the room.
Noah’s gaze lingers on the wrapped-up shell for a long, long moment. When he meets his own eyes in the mirror again, there’s a strange, dreamy, hungry look in them. He’s startled by it. Barely even recognizes himself.
He goes across the room and carefully takes the shell out of Raj’s scarf. He wants to look at it again, see what the hell Raj was talking about. But when he goes to set something down, he sets the shell back on the dresser, and finds himself holding Raj’s navy blue scarf.
Noah stands there for a minute, staring down at it. Then, without thinking, he lifts Raj’s scarf to his face, buries his nose in the soft fabric, and takes a deep breath.
It smells like Raj. Wood pulp and timber shavings, the faintest trace of citrusy finishing oil.
Noah breathes it in, smiling into the fabric - then gets a glimpse of himself in the mirror, standing there with Raj’s scarf pressed to his face.
He freezes, shocked at himself, bewildered and alarmed -
A door closes downstairs, and a familiar warm voice calls out through the empty house. “Nohea? You here?”
Noah whips around, and the back of his hand smacks the box of tiles they’d found at the beach. It tumbles off of the dresser, smashes onto the floor with a crunch of breaking glass.
Noah lets out a gasp of horror. Raj’s scarf falls to the floor as he drops to his knees and turns the box over with trembling hands. He opens it slowly, then stares in dismay at the smashed tiles inside. Each and every beautiful tile is broken into haphazard pieces.
He broke one of Raj’s treasures.
He’s still frozen in disbelief when Raj stops in the doorway, a bright smile turning up his lips.
“Hey, dude! My girl is working late tonight, and I was sitting around wishing that you and I hadn’t split up yet, so I thought I’d come over and see if you - if you wanted…”
He trails off into startled silence when Noah looks up at him.
“Raj,” Noah stammers, all out of breath, his eyes filling up all over again. “I’m s-so sorry, I - it just happened, I’m - I’m such a fucking idiot, I-”
He hates that he’s crying in front of Raj, but he can’t help it. Panic is blurring the edges of his vision, but he can clearly see that Raj is frozen, staring at him with very wide eyes. Noah stares back at him, desperation mounting in his overworking heart, which is frantically trying to transmit a silent message to Raj.
Please don’t kick me out for this. Please don’t decide you’re done with me. I’m begging. I’m fucking begging you not to tell me to go away, because I’m starting to think I need you more than I need, like, food and water and air to breathe, I could probably go without anything, except for you -
Raj slowly drops down to his knees beside Noah, then gently folds an arm around his shoulders. He pulls him closer, rests his chin on the top of Noah’s head.
Noah is so stunned that he just lets it happen, staring wide-eyed at nothing.
“Hey,” Raj says softly. “It’s fine. Just take a breath, Noah.”
“But-” Noah draws in a staggering little breath, and this time he gets that warm woodshop smell directly from Raj. “I broke all the-”
“So fucking what, man?” Raj gives him a squeeze, rubs his arm reassuringly, then lets him go and leans over the box of tiles for a closer look. “Actually… yeah, it’s better this way.”
Noah blinks at him, struggling. “It - what?”
“Now we can do the kitchen backsplash mosaic style. Put the pieces of tile together however we want, do our own thing…” Raj looks at Noah again, a tentative smile on his face. “It’ll be dope, yeah? We’ll make it work.”
Noah shakes his head in disbelief. “But they were all perfect, and I ruined-”
“You didn’t ruin anything, Nohea.” Raj’s voice is serious and earnest, and so are his eyes as he looks into Noah’s. “The real special stuff doesn’t come wholesale, alright? The tiles came from another construction project. Someone else has them in their place looking exactly like this, probably a lot of people do. But what we’ll have is something unique, something - irreplaceable.”
And he gives Noah a warm, shining smile.
Noah stares at him, at a loss for words.
Don’t do that, he thinks desperately, looking at Raj. Please don’t be so perfect right in front of my fuckin’ face like this. It’s making everything harder for me.
He doesn’t say that, can’t say that, doesn’t even know what he means by it. He lets out a watery laugh instead, smearing the tears off of his cheeks. “What the fuck? You’re really not mad at all?”
“It’s gonna be dope,” Raj repeats happily, and gives Noah’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Trust me.”
I do, Noah thinks, staring at Raj, whose eyes have dropped down to the tiles.
Raj lifts his gaze to Noah again, looks at him searchingly. “You okay?”
Noah nods, blinking hard. “Yeah. Sorry I freaked out, I - got issues.”
Raj laughs, nudges Noah’s arm with his elbow. “Who among us doesn’t, dude?”
“Yeah, but I’m like, issues all the way down.”
Raj laughs softly again, then playfully pushes Noah’s head as he gets back to his feet. “I don’t think that’s true at all.”
He goes on talking, enthusiastically saying something about the tiles. Noah hears not one single word of it. He just looks up at Raj. His laughing eyes, his warm expression, his practiced, calloused hands sifting gently through the box.
Noah wants to listen to what he’s saying, but that unidentifiable, powerful feeling from before is back, and it won’t let him. It’s in full control of him again, and all it wants him to do is look.
He blinks hard when Raj straightens up and pushes a hand through his black curls.
“So?” Raj tosses his head at the door. “You want to take these downstairs, start coming up with ideas for our mosaic? Or - I can go home, if you were trying to sleep. I do realize that it’s possible you’ve had enough of me for one day.”
“Nah, stay,” Noah hears himself answer, and Raj glows.
“Cool.” He scoops up the box of tiles, then heads for the door. “Grab a shirt and meet me down there.”
Noah eagerly gets to his feet. He pulls a thin, torn Upper Playground shirt over his head and rushes to find an elastic for his hair. The last of his panic is subsiding, replaced with a happy glow at the prospect of hanging out with Raj all night.
A quiet voice of warning whispers in his heart. Ça ne peut pas durer.
Noah knows that, in his heart. He knows that his friendship with Raj has an end date. Soon Raj will have a baby to worry about, and a wife. There won’t be room in his life for Noah anymore.
Noah gets that. And he understands that he’s getting himself in deeper each day and night that he spends with Raj. That the more time they spend together, the harder the break is going to be. And it was already going to be hard.
But Noah can’t help himself. He rushes down the stairs after Raj, knowing full well that he’s rushing towards heartbreak, a heartbreak that’s going to shatter him to pieces. He’s powerless to stop himself.
It’s like Raj’s soul saw Noah’s, recognized something, and signaled for him to follow.
And Noah’s soul is running ahead of him, answering wholeheartedly, chasing after Raj. Noah can’t stop that from happening, apparently. He can only hope that they’re going somewhere good. That wherever they’re going, they’ll be together.
That Raj has the map to heaven, just like he promised.
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