poked Alex’s cheek with his finger. “You’re. An. Orange.”
Alex caught Noah’s finger in his, and held on to it. “You know what the problem with oranges is? You can’t really tell what they’re like on the inside before you peel them, so you might go through a lot of trouble, only to find that the end result does not meet your expectations. Not all oranges are delicious. Some of them taste like shit.”
“There you go again. It’s like you’re trying to lower my expectations even before I’ve actually formed them.”
“And here I thought I was going for authenticity,” Alex joked. He felt raw. Noah seemed to see right through every wall Alex had ever put up, and that had a potential to hurt Alex, which he was not okay with. He’d already been there and gotten the T-shirt, thank you very much.
“You’re lonely,” Noah continued. For being able to see through all of Alex’s walls, the guy was amazingly shitty at picking up the cues that Alex was not the least bit interested going down that lane of conversation. “All that bravado and jokes and stuff, that’s just you trying to keep people at arm’s length.”
“Thank you!” Alex snapped. “This therapy session has been most enlightening, but I’ve got things to do and places to be, so if you’ll excuse me—”
But Noah wasn’t done yet. “You think that keeps you from getting hurt, but—”
Alex didn’t get to hear what Noah was about to say next because all of a sudden, he was moving. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to punch Noah or kiss him, but there had to be something he could do to shut him up. Just make him stop talking and getting into Alex’s head and getting under his defenses and wrecking everything Alex had spent a decade building.
And then, Alex’s mouth was on Noah’s. For a second, even Alex himself was shocked at the turn of events. It felt like somebody else had moved his body. They were plastered together: toes, knees, chests, lips.
At first, they were both too surprised to move even a muscle. Alex recovered before Noah. It only took him a few seconds to get his bearings. To realize that somehow, he’d ended up right where he’d wanted to be all along. Noah’s lips were warm and soft underneath Alex’s, as Alex experimentally tilted his head a bit and captured Noah’s mouth in a deeper kiss. Noah let out a soft sound before he lifted his head up to press his lips more firmly onto Alex’s.
For a few moments, everything was perfect. They were kissing. And what a kiss it was. Alex had never much cared for kissing. It was a thing he did, but it’d never been much more than a step toward something better. A necessity, rather than something particularly enjoyable.
This was different, though. For the first time, Alex realized that there actually was a possibility that you would want to kiss a person for hours on end without it being just a thing that you did to get your dick into somebody’s mouth.
Alex licked Noah’s lower lip, and that was what seemed to shock Noah out of whatever trance he’d been in. His eyes flew open, and in a nanosecond, Alex found himself on his back, which would have been nice, say, if Noah had ended up straddling him. But Noah pushed himself to his feet and retreated a couple of steps, like touching Alex’s skin had burned him. Alex half expected Noah to throw a clove of garlic at him or do whatever else it was people did to ward off evil spirits.
Noah blinked several times. There was a wild look in his eyes. Blades of grass were stuck to his skin. Alex was still lying on the ground, chest rising and falling with each rapid breath he took.
“What just happened here?” Alex pushed himself to his feet. He was really confused. For a moment there, it had all seemed to be going really well.
Noah dragged his hand through his hair. “I can’t do this.” Noah had a shell-shocked look on his face. “This can’t be happening. I… we can’t do this. I don’t do this.”
Alex had no idea what was going on, but all he really wanted right then was to grab Noah into his arms and hold him until the panicked look in his eyes disappeared.
Alex lifted his palms up like he was approaching a spooked horse and took a step closer. “Easy,” he said,