trying for a calming voice. “It’s okay.”
Noah laughed. A bitter, startled sound. “It’s not even close to okay! You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Another step closer. This wasn’t a normal reaction to a kiss. A kiss with another man, Alex reminded himself. Still, the agitated expression on Noah’s face felt way over-the-top. Alex had no idea what had caused it. Well, his kiss, obviously, but there must have been something behind it. Homophobic parents? A previous trauma rearing its ugly head? Maybe Noah was in the closet? Maybe he was straight and the kiss had freaked him the fuck out? Whatever it was, Alex really just wanted Noah to be okay. The unselfishness of his own thoughts surprised Alex. This was not his usual MO.
Noah bent forward and pressed his fingers into his sides. He seemed to be somewhat calmer, which was good, but when he raised his head and looked at Alex, there was so much agony in his eyes that it nearly knocked Alex back onto the ground.
“Then tell me,” he said.
“You wouldn’t understand.” Noah’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Try me.”
“No.”
Noah took another deep breath, and then it was as if he’d locked all of his feelings away. “Thank you for your help today, but I think I better go now.”
Alex nodded mutely, too confused about the whole evening to say anything, which was more than unusual for him. If nothing else, Alex had always been able to talk his way out of anything. Not this time, it seemed.
“What about—” he started to say, but Noah cut Alex off with a glare.
“This never happened,” Noah said. “It’s best if we just forget the whole thing. Don’t feel bad about it. It’s my fault. I got distracted and forgot myself for a moment. You’re not… I should know better.”
And with that cryptic statement, Noah nodded once in Alex’s direction, and then he was gone, leaving Alex sitting in the grass, confused, a bit hurt, kind of lonely, and hard as a fucking steel pipe.
What an incredibly fantastic end for the day, Alex thought as he slammed down on the grass on his back.
5
The following week was brutal. Not because of Noah, since he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet. If it had been business as usual, Alex would have invented stupid reasons to go into the office to talk to Noah for a bit, but he doubted Noah would have been eager to see him. To be fair, he’d tried once, on the third day post kiss, but Noah hadn’t been there. Instead, Alex had run into Carl, who had been less than pleased about seeing Alex there. Alex was convinced that was why Carl had started adding extra tasks to Alex’s ever-lengthening list of chores.
That in itself turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since Alex no longer had the energy to stay up all night, thinking about Noah and that fucking kiss, after he’d spent the day cleaning, feeding, washing, and doing every other menial job in the world. To be fair, Alex had also stopped half-assing his way through the job, welcoming the complete exhaustion at the end of the day that left his body too tired to give his brain time to think in the quiet darkness of his room.
Alex stopped scrubbing the feed bucket in front of him and looked at his hands. Even his fucking blisters had blisters. He’d never been one to care that much about his physical appearance. Okay, so he cared enough to brush his hair and shower regularly, but he’d never felt the need to shape his eyebrows or get a manicure. He could have used one badly now. Manicure, that is. The freezing well water he used to scrub the feed buckets was making his hands look like he’d dug trenches in Antarctica with his bare hands. His skin had actual cracks in it. He really had to remember to pick up some extra-greasy hand cream the next time he went to town. It wasn’t even about vanity. God, it would have been better if it were. This, however, was pure practicality at play because broken skin on hands hurt like a motherfucker.
In addition to the hands, all Alex’s muscles ached from being on the move all day and the seemingly endless tasks that all seemed to include some form of lifting and carrying sacks of grain, buckets of water or bales of hay.
Alex had naively thought he was