ever set in record speed, knocking them down like they were something as small as blocks of dominoes in his path.
And Alex didn’t mind. Not one bit. Somewhere in the middle of late-night conversations and shared sandwiches, Alex had started to dream of the future. There were no specific plans. Nothing was set in stone. But more and more often, Alex found himself dreaming. They were barely more than ideas, hovering between what-ifs and whens. Hopes that were floating around his head, not concrete enough to be called plans yet, and Alex wouldn’t have dared to carve any of them into stone anyway. But they were there, teasing Alex, luring him into a warm sense of optimism, when it had never been in Alex’s nature to be an optimist. His motto might as well have been Prepare for the worst.
With Noah, that kind of thinking was drowned in the cloud of happiness that followed Alex around everywhere he went. He was almost expecting songbirds and cute forest animals to make an appearance every morning when he walked out of the bunk house.
The warm feeling inside him grew when he walked to his room on the second Friday of July and found Noah sprawled out on his bed. Noah smiled as he saw Alex and put down the heavy textbook he’d been reading. Lately, Noah seemed more determined than ever to make a go for the vet plan, and Alex was really happy for him. Noah deserved to have his dream come true.
It felt completely natural to walk to Noah and kiss him.
“Hey, you,” Noah said softly when they finally came up for air.
“I thought you and Carl were busy with a seagull,” Alex asked as he took a seat on the bed.
“Yeah. She died.”
Alex winced. “Sorry.”
Noah nodded. “It’s sad, but it happens.” He sat up and threw his legs over Alex’s thighs, leaning closer. “We should go do something.”
Alex put his arm around Noah’s shoulders. “You want to go to Portland again?” he asked.
Noah shook his head. “Nah. We both have to work tomorrow. The drive’s too long. We could go to town and grab a bite to eat?”
Alex blinked in surprise. They hadn’t done that yet. Alex had assumed Noah didn’t want to be seen with Alex in his hometown, and Alex wasn’t bothered about it. It wasn’t like he was planning to stage a whole big production where he and Noah stood in the middle of the busiest street in Riverton and made out. He doubted the town was ready for something like that. Alex had been unapologetic about his sexuality ever since he figured out he swung both ways, but he’d spent all of his life in major cities, where people were generally more liberal and accepting. He knew that there were still large areas of the country where his sexual orientation was considered unacceptable, to put it mildly.
Alex had no idea where Riverton, as a whole, stood on the issue, but Alex got to leave at the end of the summer. Noah had to stay, at least for a little while, so Alex completely would have understood if Noah didn’t want to go to town together. Only Noah was sitting right there, asking Alex to go to dinner with him for everybody to see.
“Are you sure about it?”
He must have sounded anxious because Noah frowned. “I mean, we can do something else if you’re not hungry.”
Alex bit his lip. This putting-yourself-into-someone-else’s-shoes thing was difficult.
“I figured you might not want to be seen with me,” Alex said.
That only seemed to deepen Noah’s confusion. “I’m pretty sure people have already seen us together.”
Christ on a tomato sandwich!
“Not on a date.”
“Oh.” Realization finally dawned on Noah’s face. “Umm, okay. But here’s the thing. Nobody has to know that it’s a date,” Noah said and immediately winced. “That sounded kind of bad. Let me try again. It’s not that I’m ashamed of us or anything. It’s not that.” He bit his lip. “Coming out, officially, I mean, it would force the reality in really quickly and cause a whole host of problems. Mainly in the form of my mother.” Noah rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “I guess what I’m trying to say that being with you… it’s like this fantasy come alive, and I don’t want to risk breaking the bubble. I mean, I will. I plan to. I will. Just maybe not tonight?” he finished.
Alex took Noah’s hand in his and squeezed. “I’m not asking you to come