tired to make small talk or be polite, so if there was any hope for him and Helen ever restarting their relationship, it was probably better if Alex didn’t talk at all right then.
“Noah’s asleep?” Helen twiddled with her empty coffee cup.
Alex nodded.
“I went by the pharmacy and picked up his meds.”
Alex finished his coffee before replying. “Thank you.”
Helen’s next words seemed to come completely out of the blue. “I think we started off on the wrong foot.”
Alex was too drained to feel as surprised about that statement as the situation would have warranted, but even in his exhausted state, it still managed to stir something inside him.
“We?” he asked.
Helen met his gaze squarely. “I suppose I might be more to blame in how things have played out.”
“You don’t like me,” Alex stated. “Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that you took an immediate disliking to me for some reason. You can’t actually not like me because you don’t even know me.”
“You’re right, I don’t. My issues with your relationship with my son have got nothing to do with who you are as a person. I would have had the same issue with any man Noah was in a relationship with.”
“I spy with my little eye a little homophobia.”
Helen shook her head and straightened herself. “I’m not homophobic.”
Alex raised his brow at that, too weary to reply with something scathing.
Helen looked down at her hands. “I know what it sounds like, but I’m really not. If the circumstances were different, I wouldn’t bat an eye if Noah brought you to dinner to introduce you as his boyfriend.”
“But?”
Helen closed her eyes for a moment before he looked back at Alex. “How much do you know about Noah’s…” Helen seemed to be lost for words as she seemingly tried to figure out how to approach the delicate topic of Noah’s blood. On a normal day, Alex would have loved to watch her squirm, but right now, he just wanted the conversation over and done with.
“Blood?” Alex asked. “I know all of it. Noah told me about the Rhnull blood pretty much the second we found each other again. I know all about how he’s one of the few donors in the world and how valuable his blood is both for blood transfusion and research. I know.”
“And you don’t care?” Helen’s voice didn’t hold any judgment, only curiosity, like he was observing a new species, amazed by its behavior.
“I understand that his blood is valuable, but do I put everybody else’s happiness above Noah’s? No, I don’t. He needs somebody in his corner. Somebody has to put Noah first after all these years. I make him happy. After a lifetime of sacrificing his needs so that he’d be able to donate blood, just because FDA has a set of ridiculous, outdated restrictions, don’t you think Noah deserves all the happiness he can get? Or what’s the plan? He’ll be alone forever? Or are you hoping he’ll meet the right girl and magically turn straight? Because it doesn’t work like that.”
Helen sighed. “Still not homophobic.”
“What are you hoping will happen, then?”
“All I’ve ever wanted is to keep my son safe,” Helen said softly. “I understand the value of Noah’s blood better than most people. I’d even go so far as to say I’m an expert on Rhnull blood at this point. I’ve seen the impact his donations have had on other people’s lives. People who wouldn’t have survived without his donations. But above all, there are two things I want for Noah. I want him to be safe, and I want him to be happy.”
“Then I don’t understand the animosity. I know I’ve screwed up a lot in my life, and I’ve made tons of mistakes, but I love Noah more than anybody in the world, and having me in his life makes him happy.”
Helen looked at him with so much sadness in her eyes that Alex felt it deep inside his core.
“You make him happy, yes,” she acknowledged. “But not safe.”
“I would never intentionally let anything bad happen to Noah!”
He must have sounded as outraged as he felt because Helen leaned forward and when she started speaking, she sounded a bit more animated. “That was not what I meant to imply.”
Alex and Helen had only met briefly. Before today, they’d hardly exchanged more than a couple of sentences, but somehow they’d managed to create so much bad blood between them that every word was treated as a potential attack and