Seriously, Timothy felt like he was about to start crying and laughing at the exact same time. His boyfriend was forgiving him but also Kansas. This was not happening right now. This couldn’t seriously be a thing. “Yeah, I do have some great friends, but I have an even more incredible boyfriend,” Timothy looked him in the eye.
“You really do. I blame the Kansas in me because I doubt I’d be ok with this if I was from anywhere else,” Noah pointed as he crossed his arms.
It was obvious that Noah was slowly starting to return to his old lovable and quirky self, which was off-putting, considering what was going to happen. A large part of him wanted to just stay here forever, but Noah… “How many credits do you have left to complete?” Timothy asked him. Yes! Credits. If he had enough to graduate early, why wouldn’t he?
Noah looked at him, a little confused. “This was totally the sexy conversation I expected to be having right now… Um, I’m four credits short of graduating technically. My English courses are actually college credited.”
“So, you like it out here minus a few things, right?” Timothy asked.
“I mean, I like it better than I thought I would, that is for sure. Obviously, there are now certain people I hope that I never have to see again,” Noah said with a face that said he meant it.
That was an understandable statement. “Do you think you could ever see yourself living here?” Timothy asked.
His boyfriend shrugged, “It’s always a possibility. I’ve had my heart set on out West for so long now. My heart does belong to you even if it is still damaged.”
Damn it. Not the words that Timothy needed to hear right now, “So, are we going to try going into the city for the parade?” It was best he just dropped that subject for another day. He was going to have no choice but to tell him before they left.
“I mean, so long as your ex isn’t going, I’m down for spending more time with Phillip… and Collin too! They are both cool guys,” Noah explained.
“You really seem to get along well with Phillip,” Timothy said. It made sense. Phillip was just a really easy-going guy. Still, he would have guessed that Collin would have been the one he wanted to get to know better. Timothy had to admit to himself at least that Collin had been his first crush outside of Tara. He knew that Collin was straight, though, so it was more just an attraction than a full-blown crush.
His boyfriend started to turn a little white, which seemed odd. “Phillip’s just a cool guy. We both have a lot in common. I suppose it makes sense that you would fall for me if you were friends with him.”
“I guess…” Timothy still had no idea what he was talking about.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NOAH
There was something about Phillip that Noah couldn’t deny was charming. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there just was. He couldn’t help but wonder if a small part was falling for him. Noah really didn’t want to think about it, though, because he was with Timothy as much as he was pissed off at him, and he still was. He just knew that there was no use in being in an awkward position when it wasn’t like he could easily go home.
Noah had checked the price of flights back to Kansas, but he didn’t have enough. Even if he did, there would have been questions from Timothy’s family. Noah wasn’t going to accidentally out Timothy just because he was pissed off at him. What was he going to say? Oh, we had a fight because we have been secretly dating, but I hooked up with Tara. People didn’t understand full-on gay people. They weren’t about to understand the concept of bisexuality.
If he were honest, he did have to wonder what was taking Timothy so long to come out to his parents. They had dodged the subject of whether his parents were going to be upset with him or not. Noah had to assume that it was harder for parents to accept a son or daughter who was queer when they were an only child. He really doubted that Cheryl would have cared if he was gay if he was an only child. She was Cheryl, though. Plus, he wasn’t an only child. He had Brick, who was already going to be a father. Plus, Kelly, who would more than likely be a mother one day. That said, Noah sort of wanted children. He had no idea if he would adopt or have a surrogate, though. They both had their positives and negatives in his mind. That was an active benefit of him being gay.
When he was actually ready for a child, it would be when he had one, not a second earlier, unlike his brother, who was about to be a father for the next eighteen to twenty-five years, depending on if he had any other children after this one. It almost felt like a trap. Brick was smarter than Amber or her family gave him credit for. It just pissed him off thinking about it. Though it did get Timothy’s wandering around on him off his mind.
His boyfriend walked back into the attic room after having taken a shower. He hadn’t dressed yet, which Noah had to admit was a positive, not a negative for him, “Fuck. You are so beautiful.”
He got Timothy to blush. This was a rare treat because it just made him even sexier. “Stop, just because I’m naked doesn’t mean I’m beautiful.”
Noah started to stiffen in his groan. He got off the bed where he had been sitting and walked over to him. “You’re beautiful with or without clothes on,” as he kissed him on the lips. “Now get dressed so we can go about our day.”
“You don’t want to do or see more?” Timothy asked out loud as his chest was pounding.
“Nope,” Noah said. He was going to be a tease for a while. It was one of the many ways that he would go about punishing Timothy. There were going to be many more serious repercussions, obviously. It was hard to act on them when he found the boy so hot, “Basketball season starts up right when we get home, right?”
Something clearly caught the tallboy off guard, “Um… Yeah. I think so.”
It was going to be very hard to stay mad at him. Basketball uniforms were his weakness, “I can’t wait to see you in your uniform.”
“Oh, who knows what the future will hold,” his boyfriend stated.
“What do you mean by that?” Noah asked, taken aback.
The curly-haired boy shrugged as he put a shirt on, “Nothing… I don’t know.”
Part of him wanted to ask what was wrong, but the other part of him wasn’t so sure that he should right now. Being pissed off and in love was a difficult task, “Level with me… What’s wrong, Timothy. It’s better you tell me now than later. You should grasp that by now.”
Timothy still wasn’t wearing proper pants, but he stopped getting dressed. “Look… my dad told me something, and I don’t know how to tell you without upsetting or making you choose. I can hardly choose myself.”
Noah started to get a bit of a headache. “Ok. What did he tell you?”