Chapter One
August 1999
The windows were down, and the cool wind caressed Noah’s arm as he dangled it out the passenger side. He rode next to Ian in his beat-up pickup truck, a gift from Ian’s parents on his sixteenth birthday. Ian glanced over at him and quirked a smile, before turning his attention back to the road.
“So… you’re off to college soon.”
“You could still come with me.” Noah said, his heart twisted into a knot at the thought of leaving Ian behind. He almost hadn’t applied, but Ian made him. Pinned him down to the bed and begged him to do it.
All that potential, Noah. You can’t waste it. Not for me. Not for anyone.
Come with me. Come with me. Even now, he couldn’t help himself from saying the words, from asking one more futile time.
“Please, Ian.”
Ian only grinned at him. “Nah. College… that’s not me.”
“You’re smart, you could do it.”
Ian barked out a laugh. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, there, but college… not my scene.”
The road Ian eased his truck down was barely wide enough for the beast. Branches brushed down the sides, a few dragged along Noah’s skin as they eased down the uneven dirt road. When they rumbled out into the clearing, Ian killed the engine and they climbed out of the truck.
“I’ll miss this place.” Noah said after a while. They’d been leaning against the front of Ian’s truck, watching the sky darken and the stars light up.
“That right?” Ian asked in a cocky, drawn out way.
Noah bumped his shoulder against Ian’s. “Shut up.”
Ian’s laugh was the long rich kind of laugh Noah could drown in.
“I’m going to miss you,” Noah said. “I could stay.”
“No.” Ian turned, finally, and pressed Noah against the grill. He put his hands on the hood of the truck, on either side of Noah, blocking him in. “You’re too good for this place, Noah. You were meant for more.”
Noah scoffed. Ian leaned in and Noah could smell summer on him. The sweet scent of summer wind in his hair, the salt on his skin, the heat seared smell of hours spent under the sun. It smelled like home.
“Are you doubting me?”
“Nah,” Noah exhaled. “I think you believe your delusions, but it doesn’t make them right.”
Ian’s hands were on him then, like iron vices on his waist. His shirt twisted in Ian’s grip. A trail of hot breath licked up his neck and Ian’s lips brushed against his cheek. Noah bucked his hips, rocking their erections together, and Ian laughed against his skin.
The purest thing in his life was this, his love for Ian.
They didn’t speak afterward. It was a conversation they’d had before. An argument Noah never won. Ian buried his face in the crook of Noah’s neck and for a moment they existed like that, in a space somewhere between lust, longing, and letting go.
Ian was everything to Noah. He clung to Ian, desperate in a way he’d never been before. All his firsts were fast coming up against all his lasts. His last kiss with Ian. Last truck ride down the logging roads and into the clearings. Ian had given him shit for it before, thinking everything was over when it wasn’t. Ian promised it wasn’t.
They’d been together for so many years, first as friends, then as something more, and now like this. Under the stars, Ian finally slanted his mouth over Noah’s, and he sank against him, tugging at Ian’s ass, pulling him closer, needing to feel the heat and the pulsating need thrumming between them.
“I’m coming back for you.” Noah promised.
“I know you are.” Ian huffed and tugged Noah’s shirt off. He hooked his fingers into Noah’s belt loops and brushed a kiss across Noah’s forehead. Sometimes, Noah forgot Ian had a few inches on him. Ian was tall and broad, with hair the color of wheat in the sun and ocean blue eyes. When he smiled, there was a dimple in his left cheek Noah liked to kiss.
“You’re staring again.” Ian’s voice was husky, sex filled.
“I like the view.”
Thank fuck Ian kissed him then and stopped the tremble in his chin.
By the time Ian wrenched Noah’s orgasm out of him, then licked it dutifully off his fingers, staring Noah straight in the eye, he forgot to be sad.
But emotions had a way of sneaking up on him. Noah’s bags were packed, his Dad’s truck loaded with all the stuff he’d need in his dorm room, and he’d already said goodbye to Ian, but he showed up anyway, on the day Noah left. He hauled him upstairs to his mostly empty room and kissed him like he’d never see him again. Even Ian, always steadfast and sure, had a look in his eyes Noah was sure he didn’t like.
“You take care of yourself.”
Noah wound his arms around Ian and pressed his face against his chest. “I don’t know how to do this,” he confessed. “I don’t know how to do anything without you.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ian promised him.
He promised him a million things over the years, and Noah couldn’t remember a single promise he didn’t keep. He often boasted to Noah he’d move heaven and earth for him, and Noah believed him.
He left his hometown with enough reluctance to sink a battleship and a bone deep ache that stabbed at him whenever he breathed. It wasn’t supposed to be goodbye, but it felt like it. Maybe it was because he’d never been apart from Ian.
That’s what he told himself when he moved into his dorm and set up his room in between emails to Ian. They talked on the phone when they could, and he decided the strangeness in Ian’s voice was because they’d never had to speak long distance before.
“I can’t wait to come back for winter break.” Noah flopped down on his bed and shut his eyes. Break was more than a month away, but Noah hadn’t been home since the semester started. “It will be so great to see you.”
“Yeah,” Ian said.
Ice danced down Noah’s spine and he sat up. “Ian? You all right?”
“I… ah. I have something to tell you. I wanted to wait until you’d come home, but there’s no time.”
Noah sat still. Not breathing. Maybe if he didn’t move, whatever Ian had to say would go away. It wasn’t good, whatever it was. There was a quality to Ian’s voice Noah hadn’t heard before. No. That was a lie. He hadn’t heard it before he went away to college. But over the past weeks, Noah sensed something was wrong.
“I’m leaving, Noah.”
“Leaving?” The thought was incredulous. “What?”
“I enlisted.”
“What the fuck, Ian?”
“Noah, come on. We both know you got the brains, and I got the brawn.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Noah spat. He wanted to reach through the phone and punch Ian in the mouth. He’d never wanted to hit him before, but now the violent urge surfaced.
“I can’t sit around here for however many years it’ll take you to get your schooling done. And then what? You’re going to come back to this hole in the wall town and what…”
“And be with you.”
“Noah, come on. I need to do something besides wait around.”