Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

‘I can't do it.'

It was the evening before Noah's signing, and Quinn was wearing a cherry-scented face mask and a fluffy all in one dressing gown with a cosy hood. And he stood in front of Noah, looking like this, because Noah had turned up unannounced, which seemed to be a common theme now.

‘What can't you do?' Quinn asked, glad that his face mask covered his blushing face.

‘The book signing.'

‘Oh.'

The face mask hid his crestfallen expression, prompting Quinn to think maybe they should use that in their marketing campaigns. Buy this face mask so that hot romantic novelists don't see when you're gutted about what they just said.

‘Come in.'

Noah did, shedding his hoodie like he might catch fire. Quinn liked his apartment hot, so of course he turned the heating on full volume.

‘Aren't you hot in that?'

Quinn's dressing gown swayed at his shins. ‘Not really.'

‘Well, you look adorable.'

Noah's hand touched the soft fabric of his dressing gown, and Quinn wished he could shred it and the clothes underneath. Totally appropriate.

‘Tea?'

‘Please,' Noah said. ‘I hope you don't mind me coming over like this. Again.'

‘Seems like a regular thing now, doesn't it?'

‘The house is awkward.' Noah sighed. ‘Matty's not leaving. Says he can't drive back to London because we drove together, and the trains are off because of the snow.'

‘Can't he rent a car? The roads are open.' Secretly, Quinn wished he would disappear. Maybe he could go to Cardiff and link up with Dougie.

‘I've suggested that.'

‘But you've got your room to escape it all?'

‘I do. But I know he's in the house. And Mum's been asking me about it and I wanted to get out. And then I started rethinking this book signing, and I got scared.'

‘Take a seat.'

Noah settled on the sofa, and Quinn got to the kettle, refilling the water. Making the tea, he fretted about what to say next. It had been a miracle organising the signing to begin with. At such short notice, the haphazard posters and the slapped together newsletter were all Quinn could do to boost the event. Though word spread in Hay, and Quinn was sure they'd get enough custom to make it a success.

Quinn brought the tea to the table and handed Noah his mug. Noah's hand cupped Quinn's before taking it from him, and Quinn sighed.

‘I look ridiculous, don't I?'

‘No. I love a face mask,' Noah said. ‘How else do you think I look this youthful?'

‘Botox.'

‘Cheeky.' Noah smirked, running a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, Quinn. I feel like an arse.'

‘That's a way to feel.' Quinn nodded. ‘Go on, then. What's up?'

Noah sipped his tea, his eyes widening. He struggled to move the tea to the coffee table without spilling a drop. ‘Oh my god, my tongue.'

Great. Now he had a burning hot author with a burning hot tongue in his burning hot apartment.

‘I just made it. Have you drunk tea before?'

Noah stuck out his tongue and fanned it with his hand.

Quinn struggled to hide his mirth, but he managed it because the face mask made his skin tight, so it was impossible to crack laughter.

Noah seemed to move past the crisped tongue, and reached for his tea again, blowing on it.

Quinn had never been so jealous of tea.

‘I don't think I can do it,' Noah said. ‘I thought I could. When I came to the signing today, that was the first proper time I've had to be with people in Hay again. It was a little overwhelming when people tried to talk to me more than they talked to Blair, but there wasn't much I could do about it. It was so busy I couldn't think. But the whole time, Quinn, my heart was beating and my hands were shaking. And tomorrow, it's all me, isn't it? People are coming for me and they'll expect the version of me I can't put on. Not in the town.'

For the first time, Quinn realised how anxious Noah was. The shaking hands, the beating heart, the running thoughts picturing the worst-case scenarios. Quinn put his tea aside and made to touch Noah, but thought better of it. Instead, he hovered, looking at Noah.

Noah held out his hand, and Quinn took it, relieved.

It trembled on its own.

‘You're anxious about it?'

‘It feels like more than anxiety,' Noah said. ‘It feels like a full-blown panic attack.'

‘I mean this in the nicest way,' Quinn said, ‘but what is it that sets Hay apart from talking on stage at the Hay festival, and doing the signing in their tent?'

Noah let out a small laugh. ‘I'm anxious when I'm doing that, too.'

‘But you'd never show it.' Though Quinn recalled seeing Noah at his table in the festival bookshop, and how, even though he handled each visitor with ease, there was a moment when Quinn thought he saw the novelist falter.

‘No, I wouldn't,' Noah said. ‘And you know why? It's because even though I'm back in Hay, I don't feel like I'm back. Because I can convince myself that the people coming to see me at Hay are mostly out of towners, because the festival isn't in the town, is it? It's far enough away from the town to make me feel like it's far removed, and that people don't know my history, only my books. They might not have those preconceptions of the kid I was. They see me as someone else, the man I created, and I like that. Here? Not a chance. They're locals. Familiar faces. People in the town who pity me for being the son of Hermione. People who saw me leave at sixteen. They expect something else of me, something that I can't give them.'

‘And what is that?'

‘I don't know. The guy who ran away when things got tough? The guy who abandoned his mother because he didn't know how to deal with her mental health? A boy who is so self-obsessed, so driven by wanting to carve his own name, that he alienates the people who cared about him?'

Noah lifted his tea and drank, and Quinn steadied his own shaking hands.

Once Noah finished, Quinn peeled off his face mask, aware that he looked ridiculous and too casual for a moment like this.

‘Beautiful skin,' Noah mused. ‘You're blushing.'

‘You know as soon as you tell someone they're blushing, they blush even more?' Quinn asked. ‘Never tell someone they're blushing if you want them to stop.'

‘I don't want you to stop,' Noah said. His hand extended, brushing his fingers against Quinn's hot cheeks. ‘Soft. Beautiful.'

Quinn leaned into his touch, closing his eyes. This had to be a dream. There was no way Noah was doing this to him right now.

‘I'll be with you, Noah.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘I'll be by your side.'

‘Promise?'

‘Promise.' Quinn wasn't sure what he was promising. To be with Noah forever? Was it to be by his side at the book signing? To be there for him right now?

‘I'm terrified of what they will think of me,' Noah said, tracing a finger along Quinn's jaw. ‘I'm terrified they will hold grudges against me, or berate me for the life I lived. Scared they'll make jokes to me about Mum. But I'm also scared I'll let them down.'

Noah's fingers hovered over Quinn's lips, and Quinn kissed them ever so gently. This time, his heart beat harder, laced with his own anxious desire to take this to the next level with Noah. Whatever this was, and whatever it meant.

Noah slid his finger across Quinn's lips and down to his chin.

‘Look at me, handsome.'

Only now Quinn realised he'd looked anywhere but into Noah's eyes. Looking at him, he felt lost. Like he'd never be able to appease his anxiety, or hold him close, or be the person he could rely on. Maybe he would let him down.

But it wouldn't be like that. Couldn't be like that. Because underneath it all, Noah was destined to let him down. Listening to him now, his desire to escape the town told Quinn everything he needed to know.

‘You don't want to be here, do you?'

‘I can't be here.'

‘You can't be in Hay, or don't want to be?'

‘Both,' Noah said. ‘Hay scares me, Quinn. It puts me right back to where I was when I was sixteen. Confused, alone, scared of myself. Of what people thought. It brings back all my insecurities, and it makes me face moments I don't want to face.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like Mum. I don't know what to do to help her.'

‘Be there for her,' Quinn said. He linked his fingers with Noah's, and his hand felt so rough, so gentle, and so strong. The anchor that helped him say what he needed to say. ‘Talk to her because she needs someone to talk to. Have you thought that maybe you should be the one to hear her story? To write it for her? Have either of you ever spoken about how the other makes you feel?'

Noah shook his head. ‘Never.'

‘I understand they are hard places to go to. I know it isn't what you want to be doing. But your problems stem from how others treated your mum and how they affected you. It can't have been easy growing up being told your mother was everything she wasn't. And it can't have been the easiest to discover who you were, how that made you feel, and how you were a victim of it all, too.'

‘A victim?'

‘To learn about what your dad did? To hear what people think about your mum and be okay with that?'

‘But what's awful is that for a long time, I believed they were right.'

‘And what about now?'

Noah ran a thumb over Quinn's hand, sending shivers down his spine. It took all his willpower not to drag Noah to him and feel his weight upon him.

Stay focussed, Quinn.

‘All I can see is how I failed her. I should have been there for her.'

‘Be there for her now.' Quinn let go of Noah's hand, almost immediately feeling the chill of where he'd been.

‘You intrigue me.'

‘I … what?'

‘Intrigue me,' Noah repeated, though they both knew he didn't need to do so.

He intrigued Noah? How was that even possible?

‘You get me,' Noah said. ‘I don't know how, but you do. You understand that side of me I can't show to others. And it confuses me. It intrigues me. It panics me. If I'd met you sooner…'

‘Stop it.'

‘Stop it?'

He looked at Noah now, properly looked at him, and wondered if he'd read him all wrong. A man like him, so put together, so successful, so much more than this small town, could never be his.

The promise he'd made moments ago, already broken. ‘Stop talking to me like that.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like that, ' Quinn said. ‘That I intrigue you? That you wished you met me sooner? I can't do that, Noah.'

Noah moved towards him, and Quinn flinched like he'd been pinched.

‘Quinn…'

The way he said his name was perfect. Soft, questioning, curious. Quinn could let this happen, let the feelings unfold, and regret it all later. But now, of all the times in his life, he found his voice.

‘No.' Quinn shook his head. ‘I might be wrong here, Noah, but I think I've been picking up what you're putting down. It's hurting me. It's keeping me up at night. I can't go there right now. You can't go there right now. You hate this place, and I don't. Speak with Matty, sort that part of your life out. Your mother. You have a whole other life, Noah, that I don't fit into.'

Oh god. It hurt to admit it. Hurt to utter these words that were laced with truth. In an alternative universe peddled by Ivy, Quinn would be with Noah. But this wasn't the other universe. This was real life, and real life was complicated. Since meeting Noah, the days had bordered on fantasy.

Well, now the spell broke.

‘Quinn, listen…'

‘I can't,' Quinn said. ‘Noah. I want to. But I can't. We can't.'

Noah moved closer, leaned closer, his eyes level with his own. Quinn felt trapped, but part of him wanted to be trapped. The other part of him wanted to lean forwards so that he could experience that static shock again, that feeling of safety and warmth.

‘I'm sorry if I've done something wrong.'

Quinn gripped the arm of the sofa to steady himself. He was a glass and Noah a hammer. His words shattered him right there and then.

‘We're wrong,' Quinn interrupted. ‘I'm wrong. This is wrong.'

He wished he hadn't ruined whatever might have been forming between the two of them. He wished he could be carefree and go-lucky like Bloody Blair Beckett, but he couldn't.

Sure, Noah excited him. The idea of them being together was one that could develop and it was so easy to get lost in the illusion of something simplistic and fun. But every moment came down to the same thing: Noah didn't want to be in Hay. The only alternative to be with Noah was to leave Hay. What was the point in fighting for his shop if he couldn't be in Hay to enjoy it, to run it, to revel in the success of saving it? Why hadn't Noah realised that? Did he think he could draw Quinn away from what mattered to him on the basis that he was the sweetest man to enter Quinn's life? He couldn't entertain such frivolous moments with Noah. Not when his fear held him back. Not when his life didn't align with Quinn's.

Quinn reached out to Noah and cupped his chin. He felt stubble that was yet to flourish. Noah looked at Quinn with a pained expression, one so instinctively lustful Quinn was sure it was reflected in his own gaze.

‘You said you wished we met sooner,' Quinn whispered. ‘I do, too. Maybe our lives would have been different. But whatever might happen here, because I know you've realised something is, just like I have, we can't have it happen. We need to forget it. Come Christmas, you'll be gone, and me? Well, I don't know where I'll be. But it won't be with you. It can't be with you.'

Noah, sweet Noah, was broken like a beautiful Christmas ornament before him. The shards cut through Quinn, but he had to ignore the pain and let them slice him.

Noah placed a hand on Quinn's, but he didn't remove Quinn's touch. Instead, his lips found Quinn's hand. Staring at Quinn, he kissed his fingers, his knuckles, the back of his hand. The kiss was light, tender, and it hurt every single fibre of Quinn's being.

He could take his hand away. He could set the boundary right now. But he couldn't. After the third kiss, Noah linked his fingers through Quinn's and let them drop to their knees. Quinn felt his eyes sting, aware now that he was crying, but feeling foolish for doing so.

Noah wiped the tears away once more. ‘I'm sorry,' Noah whispered.

‘Me too,' Quinn choked. He could still feel the linger of his lips on his skin, wishing to feel them again.

He would not fight. Quinn wanted him to, but he knew Noah had heard him. He must have agreed with his words, because if he saw another option, he'd stay. He'd tell Quinn he was wrong, that there was nothing to worry about, and they could move past this silly moment and everything would be okay.

Then he was gone. The warmth faded from his hand.

Noah pulled on his hoodie. He gave Quinn one last, longing look, and then he left him behind.