Page 10 of Doors & Windows (Liam & Jonah’s Story)

Liam

The stained-glass window above Jonah’s desk was as beautiful in the first light as Liam had imagined. It was all the more beautiful for the fact that he was allowed to be here to witness it in the quiet intimacy of the sunrise.

Because Jonah had let him stay.

It was the first time Liam had ever woken in a room next to Jonah without the dread of an impending goodbye hanging over them. Despite that revelation, Liam’s heart sat heavy in his chest.

As unobtrusively as he could, he propped himself on one elbow to look down at Jonah’s sleeping form.

Liam had fallen asleep hugging the wall last night, devoted to giving Jonah some personal space.

This was after several offers on Liam’s part to take the floor or the downstairs sofa or to leave the house entirely.

Loathe as he would have been to leave Jonah alone in the aftermath of what happened, he would have done whatever it was he asked.

Jonah hadn’t sent him away, though. Liam was especially grateful for that now, getting to marvel openly at the way the rainbow light spilled over his cheekbones, catching the long shadow of his lashes .

“Good morning,” he whispered. He longed to reach out and touch him, to kiss him on the forehead where his hair had fallen back to expose an old scar at his hairline. But he kept his hands to himself.

Guilt dripped from Liam’s fingertips, stained beneath the nails with the memory of Jonah’s suffering and the knowledge that his touch had been the catalyst. Jonah had been triggered, badly, by something they’d done last night, and Liam didn’t know how to begin untangling that.

He didn’t know if Jonah would wake up angry and resentful, or if he would be anxious and avoidant, or if he would want to let the whole thing drop.

Liam didn’t know which of those options he was most afraid of.

Mostly, what he wanted to know was how to avoid ever causing Jonah pain like that again.

He could have stayed there all morning, twisting himself in knots and drinking in the vision of Jonah at rest, but he could only ignore the call of his bladder for so long.

When Jonah didn’t stir, he shifted down the bed, inching his way toward the end until his feet touched the hardwood floor. The old house creaked under his weight as Liam tiptoed toward the door and into the hallway.

On the way back from the bathroom, Liam hesitated outside Jonah’s bedroom, fingers tapping idly against the wooden banister that ran along the mezzanine of the upstairs hall.

He peeked through the crack he’d left in the doorway and found Jonah still fast asleep.

Then he glanced over the railing at the staircase and made his decision .

In the kitchen, he smiled at the vase of flowers on the countertop, looking even more beautiful here than they had in the shop, and went in search of coffee grounds.

Liam still didn’t relish the stuff, but it was his own private secret that he’d been dipping into the stash at his parents’ house every once in a while, when the aching absence of Jonah from several states away got to be too much.

For Liam, the warm, dark taste of coffee would always be inextricably linked with Friday nights and brown eyes and the feeling of falling in love.

This cup wasn’t for him, though. There was no need for soothing reminders when he had the real thing waiting for him upstairs.

The coffee was easy enough to find in the drawer beneath the machine.

Liam fumbled through the mechanics and set it to brew while he scavenged for a mug.

There was a surprising amount of them for a house with only two residents, and up until recently, only one.

Liam found himself rifling through the collection, curious about their owner.

There was a dark blue mug with a half-faded college logo that he didn’t recognize.

Another was impractically spherical, designed as a baseball with a New York Mets logo.

There was one toward the back with chipped edges and smears of old paint that spoke of a child’s craftsmanship.

Sure enough, when Liam nudged the handle with his finger, the mug turned enough to reveal the word Dad. He blinked, pulling back.

He was just closing his hand around a nondescript white mug toward the front when movement behind him made him jump. Liam spun around, but the greeting died in his throat when he saw that it wasn’t Jonah standing in the entryway.

“Oh.” Antonio Ellis sounded almost as shocked as Liam felt to find him in the kitchen. He had a duffle bag slung over one shoulder and dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t had caffeine in days.

Liam pressed his lips together, fingers tightening around ceramic. The last time Liam had seen this man face-to-face was on a darkened hotel rooftop in the dead of winter. Liam had moved to place his body as a barrier between him and Jonah, and he had to fight the instinct to do the same now.

He knew he was being slightly irrational. He didn’t particularly care.

“Jonah invited me,” he said in lieu of a greeting.

He resented the hint of a smile that formed on Ellis’s mouth. “I figured.”

Liam bit back the urge to defend himself against the use of his kitchen. This was Jonah’s house, too, according to Ellis’s repeated insistence. But he didn’t seem to mind either way.

“There enough coffee in there for three?” Ellis asked.

Begrudgingly, Liam mumbled, “Should be.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back down for some in a bit.”

Take your time, Liam didn’t say aloud, though he turned his back on him and hoped he got the message.

The truth was this: Liam didn’t know if he had it in him to forgive this man for the part he had played in Jonah’s torment, regardless of the role he played now in his redemption.

He tried to bite his tongue about his reservations for the most part.

He would never stand in the way of Jonah’s road to freedom.

He trusted Jonah when he said he trusted Antonio Ellis, but he also had to reconcile that with the knowledge of just how many trusted people in Jonah’s life had been at the root of his pain.

Ellis hovered in the doorway of the kitchen, fingers tapping against the frame. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here,” he said unexpectedly. “I think he really missed you.”

Liam watched the rest of the coffee sputter to the halfway line in shocked stillness, listening to Ellis’s retreat up the stairs.

Jonah was awake when he returned to the bedroom, sitting up with his arms loosely hugging his knees. He looked up when Liam entered, though his eyes only lifted as far as the mug in his hands, deftly avoiding his gaze. Liam ignored the twist in his stomach.

“Hey you,” he said, perching on the edge of the bed.

“Hi.” Jonah’s voice was rock salt and gravel first thing in the morning—a sound Liam hadn’t gotten to enjoy in far too long.

He held out the coffee, pleased when Jonah’s fingers slid over his own to accept it. “Your roommate is home,” Liam said.

“I heard.” Jonah lifted the cup and took a sip. “Thanks for this.”

They fell quiet, the distant patter of shower spray starting up down the hall.

Jonah sipped his coffee, and Liam tried not to watch him too closely.

He was a sight to behold in just his boxer briefs and t-shirt, but there was a clear line of tension in the way he held himself. Like he was bracing for impact.

Liam knew he should say something, that they should talk about last night. Somehow the idea was even more intimidating in the light of day than it had been in the heat of the moment.

He wasn’t naive about what he was getting into with Jonah. Even if they had been fine the last and only time they’d skirted the edges of intimacy together, it didn’t mean Jonah could shrug off his past like an old coat.

Privately, Liam had been doing research.

It felt like too clinical a word for it, but that was what it was at its core: reading whatever he could find on how to be a supportive partner to someone who had the kind of complex trauma that Jonah did.

What happened last night wasn’t outside the scope of what he should have expected, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to handle the reality of it.

He recognized that the only way to work through this was to communicate, even if it was hard. Especially if it was hard.

But Jonah looked so vulnerable tucked into the corner of his bed, hands tight enough around his mug for his fingernails to whiten. He was waiting for the bomb to drop, and Liam couldn’t bring himself to deliver the blow.

Just because they needed to talk about it, didn’t mean they needed to talk about it right now.

“So,” Liam began, hating the way Jonah held his breath as he did. “I seem to recall your rave review of a bagel shop around here?”

Jonah looked up. There was something like gratitude in his expression .

Tentatively, Liam reached forward to wrap his hand around Jonah’s bony ankle, just for the tangible anchor of physical touch. “My treat?”

Jonah exhaled. He nodded.

Liam would find a better time to talk about what needed to be said. He would . Just not today.

The trouble with attending art school in New York City was that, no matter what skill level you brought to the table, no matter how far you outshot your classmates in whatever advanced placement high school art class you came from, you were most likely to become a small fish in a big pond overnight.

For someone like Liam, who already carried an inferiority complex on his back like a boulder, this was a non-ideal headspace to be in.

If he had already felt like a small fish in his rural Illinois hometown, what did that make him now? A fucking tadpole?