Page 17 of Doors & Windows (Liam & Jonah’s Story)

Liam

“They didn’t have any pre-decorated cakes at the store,” Tucker was telling him, “so we took it upon ourselves.”

That much went without saying, really. Liam was pretty sure any bakery employee would be fired for sending a product like this out the door.

But Izzy and Tucker wore matching grins as they stood beside their pièce de résistance: a small, round cake with the words HAPPY BIRTH scrawled in messy pink icing, each successive letter growing smaller with the oh-shit realization that they were running out of room.

It was, decidedly, the best birthday cake of Liam’s life.

“That sure is something,” Liam said, though he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. It was incongruously sentimental, the soft, warm thrum of friendship he felt at the gesture . Still, he tried to play it cool, turning to Izzy with a raised brow. “I thought you were supposed to be an artist.”

“I’ll give you one guess who was on icing duty.” She cut her eyes to Tucker, who raised a hand.

“It was me. I was on icing duty. ”

“I thought that might be the case,” Liam said. Then, swallowing, he tried not to let his voice sound too earnest when he said, “Thank you. Both of you. It’s perfect.”

“Nailed it,” Tucker whispered, slipping Izzy a low-five.

The apartment was strung with fairy lights and gaudy, mix-matched tinsel they had found in a plastic bin at the back of a thrift store, which the cashier had pinched between her fingers and marked the price as “I don’t know, fifty cents?

” The lights were low, because the lights were always low, because their apartment didn’t come with overhead lighting.

But Izzy had found one of those color-changing bulbs and swapped it into the standing lamp, which washed the corner of the room in a gradient rainbow show.

Liam’s Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen counter blasted an appropriately chosen song about being twenty-two from his birthday playlist.

The best gift of all was the on my way text that glowed with promise in his back pocket.

It was hard not to think of where he had been a year ago to the day, before the night had taken a hard left turn and sent Jonah Prince barreling into his life to stay.

Tonight, all it had taken was a single word from Liam that he wasn’t a fan of crowded bars, and his roommates—his friends —had altered their plans to a night in.

That they had wanted to celebrate his birthday at all was big enough, but to take into account what Liam needed, to put his wants at the center of attention, showed just how far he had come in terms of friendship in a year’s time.

Ben had sent him a happy birthday text that morning, evoking a whole range of emotions Liam wasn’t ready to address.

He had just stared at it for a while. It was the first he had heard from him since he moved.

Frankly, he was sort of surprised Ben remembered his birthday at all.

Maybe a memory had popped up on social media.

Maybe it was a photo he had taken at the bar last year, or maybe it was the photo Ben had taken the year prior, when Liam had worked a shift at the diner on his birthday and spent the night waiting on Ben and Nathan and their real friends.

His whole body revolted at the unwelcome reminder of Nathan’s existence.

Sometimes the injustice of how things had been left was an unbearable weight on Liam’s chest. Nathan had been allowed to walk free as the bruises he’d left on Jonah took weeks to fade, and even longer for the wounds that didn’t show on the surface.

Liam hoped, at least, that the scar Jonah had left on Nathan in the end never faded.

That he always had to live with a visible reminder of what he’d done.

“No frowning on your birthday,” Izzy said, pushing a drink into his hand.

Liam accepted it gratefully, tapping the lip of his cup against hers.

By the time Jonah arrived, the apartment was swollen with bodies.

Classmates, friends of friends, and Tucker’s various friends-with-benefits sprawled in groups over rugs and couches and the unwieldy bar stools Tucker had found on the sidewalk on trash day.

The body heat was only slightly mitigated by the open windows, letting in the tepid breeze of early October.

Liam managed to pace himself despite his roommates’ encouragement to “ get fucked up, birthday boy!” but he was pleasantly buzzed when a familiar face appeared in the doorway.

He made an excited bleating noise that would have been embarrassing sober, clumsily toppling off Izzy’s lap.

Adjusting his skewed party hat, Liam slid in his socks across the wooden floor to greet Jonah.

“You’re here!” he said. And maybe his alcohol tolerance wasn’t as high as he thought, because he nearly lost his balance when he saw what Jonah was wearing.

He decided not to bring direct attention to it, but Liam couldn’t help but hook his finger in the familiar, tattered maroon sleeve at his wrist to pull him in.

They were getting better at this—the casual touching. Getting comfortable with it, though, didn’t mean getting used to it. Liam’s heart still jumped into his throat when Jonah surrendered easily to the invitation, twisting his hand to lace their fingers together.

“I’m here,” Jonah agreed. With his free hand, he held up a lilac envelope. “Happy birthday.”

A quiet beat passed between them, separate from the noise of the party. Jonah’s eyes flicked to Liam’s mouth. Liam answered the silent prompt by leaning forward and kissing him.

Something had shifted in the month since that day at the beach house.

Neither Liam or Jonah ever took for granted the other’s interest, always checking that the other was on board before doing anything sexual, but Liam knew they both felt the sizzling electricity between them when they shared a room.

They’d spent several more nights together since, alternating between Liam’s place and Jonah’s.

Weekends were their haven. Between Friday night and Sunday evening, they were attached at the hip.

During the days, they explored the city they were learning to call home, new neighborhoods each week, expanding their horizons to the places tourists didn’t frequent.

Jacob Riis Beach before the weather turned for the season, historic pizza shops in Gravesend, museums in the outer boroughs where Liam would study the art and Jonah would study Liam in his element.

On the wall above his bed, Liam had been collecting a montage of memories captured in a Polaroid camera he found at a thrift store.

There was one of Jonah standing beneath the “Prince St.” station mosaic subway tile sign.

Another of Liam trying his first cigarette (and another of him hacking up a lung immediately after).

His favorite was the photo of the two of them on Liam’s living room floor, taken by Tucker the night Izzy convinced Liam to let her pierce his ear.

Liam had one hand clutching a pillow and the other clutching Jonah, who looked at him like he was the brightest color in the world.

At night, they found new horizons in each other, inside darkened rooms, two explorers drawing their own map .

Tucker wolf-whistled from across the room, breaking apart their kiss. Jonah laughed and pressed the envelope into Liam’s hands.

“Looks like I have some catching up to do.” He lifted a hand to Liam’s ear, just above his new piercing. “Can I get you another drink?”

Liam nodded, because it was hard to form words when Jonah was touching him like this, casual and affectionate and perfect. “I’d stay away from the concoction on the counter,” he warned. “I think we accidentally made jet fuel.”

Jonah glanced past him, toward the kitchen. “You mean the plastic tub of grey, opaque liquid? Yeah, I think I’ll stick to something out of a bottle.”

He departed with one last kiss to Liam’s temple, waving a greeting to Liam’s roommates on his way over.

Liam took the moment alone to carefully tear open the envelope, making sure not to damage any of its contents.

The card he pulled out featured a cartoon dog from a children’s show and big, bubble letters across the top that read HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, with an extra 2 crammed in with marker.

A laugh startled out of him, endlessly elated by these rare glimpses into Jonah’s sense of humor, but it weaned to something softer when he opened the flap and saw the messy handwriting scrawled on the interior.

Liam,

Happy birthday.

Your boyfriend,

Jona h

Like a moth to flame, his eyes found Jonah’s from across the room. His boyfriend paused halfway through opening a bottle at the kitchen counter, a slow, sheepish smile spreading across his face.

The party went on around them, oblivious to the strange, cosmic feeling of rightness that settled over Liam.

Like this moment had been written in history long before they arrived at it.

Like no matter how unlikely it might have seemed a year ago, they were always meant to find each other.

They were exactly where they were meant to be, and happiness stretched out like an open road before them, theirs for the taking.

Liam closed the card and pressed it to his chest with gentle fingertips, hoping maybe Jonah felt it too.

The party thinned out well after midnight.

Tucker barely made it past eleven before crushing Liam in a final happy birthday hug and stumbling off toward his bedroom.

Izzy corralled their friends out of the apartment in search of a bar with an all-night kitchen.

They’d invited Liam and Jonah, but it was a pretty clear formality.

By that point in the night, there was no secrecy in their body language to hide the fact that they couldn’t wait to be alone together.

Finally, when the living room was empty except for the mess of cups and bottles that would be tomorrow’s problem, they got their wish.