Page 9 of Doors & Windows (Liam & Jonah’s Story)

“Do you want to tell me what it was ?” Liam tried again after a moment. “Not that there needs to be a reason,” he added quickly. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

Jonah closed his eyes. He didn’t agree, but neither did he think he could bring himself to explain it out loud.

It was the memory of another man in his bed. It was the collective memory of hundreds of other hands on his skin. It was the reminder that Jonah carried the grime of his past across state lines, and how he would never be good enough for someone like Liam. Jonah would never be normal .

He was twenty years old. He should be able to go on a date with a boy he liked—one that he loved —and then bring him back to his room without a chorus of malevolent spectators circling his bed.

He couldn’t say that to Liam. He couldn’t say anything. He didn’t have the words, so he settled for a sharp jerk of his head.

“Okay,” Liam said. “That’s alright.” Then, “Is there something I can do?”

You could leave, a cruel voice itched at Jonah from the darkest corner of his mind. You could run away now and never look back. Find someone who isn’t broken beyond repair and save us both the pain of watching me ruin this thing between us in agonizing slow motion.

But even the thought of speaking that into existence—the thought of Liam heeding the advice and walking out of his room—opened a chasm of dread in his chest.

“I think,” Jonah began, licking the dry lips that still buzzed with the memory of contact. “I just need a minute?”

“Of course. Take all the time you need.”

He tried to take that to heart, to convince himself that Liam’s patience and understanding wasn’t a lie. That it was, in fact, the truest thing Jonah had ever known. He allowed himself a few deep breaths, then nodded, a silent confirmation that he was back inside his own body for the moment.

“Jonah?” Liam began. “Can I touch you?”

Jonah hesitated, distrustful of his own reactions. But this was Liam, and Jonah knew his touch would be safe. He knew that Liam would back down the moment Jonah asked him to. For that reason, he allowed himself to say, “Yes.”

A moment later, a palm flattened against his bare back. Jonah took a deep breath, Liam’s hand moving with his expanding ribcage, like his touch was an extension of Jonah’s own body. Liam dragged his hand slowly up his spine, then back down.

“Just this,” Liam whispered, repeating the motion in gentle, steady strokes. “Just like this, nothing more. Is that okay?”

Jonah nodded.

Minutes passed, and the tension began to ebb under Liam’s steady ministrations.

Jonah’s jaw unclenched, the stiffness in his neck receded little by little.

Liam must have sensed him relaxing into his touch, because the movements changed a little on his next stroke, his thumb dragging a smooth line of pressure along the inner edge of his shoulder blade.

Jonah sighed his encouragement, and Liam repeated that same pattern a few more times before bringing his other hand to the opposite shoulder. The mattress shifted as Liam settled onto his knees behind him.

“Still good?”

Jonah reached for his voice. “Yeah,” he managed. “It’s good.”

Liam wasn’t particularly skilled at the art of massage. His hands were awkward and uncertain, struggling to find the right pressure and hit the right marks, but it was so earnestly Liam, and it was exactly what Jonah needed .

When the last embers of his panic burned out, a residue of shame was left in its wake. His hands no longer shook, but they were damp with cold sweat as he placed them on his thighs.

“I think…” Jonah pulled in a breath, his words careful and steady. “I’m okay now. I can try again.”

Liam’s hands stilled on his shoulders, then pulled back entirely.

The sudden loss of his touch was like stepping off a moving walkway and onto solid ground, a jolt to Jonah’s equilibrium that had the world rocking beneath him.

The bed shifted again as Liam crawled toward the edge, swinging his legs off so that he was sitting next to Jonah.

He didn’t touch him, but his gaze was a steady burn against his cheek.

“Jonah, you don't have to do that.”

“I can . I know how to do this.”

He thought he saw Liam flinch in his periphery and only then realized how that sounded. “You can understand how that might not be the most encouraging thing to hear?”

Jonah shook his head. He was messing this up again. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant… I’m really okay now, I just—”

“Nothing has to happen tonight,” Liam said. “It’s okay.”

Jonah grimaced down at the floorboards between his sock feet. “I made you come all the way here for nothing.”

“‘For nothing?’” Liam leaned down to try and catch his eye. “I came here to be with you, Jonah. Because I wasn’t ready for the night to end. It was never about…” He waved a hand in the general direction of the bed behind them.

Jonah pinched his eyes shut, shaking his head. “There’s usually a certain expectation ”—he swallowed the word—“when your date invites you back to their house.”

“Jonah, I’ve shared a lot of rooms with you. Most of them with beds. We’ve never had to take our clothes off for you to hold my interest.”

That was exactly why Jonah wanted to now.

“I want this.” Jonah’s voice was raw when he finally looked up at him. “I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve wanted this with you for a long time, and now that I— we —finally have the chance, I…”

“You what?”

What indeed?

Jonah swallowed. “I told you, back in Chicago that I didn’t know how capable I was of doing something like this. I had hoped that by now things would be different. I thought they might have been. I don’t like that I was wrong.”

Liam’s expression was so genuinely sad that Jonah had to look away again, until Liam called his attention back to him with a soft, “Hey.” Jonah looked up. “Do you remember what I said back to you that night?”

Jonah did. Liam had promised that he wouldn’t put time constraints on Jonah’s recovery, and Jonah had clung to that promise for months with bleeding fingers.

“Did you think there was an expiration date on that?” Liam asked. “There wasn’t. And even if there was, I’m sure it would stretch further than months after everything you’ve been through.”

“I’m sorry.” Jonah didn’t know what else to say.

“Don’t you dare,” Liam told him. “If I can’t apologize for this, neither can you.”

Exhaustion draped over him like a weighted blanket. His body reeled from the peak and the subsequent crash of adrenaline. He couldn’t push back against Liam’s claims, and why would he want to? He was offering Jonah an out he couldn’t afford not to take.

Liam’s hand landed on the mattress between them, palm down on the sheets. Jonah didn’t need to think twice before placing his own on top and pushing his fingers through the spaces between Liam’s.

“It’s okay,” Liam told him. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Jonah wanted so badly to believe him.