Page 118 of Hurt

Elijah cracked a smile and ducked his head. “I just…it’s not something I want to talk about.”

Noah nodded like he understood. “Tell me something else.”

“Like what?”

He looked at the can in Elijah’s fingers and snaked it from him. Upending the contents into his mouth, he grimaced and wiped the wetness from his pretty pink lips. Elijah wondered if they would taste like soda or if they were sweeter. Like vanilla chapstick—as addicting as it was sickly sweet.

“The exact opposite of what you’re thinking about right now,” Noah answered.

Elijah didn’t know what the opposite of Noah’s lips was.

The silence must have dragged on for too long because Noah bumped Elijah’s hip with his. “Tell me how you came to the Weaver Syndicate.”

Elijah dropped his head and stared at the dumpster below them. “It’s not that exciting of a story. The Weavers raided a drug house that belonged to the Vega Cabal. Apparently, the dealer had a habit of robbing local businesses. He messed up and robbed one under the Weavers protection. The Weavers went to take care of it, and a bunch of coked-out drug addicts opened fire. Ended about how you would expect.”

Noah didn’t look at him. “Your family?”

“Mhmm,” Elijah hummed in assent. “Found me in the back room. Took me in. The rest is history.”

“You’re a Vega.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t said cruelly.

“I’m a Weaver,” Elijah said resolutely.

Noah finally turned to look at him. The look on his face was unreadable, but there was a small wrinkle between his sculpted eyebrows, and his lips were pressed together.

“I wish I felt that kind of loyalty.”

They were standing shoulder to shoulder. Close enough that the mingled scent of Noah and his laundry detergent overrode the smell of fried foods.

“You’re an—”

“Elliott,” he spat with lips twisted as if he had just tasted something particularly unpleasant. “Elliott. Weaver. Vega. It’s all so medieval. I’m the heir to White Sand Mesa just because I was born. No one asked me if I wanted it or if I was qualified to do it. I barely remember my father. Yet I’m his legacy.” His eyes took on a hard glint. “My uncle told me that the whole of White Sand Mesa breathed a sigh of relief when I was born. Can you imagine that?”

Elijah couldn’t.

“You have a reason to be grateful to the Weavers. You’ve proven yourself useful. But me? I’m expected to live and die for people who don’t even care about me. They care about the ‘Heir.’ Not Noah.” He turned his wrist and exposed the soft underside of his forearm. He touched the pulse point at the base of his palm.

Elijah stared at it. He had never considered something like blood. He didn’t care who his parents were—he couldn’t even remember them. He was a Weaver.

He closed his hand around Noah’s wrist and captured the hand that was feeling his pulse.

“Blood doesn’t mean anything. It’s the people you’d fight and die for that matter most. The ones you trust at your back. That’s not a privilege that can be bought or born into. That’s earned.”

Jamie wasn’t biologically related to him, but there was no one he trusted more in the world. Kurt had been ready to die for Willow, and they didn’t share a drop of blood.

Noah looked up at him, but his eyes never made it to his. They lingered on his lips.

“You’re the only person who has ever seen me,” Noah breathed solemnly. “Even Kurt and Willow see me as an Elliott. Or as Hazel’s son. But you…you have always looked at me like I was just Noah.”

Just.

Noah wasn’t just anything. He wasn’t just the White Sand Mesa heir or just Hazel’s son.

He was the person who made Elijah feel like a human. The one who could give him a reprieve from the ever-present black guilt that lingered in the periphery. Full of surprises, Elijah stopped trying to guess what he would do or say next because the revelation was always so much sweeter. Noah possessed a diamond mind—as beautiful as it was impenetrable. He was a riddle that Elijah never wanted to solve.

To him, Noah was everything.

Noah had drifted closer to him. He lifted his eyes, and Elijah saw they were shining wetly. He raised his chin, and their lips were brought so painfully close that just the barest of movements would connect them. So close that it felt like they might already be touching. The tender nerves along their lips were already reaching for each other, getting closer with every exhalation that ghosted across their lips.