Page 28 of Noah
“Ah. Creative insults. I didn’t know that was something you excelled at.”
Jensen smiles. “I have many talents you do not know about yet.”
“I believe it. I think I experienced one of said talents last night,” he says, and Jensen laughs as he goes to pour them both coffee. “Are you still my good boy?”
Noah puts his phone down and goes into the bedroom, grabs the dolphin, and comes back. He rests his chin on top of the animal as Jensen sets down a cup of coffee in front of him.
“You’re a menace. A beautiful fucking menace with that stuffed dolphin.”
Noah winds up getting held in his daddy‘s arms for several long perfect moments. “What do I do? Do I say something or do I just leave it alone and send the message as is?”
“If you tell him that you’d like to boil him alive and then feed him to sharks what do you think his response would be?”
“To be fair, I’d like to boil him alive and then cut him into pieces while he’s still alive, and then feed him to the sharks. And if there was some way he could see himself being fed to the sharks— to have that existential crisis right before the end— that would be”, he kisses his fingers, the universal sign for ‘chef’s kiss.’
“I could take videos and hold the bucket. people would ask how we met and we could show them the video of our first proper date. Hannibal romance.”
Noah laughs. “The problem is that once your first date starts off with murder and boats and sharks, you can really only go downhill from there.”
“Good point. But, if anyone deserves sharks and boats and murder, it’s you. My good boy deserves everything. Just to be clear.”
And then there’s silence as Noah tries to figure out the answer to the very serious question they’re inappropriately joking around. “If I told him how much I hate him, the truth is I don’t think he’d care. I don’t think he’d realize what he did to me and feel remorse. And I think what I want more than anything is for him to leave me alone. I wish I’d never met him.”
“Poor boy,” he murmurs and pulls Noah in close. “If you speak to him honestly and you tell him how much he has hurt you and you say something cruel or vengeful, is he more likely to pursue you or back off? If he’s angry or hurt, is he going to be aggressive or contact you more, try to bad mouth you to everyone, or just leave you alone?”
“I don’t know,” he says, suddenly exhausted.
“If you take all the emotion out of it—which admittedly is pretty difficult to do— maybe the question is how do you get to move past this the most quickly? What do you need to start healing and move on?”
“You know what he’s like? He’s like a tar pit. Have you seen one of those? They have one in Los Angeles, and animals would walk into it and sink. They couldn’t escape. I’m like some dumb dinosaur that wandered in but I’ve managed to escape. Do I go back and put my foot in the tar pit to try to kick the damned thing or do I just walk away?”
“I don’t know.”
He sighs, heavily. “I just want to block his number and move on.”
“I’m going to make eggs while you think it over. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to decide what would be more helpful for you here. Giving you some space for you to think it through and come to your own decision, or help you by giving you a nudge in a specific direction.”
“That’s what a good daddy would do, isn’t it? Help his boy decide?”
The expression on Jensen’s face is soft and sappy and more than Noah ever thought he’d get. Someone looking at him with that level of interest, almost worship, and joy and all he has to do is be himself? How fucking lucky is he?
“I think you’ve done plenty. And I know I’m gonna block his number and delete all the messages and tell him to stop contacting me. I’m really just trying to decide if I say ‘fuck you’ or do I just leave it alone.”
Noah decides to go for a walk. Puts on shoes and a jacket and gets bundled up and heads out into the chilly December morning hoping it will help him think. Of course, he’s barely two minutes down the road before his phone rings. And once again it’s Johann because the asshole apparently has nothing else to do besides harass him. There’s an explosion of anxiety and fear that rockets through him as the phone vibrates in his hand.
Fuck this. Noah answers the phone. “What?” he demands.
There’s a pause, and he takes that to mean that Johann didn’t think he’d answer.
“I’m wondering when you’re going to come home,” Johann says, and Noah wants to take a shower, scrub endlessly to get rid of the monster he gave himself to.
“I’m not. Ever. We’re done. I’m gonna block your number as soon as we hang up. I don’t want you to hurt me anymore and I don’t want to be called a whore and a slut and any other demeaning thing you can think of. I don’t know why I ever thought it was fun.”
The surprising thing is how calm he sounds. Shouldn’t he be yelling at Johann? Where is the anger? All he really feels is numbness and a desire to get this over with.
