Page 41 of Rock the Cradle of Love
“My phone’s been dead or off. He called eight times, left three messages. The last one said we were over.”
“That’s still shitty.”
“He didn’t have a choice. I lied. I never called him. He doesn’t know what’s going on with me.”
“What? Why? After all that fuss you made?”
“I know but...” He sniffs back his clogged sinuses. “These things kept happening to keep me from calling and then I thought maybe I’m really supposed to think about about being with him.”
“Okay, but you should have least let him know where you were and why.”
“I know,” he croaks.
“Rewind a bit, though. Tell me what happened.” Suze returns to her chair.
Taylor swipes at his face and takes a breath, then runs his damp hands down his pajama pant legs. “Noah…he’s asexual, and I did some research on the Internet.”
“Okaaay…Why didn’t you talk to Noah?”
“I don’t know.” Taylor drops his head to the back of the chair and stares at the textured ceiling. “He’d explained. I just wanted to know more about it.”
“That’s fair.”
“I’m almost always the instigator, Suze. You know, for sex?” Her cough brings his gaze back to hers and he’s tempted to smirk, but he’s not feeling it, not even a little bit. “I started feeling weirded out by that and guilty, so I thought maybe we shouldn’t have sex anymore.”
She leans back and crosses her arms in that mom way that all women have. “Uh huh.”
Taylor sighs. He replays his and Noah’s conversation in his head yet again. Another snippet occurs to him. He drops his head to the table with a thunk. “And—fuck—I think I insulted him, and I definitely accused him of using me and maybe of not wanting me the right way? No, not maybe. Definitely. Shit.”
Suzan’s fingers slide through his too-long hair. “What was your intent, Tay?” she asks softly.
“I just want him to be comfortable with our sexual relationship; I want to be comfortable with it too, and I wasn’t, so I…”
“So you went to the Internet instead of to Noah and you caught foot-in-mouth disease?”
“I’m an idiot,” he says to the table.
“Your intentions were good, Tay. Execution, not so much.”
“And now there’s a hearing, he said, about Emma, and he’s worried, and I’m not there, and I should be.” He presses his cheek to the cool surface of the table.
“Who’s Emma?”
“The little girl he’s adopting.” Taylor fishes his phone out of his pocket and finds a picture. He can’t hardly breath for how hard his heart clenches with love and want. Noah’s lying on his bed and Emma’s lying sideways next to him; their heads are touching and he’s got hold of her little feet. Taylor had to stand on the mattress to get the shot, but it’s priceless.
Suzan looks from the phone to Taylor, eyes big. “Oh my God, Taylor. She’s gorgeous. And Noah, wow, those muscles.”
Taylor stares at the image. He fucked that up. They’re not his anymore.
“Have you spoken to Noah at all?”
He shakes his head. “He kicked me out, I got drunk, you called, my phone died, you know the rest and here we are.”
“I’m sorry, Tay.”
“I should have listened to those niggling doubts about our incompatibility. But, fuck, I’d wanted him for so long, and when he agreed to us being a thing, I just brushed ‘em aside. And now look what it got me.”
Suzan rises and brushes a kiss across his temple. “I’m sorry, brother. Try to get some rest. We’ve got another busy day tomorrow.” She disappears into the dark hallway and leaves him to his misery.
