The Best Man: Part Three (FINAL) (2 page)

“He’d be a good friend to you if you let him. Once he cares about someone, there’s nothing he won’t do to make you happy.” He hums contemplatively. “He’s done so much for me in the past.”

The burn prickles behind Noah’s eyelids and he blinks it away furiously, hating himself, angry at his own reaction. He shifts up on to his elbows and pastes a smile on his face for Connor.

“Can’t imagine anyone doing as much for me as you have.” He dips down for a soft kiss, swallows against the lump in his throat when this kiss gives him nothing. But he continues, because he made his choice long before Patrick came along and twisted him up from the inside. “You’ve changed my life, Connor. And I do love you.”

“That’s good,” Connor says, grinning. “Because you’re stuck with me now.”

His words serve to make a hollow dent in Noah’s gut, and he fights to keep the smile on his face.

There’s a knock on the door, and Conner’s calling, “Come in,” before Noah can move away from him, desperate now to be anywhere but draped over Connor when that door opens.

Only it’s too late, and Patrick stands there in the doorway, looking at them both sandwiched together. Noah wonders if Connor recognises that look in Patrick’s eyes like he does, reads the same emotion glinting there.

“Uh…I’m just going out. I’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”

“You’re coming to the thing tonight at the pub, aren’t you?” Connor asks, still sweeping his hand through Noah’s hair. “I’ve got tickets.”

“Yeah…yeah.” He clears his throat, and he looks away from them. “I’ll be back before then,” he says, and he doesn’t bid them goodbye before leaving.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and there’s a party going on at the pub later, and Noah doesn’t feel at all like celebrating.

“These past few months have gone so quickly,” he mumbles quietly, almost to himself. “It’s a new year tonight.”

Connor tilts Noah’s face up, makes him look at him. “You know they say the person you kiss at midnight is the person you’ll be kissing for the rest of the year.”

And all Noah can do now is brush everything aside, and give Connor this. “Then you best come find me and snog my face off.”

“Gladly,” Connor says with a grin, pulling Noah in for a kiss.

Connor goes into work late that afternoon for a couple of hours, and the weight of despondency has Noah choosing to take a nap rather than face the day alone. When he wakes up it’s dark outside, and he climbs out of bed, feeling sluggish. He goes to the bathroom but the door’s locked, and the shower’s running, and he knows Connor’s not here so it must be Patrick. He doesn’t know what to do, where to go. Into the bedroom again to hide; into the kitchen to act normal.

He doesn’t get chance to do anything. The shower shuts off, and someone’s nailed his feet to the floor, because he can’t move away from this door.

He’s standing there stupidly when Patrick comes out, a towel hung low on his hips, his skin damp and flushed.

Noah hasn’t before seen him without clothes. Never really had a look at his body, the cut of his muscles, the hair that spreads over his chest, trails down his tummy, a line dipping into the towel below his navel. He stands there and stares, and Patrick stands there and lets him, and he’s mesmerised, blood rushing through his veins, white noise echoing through his head.

He doesn’t snap out of it until Patrick takes a step forward, and he takes a step back, and he stammers out, “I didn’t know you were back.”

“You were asleep,” Patrick says. He gives Noah a look that travels the full length of his body. “Are you gonna get ready to go to this thing?”

Noah nods. His mouth has run uncomfortably dry. “Connor’s meeting us there. He had to go to work.”

Patrick doesn’t have anything to say to that. He brushes past Noah, looking down into his eyes and his mouth as he passes, the heat and exposure of him washing over Noah and making his breath hitch.

He goes and gets his own shower, and then he dresses, and feels he should probably have something to eat before going out drinking but he doesn’t want to, doesn’t have the stomach for it.

They don’t speak as they leave together and step out into the cold, no words exchanged until they start walking in the soft fall of snow, Patrick glancing at him out the side of his eye and murmuring, “You look nice.”

Noah blushes red, and he mutters, “So do you,” in response, and that’s it for conversation for a long while.

They separate when they arrive at the pub, Noah heading for one end of the bar and Patrick the other, dozens of people between them. The place is packed already, and there’s a makeshift dance floor set up in front of a DJ’s booth, scantily clad women giving it their best.

Noah drinks, and then he drinks, and he waits for Connor, and he burns under the weight of Patrick’s gaze from across the room. The room gets louder around him, midnight fast approaching, partygoers excited to ring in a new year, drinking their way through the lead up to the countdown. There’s half an hour left of this year, and Noah spends it drinking steadily, his stomach empty of food, filling up with vodka.

He gets drunk enough to stumble onto the dance floor, and he can
still
feel Patrick’s gaze on him and it infuriates him, that Patrick can pin him so easily, work his way into Noah’s veins and mind and the warm corners of his chest. He dances, and he’s wasted, and there are hands on him, a body pressing against him from behind, and he pushes back into it, lets those hands roam over his chest, pays attention to nothing and no one other than his buzz of intoxication and this body he’s grinding against. Until the body’s suddenly ripped away from him, and Patrick’s there snarling, telling the faceless person to get out of here, and then he’s rounding on Noah with absolute, gut-wrenching rage in his eyes.

“What d’you think you’re doing?” he growls at him, and Noah’s not intimidated, doesn’t care how furious this man is.

He’s got enough anger in him for the both of them.

“What d’you think
you’re
doing?” he shouts, and he shoves Patrick. Patrick shoves back, then fists his hands in Noah’s shirt, tugs him close.

“You’re meant to be a married man,” he snarls, “and you’re here climbing over some other guy.”

“I was just dancing!” Noah yells into his face, and Patrick looks at him in disgust, pushes him away, storms towards the door.

Noah’s on his heels the whole time. “What’s the matter,” he asks viciously as he follows Patrick out into the cold. “Are you jealous?”

Patrick doesn’t stop, keeps marching on, his whole body stiff with tension. “Don’t push me, Noah.”

“No, come on,” Noah says, trying to grab at Patrick, make him stop. Patrick shakes him off every time, determined in his mission to get away. “Maybe we need to get it out there,” he pushes desperately. “Talk about this thing.”

“There is no thing.”

“Oh, don’t even try that! Connor’s not here right now so you don’t have to lie.” He comes to a stop, and he watches Patrick walk away, and he bellows, “I know you want me, Patrick!”

Patrick freezes, and Noah’s breath catches in his throat, and an endless moment extends before him as he waits for something to happen.

Then Patrick turns, and he’s coming towards him, and he’s suddenly in Noah’s face. And before Noah can think or breathe or react, Patrick grabs him and flings him into a doorway, crowds in until he’s pressed so close they’re almost one body, and his breath is hot on Noah’s face when he whispers, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

There’s the thunderous roar of raised voices from the pub behind them, the stamp of feet and the clap of hands, the countdown,
ten, nine, eight…

Noah’s heart’s in his throat, and Patrick’s face is the picture of painful desperation, his eyes dark and burning and his breath stuttering over Noah’s face—

…three, two, one…

The fireworks tearing through the night, the screams from the pub behind him, the cheers and the clapping and the celebration, the explosion of noise all around him—none of it comes close to the tidal wave of exhilaration that rockets through Noah’s system in the moment Patrick’s mouth crashes down on his, and he pushes up into it, and simultaneous groans punch out of them as they both go in with everything they have and grab at each other, and devour each other, and the thought pierces through Noah’s brain—
the person you kiss at midnight is the person you’ll be kissing for the rest of the year.
He opens his mouth wider to Patrick’s tongue and sucks the air from his lungs, collapses further back into this corner, dragging Patrick with him, trying to get him closer, closer—

Patrick pulls away suddenly, making Noah whimper, and he tips their foreheads together, breathes hot, panting breaths against Noah’s lips.

“Get out of here,” he chokes out, eyes squeezed shut. “Get out of my face before I do something we’ll both regret.”

Then he grabs Noah and pushes him out of the doorway, and he scrubs a hand over his face, and he walks away.

Noah goes home.

Patrick doesn’t.

* * * * *

“Babe. Babe.”

Noah wakes up suddenly, pain lancing through his head and making him groan. There’s a hand shaking him, and he peels his eyes open, comes face to face with Connor and the living room spinning around him.

He’s on the couch. He doesn’t even remember coming through the front door.

“God, I’m sorry,” Connor wails as soon as he sees Noah’s awake, and then he’s gathering him in his arms and hugging the life out of him. “Are you okay?”

“What…? Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I tried calling last night but I had no signal,” Connor explains, leaning back to look Noah in the face, “and I couldn’t get through the traffic with all the snow. Had to go back to the office and stay there. You must’ve been going out of your mind with worry.”

And suddenly Noah remembers, all of it, every detail crashing into his mind and making his stomach lurch.

He realises, with a hot sweep of guilt, that he never even noticed the lack of Connor last night, not when his every thought and movement had been consumed by Patrick.

“Uh… Yeah, yeah, I was,” he says awkwardly, nodding, trying to look relieved and concerned. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I’ll make it up to you today, though,” Connor promises, hugging him again.

It’s when he’s nestled in Connor’s arms, surrounded by Connor’s apology and affection, that he asks, “Is Patrick back?”

“You didn’t come home with him last night?”

“No.” Noah closes his eyes, presses his face into Connor’s shoulder. Feels like if he looks out at the world, he’ll have to face the power of emotion filling him, emotion that has nothing to do with the man currently smothering him half to death. “He went off somewhere.”

“Typical Patrick,” Connor says with a laugh. “But no, he’s not here. Probably waking up in some stranger’s bed knowing him.”

Noah swallows the rise of acid in his throat.

* * * * *

He doesn’t see Patrick again until the following day. He’s at work, and Ron’s halfway through telling him what he got up to over the holidays, and he looks out the window just in time to catch Patrick walking past.

He rushes to the door, leaves Ron hanging, doesn’t really know what he’s going to say to Patrick, only knowing that he has to see him.

But he freezes in the doorway, because Patrick’s otherwise occupied. He’s talking to a lad outside the corner shop, and he’s standing close to him like he does with Noah, and whatever he’s murmuring seems to be doing the trick because the lad’s eyelids flutter, and he nods, and then Patrick pulls out his phone, types out something as the guy speaks.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there watching but eventually the guy walks away, shooting Patrick a lingering, flirty smile as he does so, and then Patrick turns as if sensing Noah, meets his eye across the way.

Noah wonders if Patrick was aware of him all through that exchange.

He leaves the coffee house to approach Patrick, and Patrick walks away from the corner shop to meet him in the middle, and they stop within feet of each other like something out of the Wild West.

It’s ridiculous, and Noah’s hands are shaking.

“Hiya,” he tries.

“Noah.”

Noah swallows. “Where’ve you been?”

“Here and there.”

“Connor’s gonna start wondering.”

“He knows what I’m like,” Patrick says. “Me going missing for a few days is nothing new to him.”

Noah nods, and he licks his lips, and he wishes more than anything that Patrick would give something away here, a look or a gleam in his eye or
something.
“Were you…were you taking that guy’s number?”

“Yes.” There’s a hesitation before he adds, “We’re gonna make some plans.”

“What, like a drink or something?” Noah’s gut is twisting with displeasure, his vision narrowing to Patrick’s face, seeing nothing but him, and the complete blankness of his eyes.

Patrick’s smile is dirty and full of innuendo and completely, desperately fake. “Probably not those kind of plans.”

“Don’t.” The word slips out of Noah before he has chance to consider it.