Again

“I really thought I was done with weddings,” Aidan sighed. “Why, why can’t people just live in sin?” “Oh shut up,” Caitlin cut him off. “Nobody asked your opinion. And you two still owe me a bachelor party, so you better start enjoying yourself.” “I am enjoying myself,” he said with forced cheer. “Should I go rescue Bailey?” They both glanced toward the dance floor, where Noah — all six feet of him — somehow still managed to look small next to the towering man he was dancing with. The guy was at least a head taller, and probably one and a half Noahs wide. His enormous paws rested politely on Noah’s waist, and there was an awkwardly massive foot of space between them — as though someone had taught them middle school slow-dance etiquette in case of emergency. “Why did you look at him?!” Caitlin smacked Aidan’s arm. “He’ll feel it and use it as an excuse to bail—look ,look! He already is!” Sure enough, Noah had stopped moving and was clearly talking. Aidan — apparently fluent not only in lip-reading but in interpreting body language from the back — began narrating: “Honored sir, your dance skills are without flaw, and your sense of rhythm is beyond praise. And these leather shorts—ah, forgive me, that was inappropriate. Oh, you don’t mind? Well, the time I’ve spent in your company will remain with me always, as will your refined manners. But you see, my husband is a passionate and temperamental creature—there, by the bar, next to the goddess in human form.” (Noah, as if on cue, turned and pointed.) Aidan gave a winning smile and waved at both him and his dance partner. “Ah, they’re both otherworldly,” comes a prompt correction. “Yes, of course, you’re right. So you understand, I’m sure—” “Absolutely, I get it—jealous husbands, a nightmare! My Marvin’s the same way sometimes…” “Goodbye.” “Let’s hug.” “Let’s not.” “Wasn’t a question.” Smooch smooch. “That was an excellent dub,” Caitlin said approvingly. “And I especially enjoyed how, in your version, Greg had never met you and fully believed Noah — fascinating character work.” Bailey made it back to them and collapsed gratefully onto a barstool. “Well, that’s it. I’m officially done dancing.” “You’re so boring,” his husband said. “And ungrateful. Greg is the most delightful man here—present company excluded, of course. No one—no one—walks away from Greg. Look, even Pete didn’t.” “It’s true,” Pete nodded. “I’ve never felt so safe, so at peace, as I did in Greg’s arms. It was like being shielded from the world and all its confusion.” “Exactly,” Aidan agreed. “He radiates calm.” “Ugh, now I want a turn with Greg,” Caitlin said with theatrical envy. “Get in line, lady,” Aidan told her. “He’s booked solid through spring.” “Then how did I get a dance right away?” Noah asked, narrowing his eyes. “Favoritism,” Aidan said smoothly. “Can I get in on that?” Blake asked. “No.” “But it’s my bachelor party. You’re supposed to do whatever I want.” “We’re not,” Aidan said calmly, sipping the cocktail that had just arrived. “We don’t like your fiancé.” “Aid,” Noah said, attempting a tone of disapproval. “It’s rude to say stuff like that.” “You think he’s that naive? That he actually believes we like Jeffrey? Sure, babe.” “I like him,” Pete offered. “Don’t oversell it,” Caitlin sighed, rolling her eyes. “Well, maybe not like like, but he did do a great job rewiring our basement.” “And I’m incredibly grateful that you were the one doing all the communication with him,” Caitlin said sweetly, giving him a kiss. “This is the worst bachelor party imaginable,” Blake groaned. “Be grateful we’re not actively mocking you,” Aidan said. “We could be.” “You are actively mocking me. You’ve been doing it all night.” “Well, whose fault is that? You went and picked someone who’s practically tailor-made to be laughed at. Especially next to you.” “Don’t listen to him, Cooper,” Caitlin said, wrapping an arm around the groom. “There’s nothing funny about the fact that you’re going to be an evil stepmother.” “What?” Noah blinked. “Wait—what does that mean?” “Jeff has a daughter,” Blake muttered. “From his first marriage. She’s ten. She lives in Texas with her mom most of the time. I’m not a stepmother. So can we not.” “Oh Blake,” Aidan sighed. “Tell me you already have a vest with fifty pockets and a terrifying hat to go hunting in. Jeff’ll want to share his passions. Maybe you’ll learn to make taxidermy mounts! He can install special backlit display shelves in the basement—just for small game.” “Alright, Moore, let’s go.” Cooper stood up. “I’m sensing you’re the epicenter of all this trolling.” “Is it even safe to go with you?” Aidan asked. “Do you have a toothbrush shiv stashed somewhere on you, or are we just assuming you’ve picked up a lifehack or two from your prison-hardened future husband?” “Jeff has never been to prison! How many times do I have to say that? Where do you even get this stuff?!” “From Aidan,” Pete said brightly — and got pinched by Caitlin for his honesty. “Well, that tracks,” Blake muttered, grabbing the source of all misinformation by the wrist and dragging him toward the door. “Don’t kill each other!” Caitlin called after them. Then added, under her breath, “Or do something even worse.” Walking out of a hot, crowded club into the almost-frosty October night wearing almost nothing was, in hindsight, a bit reckless. “You’re acting weird,” Blake said. “Oh please. Like you’re being reasonable.” “What’s unreasonable about me?” “You’re getting married. To the dumbest man in Wisconsin.” “An impressively objective opinion. I won’t even bother suggesting you get to know him better and maybe change your mind.” “How would you even suggest that? Or pull it off? I guarantee I’m saved in his phone as That Bitch. If I tried to give a toast at your wedding, he’d rig the mic to electrocute me. So no, thanks. I’m not coming.” “You and Bailey already RSVPed yes.” “Well, I changed my mind.” “Then cough up a hundred eighty bucks for your catering plate. We’re past the refund deadline.” “A hundred eighty?! What are you feeding people?! And where the hell did you even get that kind of money?” “Do you know how much electrical engineers make?” “No. How much?” “More than you and I combined.” “Coo-oo-oo-per! Why didn’t you lead with that?! You sold out for financial stability!” "Exactly. And you almost wept over licensing two jpegs — you treat financial stability like it personally wronged you in high school." “Well, the timing was great… And honestly, it helped more than just me — Sebastian’s so popular now. Sigh. I’ll never get anywhere near that dick again. I knew I should’ve just followed my heart.” “Right. Your heart. And you must understand — I was wasting away, barely affording heat, clinging to life in a drafty apartment — obviously I had to lock in something stable. Simple, low-effort solution. Plus a few bonus features...” “I didn’t peg you for a size queen. I mean, Caitlin and Isaidit, but we didn’t mean it.” “What? No! I just meant—he’s got that really perfectly timed gray hair thing going on. It’s just—” Blake made a high-pitched noise startlingly close to what a twelve-year-old girl might emit upon spotting Harry Styles across the street. “Ughhhh. You arethisclose to calling himDaddy, aren’t you? Don’t lie to me — the chest hair, the graying temples, the hint of a beer belly—” “Oh my God! I am not—that is not a thing—very often.” “Jesus Christ, I need air,” Aidan muttered, clutching his stomach like he was fighting down nausea. But before he could complete the dramatic pantomime, Cooper pulled him into a sudden, tight hug. Aidan froze — arms stiff, unsure. But after a long moment, once the cold had started to leave his bones, he whispered: “One year ago, around this time…” “Don’t,” Blake said softly. “You started it.” “I didn’t start anything. I’m just trying to casually reintroduce physical contact into this relationship. See? Totally normal.” “Absolutely. Completely normal,” Aidan said, finally patting his back with one hand. “Okay. That’s enough. But you can do that again at the end of the night.” “I’ll definitely do that. You’re still coming to the wedding, right?” “Where you’re spending that much per guest? Of course I’m coming!” “Don’t tell anyone,” Blake said, lowering his voice, “but I’m pretty sure we’re gonna have a kid.” “Babe! Before the wedding? What kind of influence is that? God, the school system is failing us — can’t even teach people to use protection!” “Cut it out. Not right now. But in the next five years? Yeah. Definitely.” “Terrifying. You’re planning five years ahead? Fiiiine. But don’t ask me to do playgrounds. Or babysit while you go wine tasting. Not my thing. Maybe Bailey will. He can read Joyce out loud — knocks everyone right out.” “I love you,” Blake said, smiling. “Too late, Cooper. And for the record, I still wouldn’t let you call me Daddy, even though I’ve got at least ten gray hairs of my own. So yeah, stay with Jeffrey. Ooh, I’m gonna call him Dahmer.” “You’re not.” “Everyone’s always banning me from things. What is this life.” “Babe, are you okay?” “I’m… totally! Obviously. Still, just to be safe — don’t let me give a toast at the reception.” “No one was going to. Did you even look at the seating chart? You’re in the farthest, darkest corner. Per Dahmer’s request — quote: ‘I don’t want to see or hear that bitch.’” “Understandable. Though I don’t share his opinion of me.” “Neither do I.” “Let’s go back in. I can’t feel my feet.”

***

Back home, after a nightly routine that had shifted a few hours later than usual thanks to Blake’s bachelor party — and that, for the past few months, had included both of them taking their anti-anxiety meds— Noah asked: “So… what exactly happened with Blake? Is there something I should know?” “Not really. We’re okay now. I just, uh… insulted Jeffrey. Brutally. Blake backed off after that too. But we sorted it out.” “Okay. Will you pick up the suits from the cleaners tomorrow?” “Probably. I’ve got Poulson in the morning,” Aidan grimaced — though he knew Noah didn’t buy his ongoing hostility toward his therapist, “then I’ll get some work done in the studio.” “Will you tell me if you don’t make it to the cleaners before Saturday?” “I will do it! Jesus, Bailey, my memory’s not that bad anymore! But yeah, I’ll definitely need a vacation after this Saturday.” “Where to?” “New York, probably. Just for a few days.” “Will you be careful?” “Yeah. I’ll try not to speed on the I-80.” “You know what I mean.” “If you’re asking whether I’m planning to spiral into another months-long depression after this trip— No. I’m not. I didn’t enjoy it either. And I’m doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” “…Okay. Good.” Everything looked so normal. They were talking to each other calmly. The new mirror was already up. There were no faint rust-colored streaks around the sink. With enough effort, you could almost forget what had happened in April, when Aidan had panicked and rushed home from Chicago. There was no dramatic reunion. No running into each other’s arms, no whispered “I love you!”—“No, I love you!”, no desperate sex on the hallway floor. Because Noah took one look at him, said nothing, and disappeared into the bathroom. And stayed there. For a long time. The water would stop, then start again. For Noah — who was usually borderline militant about water conservation — it was very unlike him. Eventually, Aidan knocked. Asked what was going on. He got a reply — “Nothing’s going on” — but in a voice that even his still semi-frozen, foam-wrapped brain could recognize as a lie. He thought about forcing the door open. But then noticed something new. It was locked. He hadn’t even realized the bathroom could lock from the inside. That was… shocking. First he knocked. Then he begged. Then he threatened to call the cops. And finally, when none of that worked, he pulled out the nuclear option. He waited until the water stopped again and said: “If you don’t open the door right now, I’m leaving. And this time, it’ll be for good.” After a long minute of silence, the door flew open — narrowly missing Aidan’s face — and he stepped into the steam-thick air, careful not to trip over the boots, jacket, and towels strewn across the floor. The whole place was soaked, like someone had been walking back and forth from the still-running shower to the door. Over and over. Fully dressed. Noah stood behind the glass partition, turned to face the wall. “Bailey,” Aidan said softly, helplessly. Only then did he realize — he’d never seen Noah cry before. Not really. Not like this. That suspicious shine in his eyes sometimes? That didn’t count. This was… something else entirely. Noah was trying to hold it in — to pretend he wasn’t gasping through full-body sobs — but his body gave him away. “You’re hiding from me?” Aidan snapped, his voice rising fast. “You think I’m not allowed to see this? Me?! I cry at everything these days! That video about the dog that found its way home? Tears. Cat photos? Tears. Grandma Moore making me tea? Facebook memories from two years ago? The goddamn wind blows the wrong direction — I cry! And I told you that! I showed you! And now you lock me out?!” No response. So Aidan just walked forward and slid himself into the narrow space between Noah and the cold, wet tile wall. As if just noticing him, Noah blinked and asked: “You came?” “Well… yeah.” And then all 180 pounds of barely-standing man collapsed into him. It was… manageable. Far more manageable than his absence. Deciding not to say anything — since “It’s okay” clearly wouldn’t work— Aidan just held him. He rocked him gently, stroked his back, kissed the top of his head — the only part he could reach, with Noah curled so tightly against his shoulder. Eventually, he managed to reach behind and turn off the shower. Silence fell. The kind filled with nothing but slow, soft dripping from the ceiling and quiet, uneven breaths. Aidan had just started to think they could try moving to the bedroom when a phone rang. Noah flinched hard, eyes wide with panic. “You’ve probably called me?” he whispered. “How… how did you even survive those hours?” “I mean… I did. I got through it. I’m okay.” “I… we barricaded the classroom. I told everyone to turn off their sound. And then—I don’t know if it was fast or not, but the cops came. We had to go. I remembered all the rules — hands up, no bags, leave everything behind… But I could’ve put my phone in my pocket! Why didn’t I do that? That’s such a basic thing. I just… I didn’t go back for it.” He paused, staring at the floor, then added quietly: “I need to call my parents. They probably already know.” “We’ll call them.” “I had to wait until every single kid got picked up—then they took me to the station and—” He let out a choked, almost animal sound and pulled away from Aidan, starting to pace. “We were on the second floor. He didn’t get that far. But what if we’d been on the first? What if we were on the lawn?! Sometimes we do that. We go out there. Nobody would’ve survived. Nobody, do you understand? And I was going to go out today. And I didn’t even think to open the safe and take out the gun! It was right there. I did everything except that. Didn’t even look in that direction. If he’d come in…” He covered his face, gasping. “I’m fucking useless.” And then suddenly — he ripped open the drawer under the sink and slammed it into the mirror. Glass exploded, showering the room in shards and pills and dental floss and half-used deodorant sticks. He started hurling anything still standing. Towels, bottles, the razor. Aidan saw that nothing from his side of the counter had been touched since he'd left. Everything had waited for him. Until now — when it was swept into the wreckage with the rest of it. Bailey — the man who never even slammed a door. There was nothing left to do but quietly slip into the bedroom, now cold and sharp after all that steam, and wait for the storm to burn itself out. When the crash finally stopped, Aidan grabbed a mop. Returning to the disaster zone, he said softly, “Don’t move. I’ll clear a path.” Noah nodded. He was leaning against the sink, not even noticing the blood dripping from his fingers — until he did. Then he flinched and ran his hands under the water. Aidan swept everything into the corner, came back with clean clothes, towels, and peroxide. The cuts were shallow. He disinfected them anyway, murmuring something soft and steady, though Noah didn’t even flinch. When it was clear he wasn’t going to move on his own, Aidan undressed him, then himself, and pulled him under the shower. There was nothing sexual in it. They just stood there, holding each other, letting the water rinse away the last of the shaking. Every so often, Aidan pressed his lips to Noah’s shoulder, his neck, his chest — not kisses, exactly, but some strange version of touch, a contact more necessary than language. Than air. This time, Noah was the one to turn the water off. He looked at Aidan — pleading, exhausted — and Aidan pushed the wet hair from his forehead and nodded. And only then did they kiss. A kiss that held the terror of the last few hours, the ache of all those months apart, the waiting, the hope, the hesitation, the fury, the tenderness, the desperation — and somewhere underneath all of it, yes… there was love. When Aidan felt Noah guiding him gently toward the bedroom, he hesitated. “I… I don’t know,” he said. “You know, I… I’m not sure—” “I don’t know either,” Noah said. “But I want to find out.” What followed was strange and imperfect — all tangled mouths and wild hands, fingers bruising hips, lips stalling at the base of the spine, breaths caught in throats. And then, just as suddenly, there were pauses — long, reverent ones — where they simply looked at each other, afraid to move. They kept rolling, slipping, finding each other again. It wasn’t flawless. It wasn’t transcendent. But it did what it had to: They remembered each other. Outside, it was getting dark. No one planned to get out of bed. When Ewan arrived, he was informed that dinner would be delayed. He paced a few slow laps around the mattress, then gave in and curled up at their feet. Aidan drifted in and out, jerking awake each time to make sure Noah was still there. Eventually, he gave up and just wrapped himself around him completely — arms, legs, all of it — unwilling to risk letting go. Noah, clearly, was still awake. Aidan sighed and whispered against his ear: “So. We both survived. What the hell do we do now?”