Chapter 7
20 hours and 49 minutes ago
The bathroom greeted them with soft, diffused light from the frosted window and the coolness of the tile floor, which felt pleasantly cold against their bare feet after the warmth of the rumpled sheets. Finn let Noah go in first and paused for a second in the doorway, watching him. Watching him shiver in the morning freshness as he reached for the tap to turn on the water. Watching his shoulders, still marked with the traces of last night's kisses, move beneath his pale skin. Watching his chestnut strands fall over his forehead, covering his eyes. Something warm and viscous spread through Finn's chest. Unable to stand apart any longer, he stepped in after him and closed the door, shutting out the last remnants of the outside world.
— Come here, baby, — he called softly. Noah turned, meeting his gaze. In his green eyes, still drowsy, still slightly swollen from the night, flickered an expression that always made Finn's knees weak—a mixture of trust, tenderness, and a faint, barely noticeable nervousness, the kind that only comes at the start of a journey, when everything is still new, still unfamiliar, still smelling of miracles.
They stepped under the stream of water. It was cool at first, then, gradually warming, wrapped them in a dense, wet heat. Finn took the shower gel from the shelf, poured a little into his palm, and began to lather Noah's shoulders—slowly, in circular motions, feeling the muscles roll beneath his fingers, feeling the skin grow slick and hot, feeling Noah's breath falter and his lashes flutter, scattering tiny droplets of water.
— You're too tense, — Finn murmured, kneading his shoulders, sliding his palms lower, to his shoulder blades, to his spine. Noah couldn't hold back a quiet moan and tilted his head back, offering his neck to the stream of water and to Finn's hands, which were now stroking his sides, rising higher, to his chest, rinsing away the foam and leaving trails of soap bubbles in their wake.
— That's because of what you're doing, — Noah breathed out. His voice came out especially low.
— What am I doing, baby? — Finn asked innocently, though his hands continued their journey across Noah's body, now descending to his stomach, to his thighs, lingering on his hipbones, tracing them with the tips of his fingers. Every touch echoed inside Noah in a hot, pulsing wave.
Noah turned to face him. Now they stood under the stream of water, pressed chest to chest, drops streaming down their faces, their shoulders, their arms, which now rested on each other's hips. Noah leaned forward and kissed Finn—wet, deep, feeling the water flow over their lips, into their mouths.
— My turn, — he whispered, pulling away. He took the gel and repeated everything Finn had done to him: lathered his palms and began to run them over his shoulders, his chest, his back, feeling every vertebra, every muscle, every line of his slender body. Finn closed his eyes and allowed himself to simply feel—feel those familiar hands sliding over his skin, feel those familiar lips touching his collarbone, his neck, his earlobe. It was all so natural, as if their bodies had been made for each other from the very beginning.
— Baby, — Finn exhaled when Noah's fingers slid especially low. At that word, spoken with such intonation, Noah's own breath caught. He froze for a second, pressing his forehead to Finn's shoulder and feeling his heart hammer somewhere in his throat.
They stood like that for a long time—maybe half an hour, maybe an eternity—just touching each other, just exchanging lazy, morning kisses, just washing away the remnants of yesterday's wine, the tears, and everything that had stayed in the past and no longer had any power over them. When the water finally began to cool, Finn reluctantly turned off the tap. He grabbed a fluffy towel from the shelf and first wrapped it around Noah's shoulders, starting to dry his hair, his face, his shoulders—carefully, tenderly.
— Thank you, — Noah whispered when Finn was done. He took the second towel and began drying Finn's curls, which had coiled even tighter after the water and were sticking to his temples. Finn went still, letting him do it, because no one had ever taken care of him the way Noah did.
— What? — Noah asked, noticing that Finn had frozen with his eyes closed.
— Nothing, baby, — Finn answered, opening his eyes and looking at him. — It's just that I love you. I think I'm ready to say it every minute.
Noah smiled. He leaned in and kissed his forehead, the tip of his nose, his lips—tenderly, almost weightlessly.
— Say it, baby, — he allowed. — I like it.
When they finally emerged from the bathroom, flushed, with wet hair and wrapped in towels, the sun was already shining in full force throughout the apartment. It flooded the living room with that particular, golden light that only comes on fine autumn days, when the sky over Manhattan turns piercingly blue and the air outside trembles with a transparent, ringing crispness. Noah, still barefoot, padded into the kitchen and pulled two clean mugs from the cupboard. With a habitual motion, he set the kettle on, because tea after a shower was something of a personal ritual of theirs, one no one else knew about. It had sprung up on its own and now felt as natural as breathing.
Finn pulled on his sweatpants and the same stretched-out t-shirt with the faded logo that Noah had once threatened to throw out but now secretly adored. He walked out of the bedroom and stopped in the doorway of the living room, watching Noah work his magic over the kettle, brewing tea with mint and honey—exactly the way Finn liked it, even though he'd never specifically told him. Noah just knew. Because Noah had always been insanely attentive to people, and to Finn especially, a thousand times more attentive than to anyone else.
— Baby, — Finn called out. Noah turned, holding the teapot in his hands, and raised an eyebrow in question. The sunlight fell on his face, igniting emerald sparks in his green eyes and catching golden strands in his still-damp chestnut hair. For a moment, Finn forgot what he'd wanted to say. Because standing before him was the most beautiful person in the world, and that person loved him. It was so unthinkable that he wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and stand there for an eternity.
— What? — Noah asked. The corners of his lips twitched into a smile.
— I want you to be mine, — Finn said. His voice came out steady, but in it was that particular, deep certainty that only appears when a person finally stops being afraid of their own feelings. — For real. Not just as my roommate, not just as my best friend, not just as someone I sleep in the same bed with. I want us to be together. Like a couple. I want to call you mine, everywhere and always. And I want you to call me yours. I want to wake up with you every morning and fall asleep with you every night. I want to make you coffee and listen to you laugh. I want to pick you up from stupid parties in the middle of the night. I want to kiss you whenever I feel like it, not when circumstances allow it. I want everything, Noah. Everything you can give me, and everything I can give you.
Silence hung in the living room, filled with that particular, ringing tension that appears in the air at the most important moment—when everything could still change, but it's already clear that it will only change in one direction.
Noah set the teapot down on the table—slowly, carefully, as if afraid of spilling not the tea, but the moment itself. In two strides, he crossed the distance between them. He stopped right in front of Finn, so close that their noses almost touched. He placed his palms on Finn's shoulders, feeling the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
— Finn Wolfhard, — he said, and his voice trembled, not from weakness, but from the feelings overflowing inside him. — Do you have any idea that I've been dreaming of hearing those words for the last few years, baby? Do you have any idea how many times I've run this moment through my head, afraid it would never come?
— It came, — Finn whispered. His hands settled on Noah's waist, pulling him even closer, until not a single millimeter of free space remained between their bodies. — It came, baby.
Noah didn't answer with words. He simply kissed him. He kissed Finn for a long time, lost in it, feeling the hands sliding down his back, pressing him closer, feeling the lips answering with the same passion, the same tenderness. When they finally pulled away from each other, both were breathing heavily, their foreheads touching. Noah, looking into Finn's chocolate eyes from a distance of a single breath, finally said what he needed to say:
— Yes. And the whole world can go to hell, because now I have you.
They drank their tea together, sitting on the living room windowsill, in the spot where Finn loved to read in the mornings. The sun, already risen high, flooded their faces with warmth. Outside the window, New York roared on—eternal, indifferent, but today it seemed to both of them the most beautiful city on earth. They talked about everything and nothing: about needing to buy a new couch because the old one was completely sagged, about the fact that Finn had finally finished the song he'd been writing for months and now, it seemed, was ready to share it. Noah sat pressed shoulder to shoulder with Finn, feeling an incomparable warmth spreading inside him—a warmth he now associated only with this person. He thought that, probably, this moment was worth going through everything for: the disappointments, the betrayal, the pain that hadn't yet fully subsided but now seemed distant and almost insignificant, like an old scar that no longer hurts.
— What are you thinking about? — Finn asked, taking a sip of tea and glancing sideways at him over the rim of his mug.
— About the fact that I'm happy, — Noah answered honestly.
And somewhere outside the window, life went on as usual: taxis honked, passersby hurried, russet maple leaves swirled and fell onto the asphalt. But in the little apartment on the seventh floor of an old brick building, time had stopped. It had stopped so that two people who had traveled the long road from friendship to love could finally exhale and say to each other what they'd always known but had been afraid to speak aloud. And this was only the end of their first chapter—the one where they stopped pretending and began to truly live. Ahead of them were hundreds and thousands more chapters, which they would write together, hand in hand, heart to heart.
