Loving Graham Page 21

  There’s a knock at the door. I jump off the couch where I’ve been playing Xbox with Jorge and fly to open it. “Do you have her? Where’s she at, I wanna see her,” I say looking behind my father’s legs into the yard. Papa G hugs me. “Well, hello to you, too, little dude. She was asleep. Pops is getting her out of the car.” I push past him and bolt toward the car. “Don’t scare her, she’s tiny,” Papa G yells after me.

  “Hey, Pops, can I see her?”

  “Sure,” he says turning around holding the most beautiful baby girl in the world. He leans over so I can see her, and I pull back the blanket just a little to see her round face and jet-black hair. My dads went all the way to China to get her because she needed parents. I guess some people don’t want their kids, kind of like me. I think that’s weird, but I don’t care because I probably got way cooler parents now than the ones I had before.

  “I love her,” I say softly.

  “Of course you do, she’s your sister.”

  “Hey, Leona, I’m your brother, Geo. Our dads and I are gonna take real good care of you.”

  “You’re a great big brother already, Geo. Let’s take her inside so she can meet Aunt Zoe and Uncle Jorge. We have to go to her birthday party at Nana’s. She’s called me seven times since our plane landed.”

  I smile wide. Yep, that’s Nana. “Leona, you’re gonna have the biggest birthday party ever. We have a huge family, and everybody’s gonna want to hold and kiss you and pinch your cute cheeks.”

  “Ooo, let’s not pinch her cheeks just yet. She’s really tired. Let’s let her sleep, okay?”

  “Aw, I can’t hold her?”

  “Sure, but no pinching.”

  Inside, they let me hold Leona, and she’s way heavier than I thought she’d be. She’s warm and soft and cuddly. I don’t want to give her back, but Pops says I will have a lifetime to hold and play with her.

  “You’ll be her protector forever, dude, and that’s a big responsibility,” Papa G says as we load her into her car seat.

  “Pops is the cop, isn’t he supposed to protect her?”

  “Yeah, he is, but you don’t have to be a cop to protect somebody. I’ll protect her too, but you’re younger, and she will need you around to have her back forever.”

  “Did you hear that, Leona? Me and our dads are gonna take care of you forever.” She coos and scrunches up her face. “She understands me!”

  “Of course she does, Geo, she’s family.”

  The End.

  Loving Noah

  Loving Noah

  Kenna Knight

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT 2017 PRISM HEART PRESS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  COVER DESIGN © 2017 Louisa Maggio

  EDITING: Booktique Editing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or, if an actual place, are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control and does not assume and responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.

  E-books are not transferrable. They cannot be sold, given away, or shared. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in Federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr).

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  For all the kids who have ever been bullied for being who you are. This one’s for you.

  Remember, being different isn’t wrong.

  You are unique.

  You are irreplaceable.

  You are diverse.

  You are loved.

  Description

  Liam

  Noah and I became best friends in kindergarten, and I’ve loved him ever since. When his parents sent him away in our junior year of high school, they didn’t even let us say goodbye. It tore my heart to shreds. Years later, I still drink myself to sleep on the anniversary of his departure.

  Until now.

  I met someone online, and although he is guarded and mysterious, he makes me feel again. He is the first person since Noah that I can imagine a future with.

  Noah

  Growing up, Liam was the only bright spot in my life. If it weren’t for his friendship and protection, I wouldn’t be here today. He couldn’t be with me all the time, though, and one afternoon during our junior year of high school, a group of bullies decided I needed to be taught a lesson in the form of fists to my face and hurtful words spray painted on my car.

  My dad refused to accept that I was gay. Without a goodbye to my friends, he sent me to live with an aunt I never knew. I never contacted Liam after that. It was too humiliating.

  Now, after all these years, I may have found him, and we are meeting in person. But he doesn’t know me anymore.

  Will he love me when he sees what I have become?

  Chapter One

  Liam – Coming Out

  Twelve years ago…

  In the fifth grade, I noticed Noah’s ass. I was pretty sure I was supposed to be checking out Cynthia’s or Melissa’s, but that’s not what my body told me. That’s when I knew I was different, and that’s when I started to realize I was gay.

  The following years were frustrating. Everywhere I looked, my friends were pairing off, girls with boys, going on dates, kissing at the movies. For a while, I thought there was something wrong with me. Where were the guys who liked guys?

  My mom had the ‘sex talk’ with me and asked if I had a girlfriend the summer before junior high school. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I just said ‘not yet’ and left it at that. I wasn’t ready to share with her that her only son was never going to give her a daughter-in-law, something I know for a fact would have upset her. She always wanted to have a baby girl and couldn’t, so acquiring a daughter-in-law and possible granddaughters was her only hope.

  But I had Noah, and he didn’t seem to give two shits about girls either, so there was that. Noah and I became best friends in kindergarten. I liked hanging out with him. He didn’t talk about girls obsessively like the guys on my football team or the guys at summer camp did. In fact, he didn’t talk about relationships at all.

  If we saw kids from our class hanging at the mall holding hands or kissing, he acted like it wasn’t happening. Sometimes I felt like those couples pissed him off, but I never asked him about it.

  Noah’s home life wasn’t the best, and I didn’t want to make him talk about it. His dad was a prick. He was a bigot, racist, homophobic alcoholic, and he was impossible to be around. When we hung out, it was at my house, riding bikes, or at sporting events. I played football, and I was on a swim team. He never missed one of my meets or games. He ran cross-country and loved to take pictures with an old camera he found in his basement.

  When we were in the eighth grade at Crossroads Jr. High, I finally came out to my parents. I was scared. I thought they would disown me or tell me I was a bad person for liking boys, but they couldn’t have been more understanding about it. It went so well, I figured the next step was telling my best friend.

  I can’t tell if Noah is surprised or what. He doesn’t seem to be anything. He’s just sitting across from me in the booth at the ice cream shop and staring. That is when I realize Noah has the most beautiful yellow a
nd auburn flecks in his hazel green eyes. Noah never looks at me straight on. If I try to look him in the eyes, he finds something else to focus on—but not today—today he is staring straight at me.

  “Hey, Noah, you still in there, man?” I say, snapping my fingers in front of his face. He blinks and continues staring. “Noah, you’re freaking me out here. I just told you I’m gay, and you haven’t said a word.”

  His perfect pouty lips come together, and he sits up straight in his seat. “Did you tell your parents?”

  “Yeah, they are the only people I’ve told, besides you.”

  I lose his eyes when he looks down to take a bite of his ice cream. “So why’d you tell me?”

  “Um, because you’re my best friend, duh. Who else would I tell?”

  “I don’t know, never mind. That’s great that your parents are cool with it and all. Were you scared they wouldn’t be?”

  “I was afraid to tell them. I wasn’t sure what they would say. I thought my dad might try to blow it off or change my mind, but he acted like he already knew. My mom hugged me and told me she loved me no matter who I loved.”

  He looks back up at me. “Wow, that’s really great.” Then his eyes are back on his cup of melting Oreo ice cream. “I wish I could tell my parents.”

  “Tell them what, Noah?” I already know the answer to my question, but I ask it anyway on the off chance I’m wrong about him being gay, too.

  “They would kill me. My dad talks about gay people like they have a contagious disease that disgusts him to the point of physical illness. And my mom, well, she does what my dad tells her to do. If he’s mad, she would have to act angry even if she wasn’t.”

  “So, Noah, are you telling me you’re gay, too?”

  His body stiffens, and he drops his spoon into his cup. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Can we just drop this? I gotta get home.”

  Noah never wants to go home. He will make any excuse to stay away from his dickhead dad. I pushed too hard, dammit. I didn’t want this to be uncomfortable for him. He has enough shit to worry about.

  I reach out and take Noah’s hand across the table. His eyes dart around the empty ice cream shop and then back to our hands on the table.

  “You can talk to me if you want to. I won’t tell anyone else, I swear to God.”

  “Thanks, Liam, not right now, though,” he says quietly. He’s had enough, and I’m okay with that. I’d bet money he has never spoken about this to anyone before today. Today’s semi-disclosure is major progress, and I’m proud of him.

  “You’re welcome,” I squeeze his hand and let go. I wish I didn’t have to. His hand is soft and warm and familiar. We have never touched intimately like this, but Noah’s skin still feels like home.

  “And you don’t have to go home. We can talk about something else. Have you taken any awesome pictures lately?” His posture changes when his muscles relax, and I mentally breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Yeah, I was out on the old railroad bridge over the creek yesterday, got a great shot of the sun setting behind the tracks. I’ll put it on Facebook later so you can see it.”

  “Sounds cool, I’ll check it out.” And just like that, things are normal again. We’re back to being two guys hanging out after school talking about photography and football, but we both know things will never be the same again.

  Chapter Two

  Noah – Just A Typical Day, Not

  Twelve years ago…

  Liam is gay. I already knew that, but it was a relief to have it out in the open between us. And without technically coming out to him, he knows that I am, too. It’s only taken us eight years to be honest with each other. I wonder how much longer it will take before we admit that we are attracted to one another? I hope like hell it’s not another eight years.

  I’m happy for him. It’s great his parents are cool with it, but I can’t deny I’m also a little jealous. I’ll never be able to tell my parents who I am even though I’m sure they suspect. I think that’s why my dad’s such a dick about it—he knows—and he hates it. He wanted a big macho womanizer to continue on the family name. My mother wouldn’t care, but she’s old school, and if dad doesn’t approve, she can’t either.

  In the sixth grade, I took up cross-country running, and I’ve been doing it ever since. It was the perfect excuse to leave the house early in the morning, and it kept my dad off my back about being involved in sports. He would have preferred football, like Liam, but at least it was a sport.

  Every morning I get up at the crack of dawn before my dad and set out to run before school starts. My route ends at Crossroads Jr. High School thirty minutes before the first bell rings. The school considers my runs to be practice for the cross-country team, so I’m allowed to shower and get ready for class in the boy’s locker room.

  There is an overlap of ten minutes from when I’m finishing up to when I have to leave for class. The seventh-grade football team converges in the locker room after their grueling morning practice. That is secretly my favorite ten minutes of every school day.

  Dozens of hot guys stripping down to nothing strutting around like nobody’s watching—what gay boy wouldn’t love that? I’ve learned how to keep my head down and act uninterested, and so far nobody on the team has suspected there is a mole among them.

  I use my ten minutes of daily heaven to my advantage every night when I’m alone in bed. I’ve rubbed one out fantasizing about every guy on the team, none of which are gay, as far as I know.

  I’m pretty sure nobody suspects my sexual preference, and that’s because nobody notices me. Sometimes I feel invisible like I could get up in the middle of class and walk out, and no one would even see me. But that’s how I like it, the less attention on me, the better. Introverts unite and all that shit.

  The only people I care about noticing me are Liam and Bianca. Liam, because I’ve been crushing on him forever, and Bianca because she’s the coolest girl I’ve ever known.

  She’s not from the little town of Crossroads, Ohio. She moved here from Chicago in kindergarten when her father took a job at our local hospital. She thinks I’m an undiscovered genius artist reborn from the nineteen hundreds. In other words, she’s eclectic and accepting and weird and… different. I like different because that’s what I am, and it’s how I feel about myself.

  Today is Friday, and I just left the locker room to go to algebra with a hard-on and a barrage of fantasies floating around in my head when I run into Bianca.

  “Earth to Noah, come in, Noah, anybody home? What are you doing in there… inventing a new kind of chemical warfare or a perfect android boyfriend for me to take to the Sadie Hawkins dance?”

  “Chemical what? Boyfriend who?” I ask only catching a couple of the words she said.

  “Wow, you’re especially spacey today, brother. What’s got you so distracted from the wonderful life of a typical eighth grader?”

  I want to tell her, but I can’t just say, “Seventh graders, naked male ones who want to kiss me and suck my cock,” so I shrug and say something lame instead. “Algebra test, it’s my first class.”

  “Algebra, huh? I wish math got me that excited,” she says, glancing down quickly at the bulge in my basketball shorts. Bianca knows I’m gay, but like Liam, we don’t talk about it out loud.

  I should thank her, though, since her remark gave my raging boner a pause.

  “Shut up, and stop looking at my junk.”

  “Sorry, pal, but that thing’s looking at me, and I can’t be rude.”

  Oh my God, she’s so obnoxious sometimes. It’s a good thing I love her so much. Otherwise, I’d be bitch slapping her in the hallway like a girl in front of the entire school.

  “Bianca,” I say with a warning in my tone and stop in front of my locker.

  “What? I can’t appreciate a good thing when I see it?” she asks, and then she cracks up at her lame attempt at a joke.

  I roll my eyes and swap my gym bag for my binder before shutting my locker. “Seriously
? You can’t do any better than that?”

  “Oh yeah, I have plenty more where that came from, but I don’t think you can handle it.” We start to walk again.

  “Now there’s something we can agree on. I think you can cross stand-up comedian off your list of things you want to be when you grow up.”

  She shrugs and hugs her books to her white peasant blouse. I love the way Bianca dresses. Today she looks like a gentle hippie from the seventies in her colorful long flowing skirt. Yesterday she was fierce decked out in black leather pants and a tight shirt that laced up the front and biker boots. It was awesome.

  I used to wonder if she had an identity problem, but now I know it’s her way of keeping her parents on edge. Her dad’s a doctor, and her mom works for an investment company, so they don’t spend much time with her. Bianca’s daily fashion statement ensures her parents notice her when she leaves the house every morning. She says she wants her mental health to be on their mind all the time, so they don’t forget her. I think she’s lucky. I wish my parents would forget me.

  “See ya later, nerd,” she calls when we reach my classroom.

  “Yeah, later, gypsy woman.” She curtsies and strolls off down the hall with her skirt swishing with every step.

  The rest of my Friday is uneventful, to say the least. Everyone at Crossroads Jr. High, including Liam and Bianca, is pumped up about the football game tonight against our rival team, the Wildcats. I’ve already had my fill of the football team for the day, but they are on my agenda for later when I’m home alone in bed.

  My Friday night plans consist of taking pictures in the park for my photography class and hanging out at Stanley’s Grill eating fries and scrolling through my Instagram account. A totally boring night for most, but I think it’s the perfect combination of solitude, creative expression, and greasy food, not to mention I won’t have to see my father before I go to bed. They think I’ll be at the game so I have an extended eleven p.m. curfew.