‘That’s a way to feel.’ Quinn nodded. ‘Go on, then. What’s up?’
Noah sipped his tea, his eyes widening. He struggled to move the tea to the coffee table without spilling a drop. ‘Oh my god, my tongue.’
Great. Now he had a burning hot author with a burning hot tongue in his burning hot apartment.
‘I just made it. Have you drunk tea before?’
Noah stuck out his tongue and fanned it with his hand.
Quinn struggled to hide his mirth, but he managed it because the face mask made his skin tight, so it was impossible to crack laughter.
Noah seemed to move past the crisped tongue, and reached for his tea again, blowing on it.
Quinn had never been so jealous of tea.
‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Noah said. ‘I thought I could. When I came to the signing today, that was the first proper time I’ve had to be with people in Hay again. It was a little overwhelming when people tried to talk to me more than they talked to Blair, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. It was so busy I couldn’t think. But the whole time, Quinn, my heart was beating and my hands were shaking. And tomorrow, it’s all me, isn’t it? People are coming for me and they’ll expect the version of me I can’t put on. Not in the town.’
For the first time, Quinn realised how anxious Noah was. The shaking hands, the beating heart, the running thoughts picturing the worst-case scenarios. Quinn put his tea aside and made to touch Noah, but thought better of it. Instead, he hovered, looking at Noah.
Noah held out his hand, and Quinn took it, relieved.
It trembled on its own.
‘You’re anxious about it?’
‘It feels like more than anxiety,’ Noah said. ‘It feels like a full-blown panic attack.’
‘I mean this in the nicest way,’ Quinn said, ‘but what is it that sets Hay apart from talking on stage at the Hay festival, and doing the signing in their tent?’
Noah let out a small laugh. ‘I’m anxious when I’m doing that, too.’
‘But you’d never show it.’ Though Quinn recalled seeing Noah at his table in the festival bookshop, and how, even though he handled each visitor with ease, there was a moment when Quinn thought he saw the novelist falter.
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Noah said. ‘And you know why? It’s because even though I’m back in Hay, I don’tfeellike I’m back. Because I can convince myself that the people coming to see me at Hay are mostly out of towners, because the festival isn’t in the town, is it? It’s far enough away from the town to make me feel like it’s far removed, and that people don’t know my history, only my books. They might not have those preconceptions of the kid I was. They see me as someone else, the man I created, and I like that. Here? Not a chance. They’re locals. Familiar faces. People in the town who pity me for being the son of Hermione. People who saw me leave at sixteen. They expect something else of me, something that I can’t give them.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I don’t know. The guy who ran away when things got tough? The guy who abandoned his mother because he didn’t know how to deal with her mental health? A boy who is so self-obsessed, so driven by wanting to carve his own name, that he alienates the people who cared about him?’
Noah lifted his tea and drank, and Quinn steadied his own shaking hands.
Once Noah finished, Quinn peeled off his face mask, aware that he looked ridiculous and too casual for a moment like this.
‘Beautiful skin,’ Noah mused. ‘You’re blushing.’
‘You know as soon as you tell someone they’re blushing, they blush even more?’ Quinn asked. ‘Never tell someone they’re blushing if you want them to stop.’
‘I don’t want you to stop,’ Noah said. His hand extended, brushing his fingers against Quinn’s hot cheeks. ‘Soft. Beautiful.’
Quinn leaned into his touch, closing his eyes. This had to be a dream. There was no way Noah was doing this to him right now.
‘I’ll be with you, Noah.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’ll be by your side.’
‘Promise?’
