“We need to take this seriously, Coop. You came in my mouth last night, and while I want nothing more than to taste you again, you can’t tell me you’re not the least bit confused by it. We go back too far to jump without thinking. That can’t end well.”

Cooper tried not to roll his eyes. This was typical Noah. He’d always been the one who wanted to think things through. Who’d try to get Cooper to stop whatever it was he wanted them to do. “I’m pretty sure we already jumped.”

Noah sighed. “You know what I mean.”

“You want to know what I think? I think what we did felt good. Neither of us have had a whole lot of good, Noah. Not when it came to how things felt on the inside. I’m not gonna sit here and try to pretend I understand this, or to give us a name, or even to lie and say that yeah, there isn’t a part of me who thinks it would be smarter to forget it happened. A part of me who doesn’t wonder what the hell is going on, or what this means to me, even exactly where it’s going. But the bigger part of me doesn’t give a shit about that stuff, and wants to keep going. Wants to see what this means.”

Noah set his coffee cup down. “I’m not your experiment.”

“Fuck you. You know that’s not what I meant. You said you wanted to suck me off again. I can tell you, there’s just about nothing in this world I want more than that, either. When I compare how I got off last night, and hell, this morning to every other orgasm I’ve had? It was different. I’m not good with words. I don’t know what it means, but let’s not fuck it up before it even starts. Let’s just…” Cooper shrugged. “See what happens. Not push it, but not fight it either.”

Cooper could tell Noah wasn’t convinced. He ignored the nerves in his stomach, stood and walked over to him. “You always meant more to me than anyone else when we were kids… Maybe this is why. All I have to do is look at you and I get hard, man. That feels too good to just run away from.”

Coop took a deep breath, before hooking his thumb under Noah’s chin and tilting is head up. Ignoring the thoughts in his head or the worry in Noah’s eyes, he leaned forward and kissed him. Traced the seam of Noah’s lips with his tongue before finding his way inside.

Their tongues stroked one another, tasted one another, a mix of coffee and mint. Just like he’d told Noah, his cock tented his boxer-briefs.

“I don’t have it in me to keep fighting this. Hell, I don’t want to. You’ve always trusted me before. Do it now too.”

Noah smiled against his mouth. “You’ve always been a persuasive motherfucker.”

“We had fun though. Jesus, we had a lot of fun. Then, and now.”

And they had. There wasn’t anyone else he had liked raising hell with, more than Noah. Noah, who now ran his finger against Cooper’s skin, on the edge of his underwear. Cooper stood up straight to make it easier for Noah to touch him.

Leaning forward, Noah pressed his lips to Coop’s stomach. “I’m trusting you to know what you’re doing. To know what you want.”

He knew exactly what his friend was saying. Noah didn’t trust easily, but he was giving that to Cooper. Putting his faith into him, to not do something that would screw up their friendship. He hoped he deserved it.

“I’m trusting you, too.”

“You think I don’t know that? You’re putting yourself out there, man. That’s brave, but you always have been.”

Cooper wasn’t so sure about that. What he did know, was things were much too serious for him. “Does it make me an asshole that I let you blow me last night, and now I expect you to help me finish the deck today?”

Noah laughed and playfully pushed him away. “I’m not doing anything until I finish my coffee. And no…you’re not an asshole, as long as you know, soon I’m going to want to see my dick slide between your lips too.” Noah touched Cooper’s mouth.

A thrill of excitement ran through him. Cooper figured that meant they were doing the right thing.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Noah and Cooper spent the morning sanding the deck. They went straight from that to staining. It was as if this morning or last night, didn’t happen. They were back to two friends working together in the yard. Still, it didn’t stop the wheels from turning in Noah’s mind. He trusted Cooper. He did. But that didn’t stop him from stressing out that he was getting himself right into the kind of relationship, he wouldn’t want to be in. Where David hadn’t wanted to come out, Cooper just wasn’t gay. Or at least, he never had been. That made it hard for Noah to see this going anywhere. It made him feel like he was doing the exact thing he said he would never do after David. Hide.