“Come on, man. This is me you’re talking to. Tell me. You said back there you didn’t really think about your work, when you packed up and came home. Makes it sound like it was a spur of the moment thing.”

Noah signed, knowing Cooper wouldn’t give up on this. It wasn’t the way he was built. “I was dating this guy—David. He’s still in the military and was closeted.”

“Serious?” Coop asked.

Noah paused for a minute, considering the question. “I thought so. It’d been over a year.”

“You were in love with him?” Cooper shifted in his seat, his voice holding a surprised edge to it.

“No.” That answer came easily. “But I was committed to him. I thought he was committed to me.”

Beside him, Cooper mumbled, “Shit.”

“Yeah. My reply was a little harsher than that. I could have killed them both when I walked in on them, together. I never saw that as me, ya know? Being the kind of man someone thought they could take advantage of, and get away with.”

“All his cheating says, is that David’s a bastard, not that there’s anything wrong with you. And you didn’t let him do anything. You walked away. You’re not your dad.”

He wasn’t surprised that Cooper knew exactly what he thought—how he felt. He never wanted to be that man. The one who let someone walk all over them. “You’d think I’d know the signs though. I saw it enough, Coop. Since David hid his relationships, well I guess, hid ours; that made it easier for him to do what he did. No one knew we were together, and, therefore, I didn’t know he was with someone else, either.” Noah’s hands squeezed the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.

He’d sworn when he walked away from David, he would never hide who he was again. Not hide who he was with. And what had he gone and done? Found himself in an even worse situation. Noah not only had to keep his relationship a secret, hell, he didn’t even know if it was one. He wasn’t with a man who was in the closet, but a man who considered himself straight. Who’d always been straight, until they started fucking around.

Noah flinched when Coop’s hand squeezed his thigh. The grin on his face said he didn’t see where Noah’s thoughts went. Didn’t see the similarities. “You’re better than him. It wasn’t anything you did.”

Noah appreciated the sentiment, but he was also very done with this conversation. His body hadn’t loosened up since Coop started talking, and now Noah was drawing lines between Cooper and David that didn’t need to be drawn. They were only fucking around. Cooper didn’t even consider himself gay. He needed to remember those things. “I’m hungry. You wanna go grab a burger or something?”

Cooper’s smile grew. He could always be distracted by food. “I could eat.” He still had his hand on Noah’s leg and he had the urge to stop the car, and distract him with something other than food.

Not in public though. No touching because no one can know what’s going on.

“Why am I not surprised about that?”

Noah drove to one of the small diners in town. A really local place that everyone who lived here came to. They used to get ice cream here when they were kids. The building looked like it had been painted, the sign still saying, “Blackcreek’s.”

When they walked into the place, Noah stumbled a little, surprised at the differences. The Formica was gone, replaced with new tables and counters. The floors were redone and the walls had been painted from the old aqua color they used to be.

It was all warm browns, a very masculine feel to it.

“New owners,” Coop told him. “They moved here a few years ago and updated the place. The food’s a whole hell of a lot better too.”

Before Noah could reply, the hostess asked, “Two?”

“Yeah.” Noah replied, and followed her and Cooper as she led them toward a both in the back. Cooper sat down first and then Noah across from him.

About halfway through their meal, the warmth of Cooper’s leg pressed against Noah’s under the table. At first he figured the other man was stretching, shifting, something like that, but it didn’t move—the rough hair and Coop’s leg rubbing against his own.

Across the table, Noah made eye contact with him, and Cooper gave him a small shrug before looking down to take another bite of his food. It was such a small thing, and crazy fucking thing to like, but he did. It wasn’t something David would have done, yet already Coop did. Maybe their friendship made the difference.