Luke bent low to take a lick of the ice cream cone Noah held up. He was sitting on the high sea wall while Noah leaned against it, positioning his back between Luke's legs with his head just above Luke's knees.
Just beyond the wall, fishermen were casting their nets in the sea while local children ran splashing in the shoals, their happy voices punctuating the shriek of gulls; and the occasional backfire of a moped, a popular method of transport on the island.
The general hum of tourists and locals buzzed around Luke and Noah, all enjoying the last days of the summer season.
The pair had spent the entire morning exploring the tiny fishing village on the island's East Coast. Lunch lay ahead. But Luke would have been perfectly content to stay exactly where they were... in the moment.
"This tourist route must be boring for you," he cheerfully said, not sounding at all sorry.
"Yeah, I'm bored out of my mind," Noah responded, giving Luke the benefit of a relaxed grin.
Luke didn't think he'd ever seen Noah this tranquil. They were supposed to be on a yacht anchored off shore with his industry friends. But Noah had canceled those plans earlier that morning.
"Don't you have meetings? You haven't been going to them. Isn't that the point of why we're here?" Luke had felt he should ask the question, even though it made his heart flutter like hummingbird wings.
"The point is spending time with you," Noah had responded as if it were just natural.
Luke suddenly felt the world opening up around him into a thousand possibilities, all of them leading back to Noah.
Somehow on that fateful night, Noah had forced secrets from him, pushed past Luke's fears; and something important had cracked open in him. Instead of darkness, light poured out like a river.
Noah made love to him so many times, until his body had felt like a map of Noah's voyages, each one leaving Luke feeling weightless and oddly free.
It was is if being on the island with Noah had unlocked those shackles of family and the past he'd been dragging around for so long. The thought of going back to how he had been seemed impossible now.
During the night, Noah had taken Luke's hands and shared with him the secrets of his body, almost intimidating in its muscular perfection. Yet with a story to tell, just like Luke's.
Noah's entire body was marked with nicks and cuts, old scars from his youth he obviously wasn't ready or willing to give voice to. But he allowed Luke to examine them closely, run his palms and fingertips over Noah's back and hip, the long developed muscle of his quadriceps.
It was right there Luke felt the groove in his flesh where Noah told him, in a pained whisper, he'd had cartilage removed after a particularly bad beating.
"Got home late after I lost track of time talking to a boy in the neighborhood bookstore," he recalled almost casually, as if somehow removed from the whole painful episode. "Ended up paying for it."
Yet last night on the beach outside the restaurant, when Luke had tried to ask Noah more about himself, what drove him, Noah had diverted Luke by hitting his most touchy subject: Damian. Later while in bed Luke had been diverted again by Noah leading him directly to his physical scars - deftly hiding the feeling that lay beneath them.
Luke wondered if Noah had been like this with other men, stripping them bare of their secrets yet managing to keep his own wound up nice and tight. But Luke found he didn't want to think about other men in Noah's past because it didn't matter. Luke wanted only to be in the moment, because he could trust that. Even looking beyond, not knowing what was coming, instinctively frightened him.
He couldn't help but take comfort in the small peek into Noah's soul the director had allowed.
He was falling in love with Noah, and there could be no coming back from that. And if love was a voyage, they were sailing into uncharted waters this morning; both carefully feeling the way.
"My grandmother never let me buy ice cream cones, when I was little," Luke confessed, licking the final scrap off the inner rim of Noah's cone. "She said ice cream should be eaten in a bowl with a spoon at a table - preferably without your elbows touching any surfaces."
"She sounds like an old dragon."
"No, she's always very sweet and loving, just set in her ways. I often went to her home during the holidays. She made it her mission in life to improve me - set me up for the business world. She wanted me to be involved in the family business, I guess."
"What needed improving?"
"My manners. I was a total barbarian - you have no idea." Luke crunched bits of cone between his teeth.
Noah grinned before taking his own bite. "Clearly still a barbarian."
Luke laughed, covering his mouth. "I had to learn early how to behave myself in public. Grandmother was quite well-known in our part of the country. She was photographed by many famous celebrity photographers. She was an amazing beauty."
"I see where it comes from," said Noah, his blue eyes scanning Luke's face.
Luke shrugged off the compliment. "Since my mother was adopted, I don't see how that's possible. Besides, looks fade. She herself would have preferred to be an artist. But she settled instead for being a wonderful patron. She invited artists, writers, musicians to her home. Quite the circle. She helped me set up my foundation." Luke braced his arms on the wall and leaned forward looking out to the sea. "When the accident put an end to any hopes I had of a riding career, she gave me new purpose. And I've been following that path ever since."
"Your career in effect?"
"Yes. At least it feels that way sometimes, although I've tried to keep the charity separate from my everyday life. It's not always easy." Luke paused, realizing he'd gone wading into deeper waters. But he wanted to talk about this. He hadn't forgotten the accusation Noah had made. "Despite what you think, Noah, I don't date the men I deal with through the charity. I don't blur those lines."
"Yeah... about that, Luke..." Noah looked uncomfortable and it pleased a hurt a little part of Luke.
"About what, Noah? he prompted.
"I was out of line." Noah leaned in. "I apologize."
"Do you?" Suddenly their easy camaraderie seemed forced. Luke's insecurities backed up in his throat.
He so wanted the director's understanding and approval, leaving him wide open to being hurt. Suddenly he wasn't sure he could do that. Nor was he sure he had a choice.
Everything had changed for him.
"I was trying to work out how you lived your life. I was..." Noah broke off as if he knew the more he said the deeper he'd be digging a hole for himself.
Luke made a gesture of cessation. "Perhaps we should just leave it at the apology."
But Noah's eyes flashed up and darkened on Luke's. "I was jealous," he admitted flatly.
Luke's heart beat sped up.
"Ah. . . yes?"
"Thinking of you with another man kills me," Noah said, as if it were being ripped out of him without permission. He looked Luke in the eye and Luke found himself swaying a bit at the impact of Noah's confession.
Luke broke their eye contact to look out over the water.
"Nothing to say, Luke?"
"I suggest you don't think about it then," Luke lowered his gaze and gave him a small
smile.
"Not exactly what I was looking for," he responded, his eyes warm.
Feeling a little breathless, Luke reached out and ran his fingers through Noah's hair. "That's nice to hear, Noah. What you said hurt because some not very nice things were intimated about me in the papers around the time of Damian's trial. I think the reporters were just looking for dirt."
"Celebrity scandal - whether true or make believe - still sells papers," said Noah grimly, getting up and turning to stand before Luke.
"Yes, you would know." Luke was talking to a man who had spent his entire career dodging the press. Even now, Noah seemed afraid to commit to someone for fear of the public backlash. "I hope I never have to go through that again." Luke continued. "The trial lasted five weeks and every morning for five weeks, I'd opened the paper," Luke delicately shuddered, "and there would be another slam story."
Noah was frowning. Luke wondered what he was thinking. Had Noah read any of those stories?
Luke didn't want to ask. He didn't want to think about it anymore. But he did what to clear the air.
"And about all these men I've been supposedly involved with. . ." Luke curled both index fingers. "I was on Lawson's yacht last summer with at least 15 other men, one of them his boyfriend at the time; and as for Slater, I've known him since I was a teenager. It's never been romantic."
"You don't need to explain your past to me," Noah said roughly. But Luke could see the satisfaction wafting like smoke in his eyes.
He really is jealous. Wow!
"Actually, Noah," Luke twisted to look at Noah square in the eye. "I've told you a lot about my past and you've told me so little about you. I think you have a habit of privacy."
"You want to hear about the other men in my life?"
Luke made a dismissive gesture. "Even now, you won't be serious about this. Keep your important secrets then."
Noah leaned in and pushed Luke's fly-away curl behind his ear. "What do you want to know, Luke?"
The blonde's eyes lit up. "We could start with something I've already asked you - about your scars. You said you show them in every film. What did you mean?"
The amusement dropped away from Noah's expression and he rocked back on his heels.
"I know it's probably very complicated," Luke persevered. "But I'd like to know why you do what you do..."
"Complicated?" he said while offering a sad smile. "No, it's incredibly simple. It's in my blood."
"What is?"
"The army. My old man, Winston Mayer, was a colonel in the US Army and dragged me around the world with him from base to base."
"Oh, an international childhood. That must have been exciting to see different parts of the world."
"Yes, you could say that." Noah was quiet for a moment, while Luke patiently waited. He sensed he had just glimpsed the tip of a god- almighty iceberg.
"My mother walked out when I was barely more than a baby. Couldn't take the lifestyle. Hell she couldn't take the old man. Can't say I blame her." He turned away from Luke, shoving his hands into his pockets, bunching his shoulders. "Dad said she died, but I found out later it was a lie. She left me with him. That was her one mistake." Noah looked down the beach as if scanning for something. "The colonel was a drunk and a bully and made my life a living hell. He didn't like me - didn't like what I'd grown to become. Mocked my dreams. Until one day I was big enough to fight him back. I kicked the shit out of him and left. I haven't seen or talked to him since."
Luke suppressed a shiver. He had never seen this side of Noah. He'd even wager a mortgage payment nobody else had witnessed this kind of single mindedness. One thing was for sure... these, his experiences as a child, were what had made Noah so very good at what he did and a very wealthy man.
"You took your revenge?" Luke quietly said, uncertain as to how he felt about the level of violence Noah showed when it came to his father..
"No, I survived," It was a terse statement, to the point; and it chilled Luke to the bone. "You didn't abandon your father," he suddenly said meeting Luke's eyes, and Luke could see he'd shut down again. "I admire that."
"No!" The negative was pushed from Luke instinctively. He rejected Noah's statement with his entire body. "Don't admire me. Damian wasn't there for me, true. But he never drank that much or made my life hell - well at least not on purpose. He loves me. It might be a screwed up version of love - but he does love me. How could I abandon him? Despite everything I still love him, too. And I could never abandon someone I love."
Noah was watching him as if his words were flicks of a knife. "Good!" he said with finality, and Luke knew the subject was closed. "I'm glad he loves you. You deserve that, Luke."
Meaning you don't deserve love, Noah?
Luke wanted to offer Noah something, but he had a strong feeling whatever he did in this moment would be rejected. Noah was a man driven by demons and it was all too possible Luke had come too late in his life to make any difference at all.
With a sudden movement, Noah bounded up onto the sea wall beside him, offering Luke his hand and pulling him to his feet. Standing over Luke, Noah was once more the solid, take-charge guy making the world seem a less chaotic, threatening place when Luke was with him.
"Enough of the past, I want to show you the mountains this afternoon. We'll take the Jeep.