A month later, the noise had thinned.
People still looked. Some still talked. Tessa had stopped posting about it. Jenna had decided we were disgusting and also inevitable, which from her was as close to a blessing as we were going to get. Noah’s mother had come around enough to invite me to Sunday dinner with the same tight smile she used for situations she could not control.
It was not perfect.
It was ours.
I kept a drawer at his place. He kept a charger at mine. We still argued about whose turn it was to buy coffee and who left wet towels on the bed. The friendship hadn’t vanished. It had just stopped pretending it wasn’t also this—his mouth on my shoulder while I tried to finish an essay, my laugh against his throat when he carried me down the hall because I was taking too long.
Fr
