“I’m not mad,” he insisted, perhaps shouting it, he wasn’t entirely certain. He tried to grab at Marcus’s shirt again but was rebuffed even harder. “I’m not mad, I swear. I love you. I’m in love.”
“I hate to say it, but you might have to fetch some rope and a gag and restrain him until Beckett gets here,” Marcus said.
Noah reeled back. “How can you say that?”
Marcus sighed as though he were at his wit’s end. “I can say it because it’s true, Noah. Now, are you going to sit down and wait patiently, or are we going to have to restrain you?”
Noah’s throat squeezed closed, and he stared at Marcus, heartbroken. “You don’t love me,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You never did.”
“No, I don’t, I didn’t,” Marcus said. He had the audacity to look sorry.
Noah felt himself collapse. The floor rose up at him faster than he could comprehend it, and before he realized what he was doing, he sat in a heap at Marcus’s feet. It was over. It was all over. He’d left everything to reclaim the man he’d loved, and he’d failed. He’d fallen into another man’s arms and ruined everything. He was an utter failure as a lover and as a man, and all he could do was weep.
He was vaguely aware of Marcus, Ravenswood, and Russo talking above him, but he didn’t listen to what they said. He lost track of time passing. All he could do was sit where he was and feel miserable. At one point, someone handed him a steaming mug of coffee, but he merely looked at it, wondering what he was supposed to do with it.
He had no idea what he was supposed to do now. The blackness and despair had rolled back over him again. He’d felt it too many times before to count, and he hated it. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to drink the coffee, didn’t want to eat the bun that someone offered him. He just wanted to sink into the floor and cease to exist.
“How long has be been like this?” Beckett’s breathless, alarmed voice shook Noah out of his stupor.
“A little more than an hour,” Ravenswood answered.
Someone had taken the coffee and the bun away from Noah, he didn’t know when, so his hands were free to help him turn his body and push himself halfway to his knees to follow the sound of Beckett’s voice.
“Beckett?” he asked, his own voice shaky. As soon as he saw his friend, he burst into tears.
“There, there, love.” Beckett rushed to him, sinking to the floor next to him, and pulled Noah into his arms. That was enough to rocket Noah into loud, racking sobs. “It’s alright, love. I’ve got you. It’s alright.”
Noah clutched at him, burying his face against the side of Beckett’s neck. It was all horribly unbecoming, but he couldn’t stop himself. He truly couldn’t. It was all too much. Everything was too much, and all he could do was close his eyes against it and wish that everything, including his life, would go away.
ChapterTwelve
It was one of the most harrowing moments of Beckett’s life. He’d awakened at his usual time, his mind already focused on the tasks waiting for him at the glassworks, to find the other half of his bed cold. For a split second, he’d thought nothing of it. But almost immediately, knowing what he knew about how fragile Noah had been for the last few days, his mind conjured up the worst scenarios.
He'd leapt out of bed and gone straight to Noah’s room, but the guestroom was as cold and barren as it had been since Noah had moved himself and all his things into Beckett’s room. He tried the bathroom next and found it empty. Then he’d searched the house, growing increasingly frantic, but Noah wasn’t there.
He’d been in the middle of questioning Gardener and Miss Taylor to see if they had any idea where Noah could have gone when Ricky arrived with the urgent message that Noah was at The Slippery Slope, and that he was in a state of distress.
Beckett had returned to The Slope with Ricky in near record time. What he found there was worse than he’d expected. Noah was huddled in a ball on the club’s sticky floor, Graham, Alonzo, and Marcus standing around him wearing annoyed looks. Those looks alone were enough to send Beckett’s emotions ricocheting from fury that Noah had been treated so shabbily to gaping grief at the state he found his lover in. The very kindest thing he could say for the men standing guard over Noah was that they had thought to send for him immediately.
Beckett barely spoke to anyone at The Slope as he gathered Noah up and walked him out to Bleeker Street, where the cab that had brought him and Ricky down from Sixty-Third Street was still waiting. He was too livid to say goodbye to the men who seemed happy to be rid of the problem that Noah represented. All he wanted to do was take his despondent lover home and tuck him back into bed, where he could rest.
Three days later,Noah was still in bed.
“‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry;’,” Beckett read from the copy ofAlice in Wonderlandthat Aurora had brought over after Noah’s first full day in bed.
He sat with his back against the headboard, his legs stretched the length of the bed, with Noah’s back to him as he hunkered under the blankets.
“‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—’
“‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.’”
Beckett peeked over the edge of the book to see if Noah was paying attention. He didn’t appear to be. Beckett turned the page, then stroked his fingers through Noah’s hair with his free hand as he read on.
“‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
“‘They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’
“‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘very ill.’”