What did it mean? Why did Noah want him at the airport? There was one very obvious reason, but surely not. Surely Noah had no intention of flying across the country, because why would he? Just to see Darien?
Darien wanted that too much, to the point where he was suspicious about his own feelings. But what else could a text like that mean?
He threw his phone down, just as Aaron was coming over, and it wouldn’t surprise Darien at all if the other man snatched the device right out of his hands. But none of that mattered, not when it seemed that there was finally, after almost a year of hopelessness, a potential light at the end of the tunnel.
Only time would tell if that light was from the sun, or from a headlight of a train rushing along the track, ready to crush his heart into oblivion.
* * *
The days crawled by, but when April 29 came around, Darien was up early. He’d already told the rest of the guys that he was taking today off, and that was just how it was, and that it was a personal matter that he wouldn’t talk about. They’d accepted that, maybe because, in the year that they’d been together, Darien had never demanded such a thing before.
He was at the airport early, and he glanced at his phone as he waited. No messages. None from Noah at all since the directions that he’d been given which had led him here. Of course, Darien had texted him, asking him why, what was up, but he’d gotten no reply.
He found a coffee shop and settled down to wait. From someone else, he might have thought this was some sort of petty revenge thing, being sent here to wait for something which was never going to happen, but he knew Noah too well for that. Noah wouldn’t ever do that.
And wait, and wait. The time dribbled on reluctantly, each minute seeming to take at least five and the hours stretching on into what felt like days. The crowds ebbed and flowed around him—tired travelers eager for a hit of caffeine, puffy faced and with circles under their eyes.
Darien was glad for the crowd. No one had recognized him just yet, and he preferred to keep it that way. He was grateful to the fans of the band who had made him and his bandmates, his friends, such a big deal, but right now, he didn’t want to deal with signing autographs.
Luckily, everyone was pretty wrapped up in their own thing, and Darien had managed to get here without any paparazzi noticing him. He still tended to fly below their radar, maybe because he could just fit into a crowd, just an average person when he didn’t have a camera fixed on him and a mic in his hand.
Eleven thirty came, and Darien sat up straighter, ready for whatever was going to happen. Then the time changed, eleven thirty-one, and nothing had happened. His phone stayed relentlessly silent, with no message from Noah to give him any more instruction.
Quarter to twelve, and then noon, and still, there was nothing. Darien, not sure whether to be more sad or angry, navigated to his text messages and clicked on Noah’s name.
He must have been wrong, he realized, about Noah. Maybe the year apart had changed the other man, so that he would pull a trick this cruel on Darien. It was almost twelve thirty, and Noah had said to be here an hour ago.
Just as he was thinking that, a message popped up on his screen, and his eyes widened when he saw it. It was from Noah, and it was terse, simple, just a few small words that made something which had been clenched deep inside Noah release its grip and loosen so that he could breathe once more.
Where are you?
Darien practically broke his fingers typing out a response, giving the name of the coffee shop and even what else was around. He sort of hated himself for babbling, but at the same time, if Noah really was here, he wanted him to be able to find the place.
Then there was another long wait, another fifteen minutes by the clock but to Darien it felt like it might have been more like a week. He sat there, shoulders stiff, frozen and waited with his eyes unerringly fixed on his phone.
Okay, but where are you?
Darien finally texted Noah, when the waiting was too much. If this was a game, and he hated himself for thinking that it might be but he couldn’t help but wonder, at this point, then it was a game which was working on him, and an incredibly cruel one. How long was Noah going to string this out?
The reply came, not through Darien’s phone, which his anxious eyes were fixated upon, but from behind him. For the first time in nearly a year, he heard the soft, quiet voice, a voice that he could have picked up anywhere and anytime with no effort, even in a crowded airport.
“I’m right here, Darien,” Noah said, and as Darien turned, the whole world seemed to freeze right in place, and it was just him Noah, who was slightly taller and just a trifle broader, but just as utterly gorgeous, as breathtaking, as ever.
It was suddenly funny to Darien to think about hope. Because for almost a year, he’d lived pretty much without it, and now he was face to face with it again, and he wondered how he’d ever been able to make himself leave in the first place.
In Noah’s achingly lovely face, Darien saw that hope again, and he was suddenly filled with an overwhelming desire never to let go of it. Why Noah was here, he had no real idea, but here he was, real and vivid in front of him, having literally flown across the country to see Darien, and it didn’t matter to him just then why.
Noah was here, and didn’t that mean that this new found hope, as delicate as a bird, could mean something? If his hope was a bird, then it was a young one, just pushed out of the nest.
Time would tell whether he would fly or plummet like a stone to the ground. But then, it wasn’t like Darienwantedthis to be anything serious. He was just glad to see his old friend that was all.
