I pause on the porch outside of Aiden’s door, listening.

There’s a repeated, muffled thunking sound coming from inside. The curtains are closed, so I can’t see what’s causing it.

I push the sliding glass door open to find Noah and Aiden, kicking a soccer ball back and forth across the length of the apartment. The coffee table has been shoved out of the way, but as I watch, the ball skims narrowly over top of it, almost sending a glass of water crashing to the ground.

“Um, hello?” I say, and they both twist to look at me.

“What’s up, Jamie?” Noah calls, working the ball between his feet.

“What the hell are you guys-?”

I’m cut off by another loud thunk as Noah shoots the ball to Aiden. It goes too high, and Aiden catches it against his stomach, letting out an oof of surprise.

“Dude, your aim,” he wheezes, and Noah lets out a breathless laugh.

“Whatever, man! Let’s not forget that I’m the guy who won the game for us on your birthday. Honestly, we haven’t talked about that enough. I’m gonna try to bring it up at least twice a day, going forward.”

“Like I didn’t hand you that one, bro,” Aiden laughs, dropping the ball and catching it on his sneaker.

“Please,” Noah scoffs, his eyes on the ball.

“Jamie, wasn’t it my kick that-?”

“Jamie’s opinion is moot, obviously! He’s always gonna pick your side, Aiden. Where’s Raj when I need him? Or Mel?”

They must have been playing for a while. Aiden’s hair is starting to curl with sweat, and Noah’s is slipping out of the loose bun he had it in. The trash can in the kitchen appears to have been violently knocked over.

I wince as Aiden kicks the ball over the coffee table again.

“Are you kidding me, right now?” I dart forward to snatch the water glass out of harm’s way, then back myself up against the door. “I swear to god, you guys have the combined IQ of a raisin. Why wouldn’t you do this outside?”

“Grass is icy,” Aiden explains, lifting his elbow to show me the makings of a small purple bruise.

“Yeah, Jamie,” Noah chuckles, “Did you know that a blade of grass is all it takes to fell a giant?”

"Okay." Aiden scowls deeply at him. “You know what? Come here, you dumb bastard.”

Noah backs up as Aiden begins a menacing approach. “What’s-?”

“I’m gonna kill you,” Aiden says, in a very calm, matter-of-fact way.

Noah lets out a startled laugh. “Dude! Back the fuck - are you s-?”

He breaks into a run, and Aiden zips after him. They race around the kitchen counter, Aiden making a swipe for Noah’s arm, Noah dodging out of the way just in time.

The glass of water sloshes all over my hand as I rush to grab the soccer ball before Noah can trip and hurt himself on it. I’m struggling not to laugh, and I spill even more in my retreat.

“Bro, pump the brakes!” Noah yells over his shoulder.

Aiden does come to a stop, but only to quickly push a kiss onto my mouth. I kiss him back automatically, curling my fingers around the nape of his neck.

“Hi,” he purrs, and takes off again.

“Hi,” I laugh, as Noah crashes into the bedroom with Aiden in hot pursuit.

I’m about to shout after them that they’re definitely going to break something, but given the number of things I’ve helped break in Aiden’s apartment, I guess I have no room to talk. I head to the kitchen, set the glass in the sink, and put the bag of takeout on the counter.

Aiden and Noah come sprinting out to lap the living room again.

“What are you even gonna do?” Noah gasps, putting the kitchen island between them.

Aiden shrugs, slowly circling closer. “Fold you up, put you in the dishwasher, forget about you until I come home from work tomorrow?”

“Wow!” Noah is trying to sound indignant, but he’s talking around a laugh, so he’s not doing a great job. “Okay. Just because I’m not eight-foot-whatever doesn’t mean I can fit in the fucking dishwasher.”

“I am not eight feet tall.”

Noah narrows his eyes at him, tipping his head to the side. “Are you sure?”

Aiden tears off after Noah, chasing him out onto the porch. My phone starts to buzz, and I dry my hand off on my flannel before I slip it from my pocket.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jamie.”

I glance over at the porch. Noah and Aiden are out of earshot, but I turn away just in case, keeping my phone close to my ear.

“Hey, Mel. What’s up?”

There’s a brief silence from her end of the line.

“I was just calling to make sure that you didn’t say anything to anyone. About, um. What we talked about, a few days ago?”

I reach into the kitchen cabinet to get some plates. Noah is here, so I grab three.

“No, I most definitely did not. Why, did Noah say something?”

“He didn’t say anything, but he’s been sort of - nervous, recently. Only around me, I’ve noticed. Also, he got a text from Aiden earlier, and he practically went running out of here.”

“Oh, I don’t think that has anything to do with it.” I look out at the porch, where Aiden is backing a laughing Noah into a corner, stabbing a threatening finger into his chest. “I think he was probably just excited to hang out with Aiden. But the other part… nervous how, exactly?”

Melanie hesitates.

“It’s little things,” she says. “He won’t hold eye contact with me for more than a few seconds. He’s been so jumpy when I touch him, and that’s not normally a problem.” A small silence. “Do you - think he’s figured out how I…?”

“No,” I tell her firmly. “Believe me, I would know if he had.”

“Okay.” The relief in Melanie’s voice is apparent. “It’s just - this is already going to be really difficult for me to explain to Raj, if I do decide to talk to him about it. If he hears about it from someone other than me, that’s not going to make it any easier. The opposite, in fact.”

“I know. I promise, I haven’t said a word to anyone.”

Melanie lets out a held breath. “Thank you, Jamie.”

“Oh - hey, guys!” I say loudly, as Aiden and Noah come back in from the porch, out of breath and red-cheeked.

Melanie understands right away.

“Talk to you later,” she says, and ends the call.

“Are you two finished with your rampage?” I set my phone down and open up the takeout bag, shaking my head. “How literally every single thing in this apartment isn’t broken, I’ll never know.”

They both come over and lean their elbows on the counter, watching me pull the containers out of the bag, along with some chopsticks, duck sauce, and fortune cookies.

"Guess I should probably roll out?" Noah glances between me and Aiden. "Let you guys have dinner?”

“Really?” I find myself sort of disappointed. “You have to go?”

“Yeah, Noosh, stay,” Aiden says. “There’s enough for all of us, and Jamie’s already got three plates out, so. Kinda rude to leave now.”

Much like Aiden, Noah’s eyes shift in shade with his mood. His happiness is a bright, silvery color, like the magnesium crystals pictured in Ellen’s science textbook.

His eyes are that color right now. Even though he rolls them like we’re guilting him into this.

“Fine. Whatever.”

Aiden tosses him a fortune cookie. Noah catches it, cracks it, and extracts the little slip of paper.

He looks like he’s about to read it out loud, but he stops, and reads in silence.

“What’s it say?” Aiden asks, catching the change in his expression.

Wordlessly, Noah turns it around to show us. The fortune says, in tiny, red print letters:

Follow the advice of your heart.

“Makes it sound so easy,” he says, under his breath.

“Tell me about it,” Aiden answers, unscrewing the cap on his water bottle. “That shit is hard as hell.” He casts a small smile at me across the countertop. “Worth it, though.”

Noah looks up at him, his eyes clouded. He slips the fortune into the pocket of his black jeans, clearing his throat.

“Where’s the food from?” he asks, reaching for a pair of chopsticks. “Great Wall, or China King?”

“China King is all the way on the other side of town, dude,” I tell him, handing over some napkins. “Obviously I went to Great Wall.”

“All the way on the other side of town,” Noah scoffs. “As if you couldn’t make it from one end of Ketterbridge to the other in like, twenty minutes.”

“Um! Maybe you can, Noah, given your extreme disregard for speed limits!”

“China King is way better. Worth risking the ticket.”

“Wrong. So very wrong.”

Noah turns to Aiden. “Dude, back me up, here. Where’d you get the best Chinese food you’ve ever had?”

Aiden thinks it over before he answers. “Yangshuo.”

“I haven’t heard of that place,” Noah says, his eyebrows furrowing. “Is it in Greenrock?”

“No, man,” Aiden laughs. “It’s in China. And it’s not a restaurant, it’s a town.”

Noah stares at him, wide-eyed. “You’ve fucking been to China?”

“I’ve…” Aiden’s expression falls, and he fidgets with the cap of his water bottle. “I’ve been all over.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence.

Aiden has told me a few bits and pieces about his time away, but Noah hasn’t heard one word about it. I think I’m the only one Aiden has really brought it up with. It’s a subject we tend to avoid as a group, because everyone knows that Aiden doesn’t like to talk about it.

We’ve arrived here by accident, and no one seems to know what to do.

Noah bites his lip.

“Sorry,” he says, cringing. “We don’t-”

“Don’t be sorry, it’s fine.” Aiden waves a hand at him. “I’m not kidding, though. I’ve been all over. You name it, I’ve been there.”

“Everywhere,” Noah repeats.

“Everywhere.”

Noah nibbles his lip some more, then tries: “Spain?”

“Yeah.”

“India?”

“Yep.”

“Mexico?”

Aiden goes quiet for a minute, deciding how much to share.

“One of my favorite moments was in Mexico. I went to this town up in the mountains, about an hour and a half outside of Mexico City. It was gorgeous. So green and bright and beautiful. In that valley, when the sun rises, and the light starts to come down the mountaintops, all of the birds just... start singing at once.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “I don’t even know how to describe it. Not a lot of my memories from those years are super clear, or all that pleasant, but… that, I’ll never forget.”

Noah and I stare at him with matching startled expressions on our faces. Noah has a lot of new information to take in, but I’m more staggered by the fact that Aiden just shared so much at once, especially about this, especially to someone besides me.

My heart glows, my face melting into an affectionate smile.

“Noosh,” Aiden says, poking his arm. “Why do you look shell-shocked?”

He does look shell-shocked, and I think I already know why. Noah is thrown by all this unexpected information, but more thrown that Aiden chose to open up to him about it.

He gives himself a shake. “I don't. I'm not.”

Aiden raises an eyebrow. “No?”

“No, I just can’t believe that they’d let a man built like a circus giant onto an airplane even once, let alone that many times.”

Aiden slaps Noah’s arm, huffing out a laugh. “Fuck you, dude! That is a gross exaggeration, and you know it.”

Noah breaks back into a smile, his eyes picking up that silvery tint again.

“Okay, enough," Aiden says. "Are we eating, or what?”

~~~~

When Noah is on his way out, he snags my arm.

Aiden has already gone back inside, off to take a shower. Noah must want to talk to me alone, so I step out onto the porch with him.

“What’s up?” I murmur, closing the door after us.

Noah runs a tattooed hand over his chin. “Has Aiden ever said why?”

“Why what?”

“Why he left.” Noah slips his hands into his jacket pockets, avoiding my eyes. “I mean, he had people here who cared about him, you know?”

For once, I’m glad that everyone knows what a bad liar I am, because I don’t think that Noah would believe me otherwise.

“I have no idea why he left, Noah. He’s never told me.”

Noah meets my eyes again, clearly taken aback. “You’re telling me you’ve never fucking asked him?”

“I… I’ve found that sometimes, it’s better to let people come to things on their own.”

Footsteps on the stairs disrupt the muffled quiet of the snowy night. We both turn to find Melanie on her way up, her cheeks pink from the cold. A maroon knit scarf is tucked into her zipped-up coat, and snowflakes are clinging to her braid.

“Hi,” she says warmly, stopping at Noah’s side.

“Hi,” he answers, surprised.

“I got the text that you were on the way home. Figured I’d just come get you, so you don’t have to walk in the snow.”

“Noah, you didn’t have a ride sorted out?” I cut in, staring at him. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“Well, the temperature dropped a few degrees. Knowing what I know about your car, I figured that was probably enough to kill the battery.”

“No,” I protest. “I mean - okay, yeah, it’s been giving me some issues, but - I could have dropped you!”

Noah shrugs. “Didn’t want to be a burden.”

“You’re not,” Melanie and I answer, at the same time.

Again, Noah seems taken aback. “Alright…”

“You ready to head out?” Melanie asks, resting a hand on his elbow.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” Noah nods at me. “Later, Jamie.”

“Later.”

I stand on the porch, watch them disappear together into the fast-falling snowflakes.

It’s not lost on me that Noah had those magnesium eyes again, the second that Melanie’s hand came to rest on his arm.

~~~~

Aiden is in bed by the time I come back inside. Sitting up with the lamp on, reading the new book of poems I gave him. His hair is all damp and messy from the shower, and he’s wearing the glasses. He’s started doing that every time he’s reading in dim light.

No complaints from me. It’s a ridiculously sexy look that I happen to be very fond of. Especially if he’s naked under those blankets, and I suspect he is.

After my shower, I get under the blankets, too, and coil my body around his. He gently twists a strand of my hair around his index finger while he reads.

When he finishes the poem he was working on, he sets the book on the night table, and bends to kiss the top of my head.

I start softly licking my way down his side, and he huffs out a laugh, burying his fingers in my hair. The heat of his torso warms my mouth, and I feel his heart palpitating beneath the palm I have on his chest.

Aiden slides down to lay even with me, then turns onto his side and pulls my body into his. He draws me into a long, lingering kiss.

When he breaks it off, he pulls back, stroking his knuckles down my face.

“Hey,” he murmurs, searching my eyes with his. “Where did you just go?”

Unsurprisingly, my Companion Plant can tell when I'm deep in my thoughts.

“I was just thinking about you.” I put the tip of my nose to his. “I like how you cast your light everywhere you turn, Heliomancer. Even when you’re not trying to.”

“What?” he laughs. “What’s that mean?”

I can’t even begin to explain.

“Nevermind.” I kiss him again, cupping his face in my hand. “I love you. A lot. That's all.”

For a silent moment, Aiden just looks at me, blue eyes glimmering.

“I love you, too,” he says softly, and rolls on top of me.

I wrap my arms around him. Bring my face to his, so he can kiss me. He does, cradling my head in one oversized hand, his thumb smoothing back and forth along my jaw.

It’s dark in his bedroom, but I am glowing in his light.