Chapter 11: The Coward's Way Out
The library was a tomb of whispers and dust motes dancing in slanted bars of afternoon sun. Noah had chosen the most isolated carrel on the second floor, a wooden cubicle that smelled of lemon polish and the slow decay of paper. His western lit textbook lay open, ignored.His phone glowed in his hand, a tiny rectangle of pure, addictive terror.
His thumb hovered over the search bar.He’d already cleared his history three times this week. He leaned forward, his broad shoulders hunched, creating a cave with his body to shield the screen. He typed, his calloused finger clumsy on the glass: h o w t o t e l l i f a g u y i s…
He deleted it.Started again. signs someone might not be straight.He hit search. The results loaded, a flood of trashy listicles and earnest, invasive advice columns. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic animal caught in a trap.He scanned the first link.Prolonged eye contact. He thought of Taichi looking up from the mechanical bull, sweat beading on his temple, his gaze unflinching.Noah closed the browser.Footsteps echoed on the linoleum behind him. He flinched, slapping the phone face-down on the oak desk as if it had burned him. He stared blindly at a paragraph about the frontier myth in The Virginian, his breath held until the steps faded.Five minutes later, he was back on his phone. Male friendship vs attraction. He read in frantic, hungry snippets, his eyes darting to the aisle every few seconds. A description of a “homo-social” environment made him think of the rodeo team locker room, all roughhousing and crude jokes.That was normal.Safe. Then he read a comment about noticing the specific shape of another man’s hands, and his mind flashed to Taichi’s long, precise fingers tightening a strap on a saddle.The memory was visceral, tactile.
He slammed the phone down again, rubbing his palms over his face.This was insanity. He was Noah Callahan, rodeo star, from a family where men were men and questions weren’t asked. He stood up abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping with a noise that was a gunshot in the quiet. He needed air.He needed to not be alone with this swirling, internet-poisoned confusion.
From the library steps, he saw him.
Taichi was across the quad, sitting on a low stone wall with a couple of the roping team guys. He was laughing at something, his head thrown back, the line of his throat exposed.The late sun caught the deep blue-black of his hair. Noah froze, one foot on the step, a spectator in his own life.He watched. He noted the way Taichi tucked a stray strand behind his ear with a quick, elegant gesture. The way his smile started in his eyes, a crinkling at the corners, before it ever reached his mouth.The easy drape of his denim jacket over his slim frame.It was just observation. Anthropological.That’s what he told himself.
Then, as if sensing the weight of a stare, Taichi’s gaze swept across the quad.It landed on Noah. For a suspended second, they looked directly at each other.Noah’s blood seemed to stop in his veins. Taichi’s smile softened into something less boisterous, more questioning. He raised a hand, a small, tentative wave.Noah’s brain short-circuited. Every lesson from every internet search vanished, replaced by a primal, commanding scream of RUN.
He turned on his heel, barging back through the library’s heavy doors. He stalked past the carrel, past the staring librarian, and pushed into the men’s restroom. It was empty, echoing with the drip of a faucet. He went straight to the last stall, locked the door, and leaned his forehead against the cool, scratched metal partition.His breath came in short, ragged gasps. Shame, hot and acidic, flooded his mouth.He was a coward.A fraud. He’d run from a wave.He heard the main door swing open.Footsteps. Light, casual.He held his breath.The footsteps stopped just outside his stall. A familiar, exasperated sigh cut through the silence.“For God’s sake, Noah. I saw you do your jackrabbit impression across the quad.”
Dee Mae.In the men’s room. Of course she was.He didn’t move.Couldn’t.
“You gonna come out of there?” she asked, her voice a low blend of annoyance and concern.
“Go away, Dee.”
“Nope.” He heard the rustle of her denim jacket as she leaned against the sink counter.“You want to explain what just happened? One minute you’re a statue, the next you’re literally fleeing the scene. He just waved, for cryin’ out loud. It wasn’t a marriage proposal.”
“You don’t understand,” he muttered to the metal.
“I understand that you’re spending your life in a bathroom stall instead of talking to a guy you clearly like. That’s the only part that needs understandin’.” Her voice softened, just a fraction.“What are you so scared of?”
Everything. The word was too big to say.Scared of the wanting.Scared of what it meant. Scared of Taichi seeing it in his eyes and looking back with pity or disgust. Scared of seeing interest and having no idea what to do next.Scared of confirming what the google searches whispered.
“I can’t just… walk up to him,” Noah said, finally turning and unlocking the stall door. It swung open to reveal Dee Mae, arms crossed, a single red curl escaping her ponytail and framing her frown.“Why not?”
“Because!” He threw his hands up, the gesture helpless. “What do I say? ‘Hey, I’ve been clandestinely researching sexual orientation online and I think you’re cute? Want a coffee?’”
A smirk tugged at Dee Mae’s mouth. “Well, drop the first part and it’s a start.”
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny. From my vantage point outside the panic room.” She pushed off the counter and stepped closer, her boots clicking on the tile.“Listen. You’re making this a whole big thing in your head.It’s a conversation. He’s a person.You share a team.You could just… talk about the damn weather. Or the upcoming rodeo.Or that stupid horse, Fury. You know, normal stuff.”
Noah leaned back against the stall door, the fight draining out of him, leaving only a weary emptiness. “My head doesn’t do normal stuff around him. It just… shorts out.”
Dee Mae studied him for a long moment, her green eyes seeing too much. She shook her head slowly, a sad, fond smile replacing the smirk. “You’re a damn fool, Callahan.”
He knew she didn’t just mean about the bathroom. She meant about the hiding, the fighting, the years of self-imposed exile. She meant about Billy Jacobs behind the bleachers and every single girl he’d ever taken home to prove a point that nobody was asking for.
“Yeah,” he said, the word hollow.“I know.”
She nudged his boot with hers. “Fool or not, you can’t stay in here. The janitor’s gonna think you’re sick.” She turned and headed for the door. “I’m getting a truly terrible coffee from the vending machine. You want one?”
He followed her, the fluorescent lights humming overhead a stark contrast to the golden afternoon he’d fled. As they pushed out into the hallway, the echo of her words—a damn fool—rang in his ears. It wasn’t a revelation.It was an epitaph for the person he’d been all week, maybe for years. The problem was, even knowing it, he had no idea how to be anyone else. The library doors loomed ahead, and beyond them, the quad where Taichi had been. It was empty now. The moment, like so many others, had passed.