The night before Noah Hill left his hometown of Mountain View, he had a drunken sexual tryst with his best friend, Lucas Wesson. Deeply in the closet, Noah is horrified at his behavior, and terrified of what Lucas would think of him. He left the next morning without saying goodbye, and effectively cut off all ties. He returns five years later to help his father, and runs into his old best friend almost as soon as he reaches town. And nothing has changed. He still loves Lucas, and he still can't stand to meet the other man's eyes.<br><br>Lucas has been through a lot in the past five years without his best friend's support. A marriage. A divorce. A child. Running his own business. He also remembers his one night with Noah with perfect clarity. For five years, he only wanted Noah to come home. But now that Noah is back, things have changed too much to ever be the same between them ...

My Only Home

Noah frowned at the thought. He had told Luke he wouldn’t leave him like that again, and he meant it. But he couldn’t stay in Mountain View. He couldn’t. The town made him claustrophobic. He had a career, a life, in Los Angeles, and after working so hard to carve out a living for himself, he couldn’t just abandon it. Not even for Lucas.


Noah rested his head in his hands, staring down at the toes of his shoes. But he couldn’t hurt Luke again either. He couldn’t make all sorts of promises and walk away. Noah desperately wanted to show Luke how much he wanted him, how much he adored him, how much he loved him, but wouldn’t it be selfish to make love to him, only to leave again?


Lucas deserved better. He deserved so much better after all the grief he went through at Noah’s hands, at Lilah’s. He deserved somebody who would live anywhere to be with him. He deserved somebody who could be a proper parent to his daughter. He deserved somebody who hadn’t already broken his heart once.


Chapter 18