All Chapters of Falling For My Father's Best Friend: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

POV: Third PersonIt started small enough that Noel almost missed it.Gabriel left for work before Noel was even awake two mornings in a row. He came home later than usual, citing a case that needed extra attention, and when he was home, he stayed in his study with the door mostly closed, emerging only for the essentials.Noel told himself Gabriel was just busy. He repeated that to himself for three days before the explanation stopped holding up.The house, which had slowly turned comfortable over the past weeks, began to feel hollow again in a way Noel recognized and resented. He'd gotten used to Gabriel's presence, the small sounds of him moving through the kitchen, the quiet company of working in the same room without needing to talk.Now there was just quiet. The wrong kind.◊◊Gabriel told himself the distance was responsible.He kept thinking about the pen, about how naturally his hand had stayed where it was instead of pulling back the second their fingers touched. That had uns

Noel woke tangled in blankets that weren't quite arranged the way he usually left them, and for a few seconds he had no idea where he was.Then it came back to him. The kitchen. Gabriel staying instead of retreating down the hall. The quiet conversation that had turned into something else. The first kiss, careful and uncertain. His own voice saying he was done pretending. The second kiss, steadier than the first.Noel sat up and let the reality of it settle over him all at once.It didn't arrive as pure happiness, though some part of him recognized that underneath everything else. It arrived as a list. Benjamin didn't know. Gabriel was Benjamin's best friend. They were living under the same roof, right now, this very morning. Noel still hadn't finished unpacking everything about Celeste. Neither of them had said what this actually was. If it went wrong, it wouldn't just be the two of them who got hurt.His mind moved too fast to sit still with any of it, so he got up and started strai

POV: Third PersonThe evening started like most of theirs did lately, nothing planned, nothing deliberate, just the two of them in the kitchen after dinner, Noel drying dishes while Gabriel put away the last of what they'd cooked."You missed a spot," Gabriel said, nodding at the pan still in Noel's hands."I did not.""You absolutely did."Noel held it up to the light, inspecting it with exaggerated seriousness. "This is slander."Gabriel huffed something close to a laugh and reached past him for the cabinet, close enough that his arm brushed Noel's shoulder, close enough that neither of them moved to correct the distance once it closed.◊◊It kept happening like that, small moments where the space between them shrank without either of them announcing it. Gabriel reached for a towel on the counter behind Noel, and instead of stepping back to let him through, Noel just shifted slightly, letting Gabriel's hand settle briefly against his hip to guide him a step to the side."Here," Gabr

POV: Third PersonIt wasn't an accident anymore.That was the thing Noel kept noticing, the days after their conversation in the kitchen. The tension still built the same way, in glances across the table, in the careful attention Gabriel paid him through the ordinary parts of the evening. But now, before anything happened, Gabriel checked in. Plainly, without making it feel like paperwork."You still good with this?" Gabriel asked one evening, close enough that Noel could feel the question in his chest as much as hear it."Yeah.""You'd tell me if that changed.""I would." Noel meant it, and something in him settled just from saying it out loud, from knowing exactly where they both stood before anything else happened.◊◊He found, over the following days, that the certainty of it mattered more than he expected.Gabriel established small, simple expectations before their private time together, nothing elaborate, just enough that Noel knew the shape of what was coming. There was somethi

POV: NoelBenjamin's car pulled into the driveway a little after noon, and Noel was at the front door before the engine had finished cutting off.His father climbed out looking rumpled and tired and entirely pleased with himself, a garment bag over one arm and a suitcase that had clearly lost an argument with the airline dragging behind him."There he is," Benjamin said, dropping everything on the porch to pull Noel into a hug. "Let me look at you. Still in one piece.""Gabriel kept me fed. Mostly.""Mostly?" Benjamin laughed and clapped him on the back. "Help me with this bag and I'll tell you about the hotel that lost my reservation twice."Noel carried the suitcase inside, and Benjamin talked the whole way through the hallway and into the kitchen. The hotel. The opposing counsel who had apparently brought his own chair to every meeting. The flight home that had been delayed so long he'd eaten dinner at the gate. Noel laughed in the right places, and a lot of the laughter was real.