Noah & Navid

Chapter 15- The Letter

"No you can't throw this out! This one is my favorite! What else is in here?" I grabbed for the white tank top he had carelessly placed in a bag of clothes to donate.

"Why not? They are old clothes and this one has a hole in the stitching on the side," Navid took the shirt from me and showed me where the side was coming undone a bit.

"You were wearing it the first day I met you. You looked so hot," I admitted and crouched down to see what else was in the bag.

"Oh... my little princess," Navid said in that voice he used when I'd done something he found irresistibly cute. "But I must get rid of some things. My mother sends me new clothes. She has sent some things for you as well. I cannot keep every thing I have worn around you."

"These stretchy white workout tights you wear to the gym! I get hard just watching your bulge in them when the shorts that cover them come down. They're my favorite! Not these, No!" I hugged them to my chest like a madman.

"Ok, ok. Take it easy, my love. There will be new tights to show you my bulge in. I would never take that from you... You will pick three items AT MOST, but we MUST shrink things. Our new home will be ready soon and I feel that your father is close to give his permission of yes for you to live with me. I cannot move forward to start new life with you unless I say goodbye to past life things," He said with hope.

Navid crouched down behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. He squeezed them and kissed up my neck tenderly to let me know he would support me in this time of great sentimental loss.

I love that he didn't laugh at me for this.

"She sent things for me too?" My ears perked up as I processed what he had said.

I dropped the clothes back into the donation bag and turned to look at him with a grin.

"Of course. You are boy I take care of and my mother, she like to buy many things. She also sends some old but good clothes of mine that might be small enough to fit my Noah. You do not notice large box in the corner?" Navid laughed at my christmas-like excitement.

"Box? Oh! That! You have so much stuff in here," I said playfully.

His room was always a mess. I knew from the start that once we lived together, my cleaning skills would be put to the test.

"And yet you yell for me when I try to throw things out!" Navid laughed and pulled me into his chest.

He tickled me and then kissed me as he rose to his feet and brought me with him.

"Presents!" I demanded and lightly pounded my fists against his chest when he eased back and set me free.

He laughed again with adoring eyes and took my hand in his as he led me across the room through piles of laundry and his workout bag.

"I don't open clothes yet, I just read the letter. I wait for you so we do this together!" Navid beamed and pointed to a box that could have held a large microwave.

The flaps were open and there were a few unfolded pages of handwritten letter in Farsi script from his mother. They looked like he had read them over a few times; the edges crinkled with interest.

Navid collected the papers and folded them neatly before setting them on top of his computer desk.

I know he missed his parents terribly. Late at night when I'd gone to sleep, he would call them. Tehran is eleven and a half hours ahead of Los Angeles, almost exactly the other side of the world.

He would speak to them in their language in soft, tender tones. I pretended it didn't wake me up, and invariably he would rub a hand over my back as he spoke.