Noah & Navid

Chapter 47- Back to Us

+-+ Noah +-+

"You can't go home tomorrow. The news says Iran is dangerous," I urged Mr. Naseri. There had been an article about some nuclear deal going on and some people saying it was going to get us killed.

"Noah! My home is not dangerous. It will be just fine," Mr. Naseri laughed.

"I'm serious... it could be dangerous. I would be heartbroken if anything happened," I reached over and put my hand on his, I rubbed the back of his hand with one finger and looked down at the table.

"You really are worried, aren't you?" Mr. Naseri observed. He took both of my hands and held them in his.

"I don't want you to get hurt," I said as his warmth flowed through my hands.

"Our countries don't tell the truth about each other," he said and held my hands tightly. We were having our last morning together before they went home.

We'd developed a little routine of walking to the coffee place while Navid was off on business and Mrs. Naseri was preparing food or off with Navid. Mr. Naseri loved trying all the varieties, the weird flavors of America that they didn't have back home. He liked how specialized he could get his drink.

"But it's from the newspaper. Why would they do that?" I said and took a sip of my green tea.

"That's a very good question. Our countries used to be friends. When I was young, Iran was emulating much about your country. Some of us felt that we had gone too far though and were in danger of losing our culture. 

Things got ugly pretty quickly, but now we are hopeful that peace is in sight," he explained as he rubbed my shoulder.

"Oh... but maybe you should stay an extra few weeks just to make sure... you could just stay here if you wanted to. We have room for you both," I said. 

Although I really wanted things back to normal with Navid, I would miss his parents when they left.

"I have a job and children back in Iran. If it is dangerous then I must go home and protect them," Mr. Naseri chuckled at my offer.

"I know... I just... I like having family here. I'm going to miss this," I said.

Mr. Naseri nodded and hugged me to his side. He assured me that we would be together again before too long. He sounded so confident about it like he never thought we could be adversaries. Maybe he would think differently if he knew what I was to his son, what I lusted after.

I'm not sure how, but the conversation turned to gender roles. He noted a couple in the coffee shop where the "husband" went to sit at the table while the "wife" went to the counter and engaged the male cashier to get the drinks. 

He thought the man should have done that and shouldn't have let her pay or talk with other men. He gave a look of shock to a guy who walked in with quarter-sized ear spacers stretching his earlobes wide. We talked about how different it was here.

And then I asked something without thinking. I couldn't stop myself. I rambled foolishly. I asked what they did when men didn't want to be like that with women or didn't want to be with women. He looked at me strangely, I never ventured into topics of controversy like that.

"I shouldn't ask that," I said after I asked it. "You probably don't want to talk about that."

"No," Mr. Naseri straightened up and shook his head. "It's ok, Noah. It's ok to ask questions. You're a very inquisitive boy, that's not a bad thing. Was there a reason for you to ask this?"

My pulse started to thump against my brain. Was he asking me if I had asked because I like boys? Did he know?

"No... no sir, I was just... curious," I shrugged with a dismissive chuckle and desperately tried to backpedal out of this.