His head swivels to me, his eyes roaming my face as the street light flickers on and illuminates the side of his face. God! This man is so beautiful. It’s truly unreal.
He seems to search for something, and whatever he finds in my expressions satisfies him enough to agree. “Sure. Only to set a time to meet next, of course.”
“Of course,” I repeat, both of us convincing ourselves.
We both climb out of the car, and I realize he’s going to enter my home. Suddenly, the idea of being alone with Noah in the walls of my house seems exciting and overwhelming all at once.
I don’t know if inviting him to my place was a good idea after all.
Ten
Noah
What the fuck was I thinking?
I think that for the umpteenth time, as I take in Andie’s apartment while she brings me a glass of water.
It’s so her, with the walls painted in bright colors ranging from yellow to blue to pink. There’s a warmth that’s lacking in any place I’ve ever called home. And that both soothes my soul and causes aches in wounds I’ve long tried to hide.
As I sit on the couch in herliving room, I wonder if a man like me is what she needs in her life. But I shove that thought away when she saunters in, draped in her yellow sundress, which she has been torturing me in all day.
From the moment she walked in and shoved the giant bouquet into my chest, and proceeded to tell me my arms are hairy at Kaeli and Ezra’s place, till now. The way that the dress falls over her curvy frame, highlighting her waist and her hips, has me biting into my fist.
“Are you alright?” she asks with a frown, extending the glass of clear water in her hand.
For a second, I forgot that she’s real and not just a figment of my imagination that ran wild and conjured her.
I straighten and crack the muscles of my neck. “I’m good,” I say, clearing my throat. I raise my hand to grab the glass from her when our fingers touch, and a shiver rolls down the length of my spine. It’s honestly thanks to the years of discipline that I hide it from her.
Though I don’t think I imagine the hitch in her breath and the minuscule widening of her eyes either. But I don’t want to be proven wrong, so I ignore it.
“Thank you.” Even I can hear the gruffness inmy voice. Drowning the water down in one gulp, I place the glass on the living room table littered with notebooks and all the imaginable stationery.
When I try to discern what those notebooks are for, Andie mumbles, and I turn my head to her to find her seated on the couch diagonal to me, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t clean up before I left this morning.”
She winces and gets up to gather her things. I raise a hand in the air, “It’s quite all right. You don’t have to do that on my account. And these are your students’ notebooks, I presume?” I look down at the table.
She nods, sitting back down on my insistence. “Then it’s not trash that has to be cleaned, Andie,” I assure her with what I hope is a smile, but I’m sure it isn’t with the way her eyes rake all over my face.
I haven’t smiled in years. Not a real one at least. Didn’t have any reason to. I’m sure she sees a monster when she looks at me. And it’s just the familiarity she has with me because of my relationship with Ezra that has made her ask me to have sex with her.
Fuck, even the thought sends a wave of heatthrough my entire body. I pull at the collar of my shirt.
“Oh, are you hot?” Her face flushes red when she realizes what she said. “I mean, you are hot. Not that—I mean…” She drawls and curses under her breath in her own unique way as she gets up to adjust the room temperature.
When she sits back, she apologizes, “I’m sorry. I misspoke.”
My lips twitch seeing her squirming for no reason as she plays with her hair, nervous. “So, are you saying I’m not hot?” I tease her, my lips set in a straight line to not reveal that.
Her blue eyes—the bluest I’ve ever seen—flare, “No, youarehot. That’s not what I meant!” She rushes to explain.
“So, you do think I’m hot then?” I ask, leaning forward, bracing my elbows on my knees.
“I—I…,” she stutters, looking wildly at me until I finally let my lips lift in a smirk.
Narrowing her eyes at me as her lips set in a pout, she mutters, “Don’t you dare tease me, Noah ‘whatever-your-middle-name-is’ Miller.”
A surprised laugh spills free, which I quickly hide in a cough. Because what the fuck was that? I don’t smile, let alone laugh.