Seven
Noa
My eyes lifted from the computer screen I’d been staring at blankly while I should have been writing when the doorbell rang.
Taking the Twizzler that I’d had clamped between my teeth, I laid it down on the plate I kept beside me for that purpose.
I rarely ate the Twizzler. I just required something to bite on while writing.
It was a weird quirk, but it was better than grinding my teeth.
When I stood up, I glanced in the mirror at my reflection.
My hair was on top of my head in a messy twist and secured with a pen I’d been given at a bookstore in Jersey when I went to do a signing there.
I’d been up since four this morning, working on this manuscript, so I was still wearing my sleep shorts and a tank top.
Scanning the room, I found the sweatshirt I’d worn the night before when I got chilly and pulled it on over my top, then made my way out toward the wide space that connected the entrance to the living and dining area of my apartment.
It was already after twelve, but I’d been so focused on trying to write and not think about all the other things rattling off in my head that I hadn’t checked the time in a while.
If this was Arden, I wasn’t in the mood to discuss things with him.
He’d called last night and left a long voicemail, telling me he wanted to talk.
He was sorry for the way he’d spoken to me.
Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure I forgave him.
Reaching the door, I decided to peek first before swinging it open.
I could act as if I wasn’t here, and then he’d leave.
Leaning in, I checked the peephole, but there was no one there.
Must have been a delivery. Relieved, I unlocked it, then opened it up to look down for something that had been left. But there wasn’t anything. Odd.
I lifted my gaze to glance down the hallway when my eyes locked on a face that sent my heart straight up into my throat.
Ransom stood there, leaning against the wall on his shoulder, with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at me.
So many things crashed into me at once, and I was scrambling to grab on to one that made sense.
But the worn brown leather cowboy hat on his head was making it hard to do much.
I’d only seen him wearing one in the Instagram photos the distillery posted.
There was one where he was wearing that exact hat, but he was shirtless, carrying an oak barrel over his shoulder, and his perfectly sculpted body was on display.
I might have used that image a few … hundred times for inspiration.
“Hello again, Juliette,” he said in a husky voice.
I licked my suddenly very dry lips. “Um … hi.” I sounded as confused as I felt at the moment.
Why was Ransom in New York, and why was he at my apartment? How did he even know my address?
He shoved off the wall and dropped his arms from his chest, then did a quick glance around him. “NoHo, huh? Romance novels must pull in a small fortune.”
As if the money I made writing compared to the money he came from.
“It was an investment,” I replied. Which wasn’t a lie. I’d gotten a good deal on it for this area of Manhattan.
“So, you don’t rent then,” he said.
I shook my head. “No. I lived in Jersey when I rented.” Because rent here was astronomical. It had made more sense to sink the advance I’d been given on my second book into a piece of real estate that wouldn’t lose its value.
“Definitely more affordable,” he replied as he moved closer to me.
I backed up a step as a reflex. “What, uh … what are you doing here?” I asked him, staring up at his face now that he was so close.
He smirked. “I guess saying that I was in the neighborhood isn’t believable, is it?”
No, since he lived in Mississippi and …
“How did you know where I lived?” I blurted.
His look of amusement was confusing. “Ah, Juliette, you’d be surprised by the things that I know,” he said, dropping his voice before stepping past me and walking right into my apartment.
Spinning around, I watched him with my mouth slightly agape as he continued on, not even glancing back at me.
I closed the door behind me while watching him survey my place as if he were an interested buyer.
“Come in, I guess,” I muttered, and he glanced back over his shoulder at me.
“Thanks,” he replied. “Think I will.”
Had Arden given him my address? But why would he do that?
I followed him as he walked toward the living and kitchen area, still in shock that this was happening.
Ransom Carver was in my apartment. Like he’d been invited.
As if he hadn’t been a complete jerk to me last weekend.
I’d hoped this weekend would be a quieter, less eventful one.
But it was Saturday at noon, and it had just taken a turn I never expected.
In fact, I’d been waiting for Ransom to respond to my last text that I’d sent around eight this morning.
Seemed he had been too busy traveling to Manhattan to do that.
“I’m sorry, but what are you doing here, in my apartment?” I asked him once I finally got a grasp on what was happening.
He stepped into the sunlit room, taking his time surveying the place as he turned around to face me. “I came for a visit. I thought that was obvious, Juliette.”
The lilt in his tone as he said my pen name wasn’t lost on me. What had he meant by that? Was he going to make fun of it some more? While standing in my apartment, uninvited?
“Yet I didn’t give you my address or invite you for a visit,” I bit back.
The glint in his eyes as he began to slowly look me over, as he had been doing to my apartment, gave me goose bumps. Dammit. What was wrong with me? This was Ransom. Who needed to leave. Who was here for God knew why. He didn’t like Juliette Romeo.
“You seem unhappy to see me,” he finally replied as his eyes met mine again.
My brows shot up. “We barely know each other,” I said, scrambling to follow along with his reasoning for being here.
He chuckled then and rubbed his scruffy, chiseled jaw with his thumb and forefinger. “Oh, I don’t know. I think we know each other pretty well. At least, I thought we did—until recently. Seems you were holding back on some things … Noa.”
I felt the blood literally leave my face as I stood there without words, staring at him. He knew. How did he know? Had Arden told him or Opal my real name? That had always been a possibility, but I thought when or if it happened, I’d get a text not … not him making an appearance in my apartment.
“You’ve gone silent on me,” he drawled, then grinned. “Don’t close up on me now. Not when I flew all the way here just to see my friend face-to-face. Catch up in person rather than our usual texting.”
This wasn’t the end of the world. It was very unlikely he’d read my books.
I’d once fantasized about this. Him seeing me now and what I’d accomplished.
Being his friend in the real world, not just a texting buddy.
Oh, who was I kidding? I never fantasized about being his friend.
My fantasies were much more interesting.
Mostly smutty. Like the scenes I wrote in books.
The ones I had to do extensive research on because Arden wasn’t very creative in bed.
“I was going to tell you at dinner, but you …” I paused, then figured, What the hell?
He’d shown up at my apartment, unannounced, and dropped this on me.
Might as well state the obvious. “You were rude. It was startling. I’d not expected to see you or Opal.
Arden hadn’t given me a name. So, when you were standing there, I was speechless at first.”
“Then I acted like a bastard, and you saw no reason to tell me anything,” he finished. “Yeah, I worked that bit out myself.” The tone of his voice was remorseful.
This was so weird. We’d talked about most of our lives via text, but standing in a room with him, it was different. Him knowing my face. Seeing me now.
“I … I should warn you that I’m better at writing down my thoughts. Texting is my preferred method of communication because of it. I, uh … I’m not a wealth of conversation in person.”
He cocked a brow. “You were at sixteen.”
I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t. We talked about Romeo and Juliet …” I tapered off on the last word, wanting to wince at having thrown out that reminder.
“I worked that out too, Shakespeare,” he replied, walking over to my sofa and sitting down.
He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankle, then reached up and took off his hat and placed it on the side table before looking at me again.
His hair was a riot of messy that could only be described as sexy.
While mine needed to have been washed this morning and was a bird’s nest on top of my head.
“Your pen name,” he added then. “You must have wanted to toss your glass of water in my face when I made my snarky comment about it at the bar.”
I shrugged. “I thought about it.”
He smirked. “You should have told me. Instead of sitting there and taking my shit.”
“I considered it. But then you pissed me off.”
Another chuckle. The deep, husky sound was hypnotic.
“In my defense, I’d been told you were a bitchy, spoiled diva that my sister was going to have to endure. It didn’t take long for me to realize she’d been lied to by your editor.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Arden told her that I was a bitchy, spoiled diva?” I asked, wishing I’d taken that ring and shoved it down his throat instead of letting it sit on the damn bar all week.
He nodded. “What, did he try and fuck you and you turned him down? Seems he has a vendetta against you.”
A hard laugh burst out of me as my eyes swung to the velvet box still in the same spot I’d put it on Monday. “No. We are—were—are—” I shook my head, reeling at the fact he’d talked about me like that. “Engaged,” I finally spit out.
When I turned my gaze back to Ransom, he was frowning—no, that was more of a scowl. “Engaged? To that fucker?” He didn’t try and hide his disgust.
I nodded.
“You never even told me you were that serious. I just knew you were dating someone but you made it sound casual. I had pictured you sitting in a room alone, editing all the time.”
I tilted my head as the corners of my lips quirked. “What, was I also wearing a terry-cloth robe with cats covering every surface and a box of doughnuts beside me?”
The amused gleam in his eyes almost twinkled when he said, “Something like that.”
I laughed this time. “Surprise,” I told him, holding up both hands. “I’m allergic to cats and gluten. Actually, the gluten thing was why I was overweight. Once I cut it out, my nasal issues that I thought were seasonal allergies stopped, and the weight fell off.”
His eyes dropped back to my body again, and I was suddenly very insecure.
I knew I wasn’t thin like Opal or most of the females I’d seen him with in the past. I had curves, but I was healthy.
That was all I cared about. Starving myself to fit into a size two or four wasn’t happening.
I was happy with my size eight jeans. For a while, I’d been set on getting into a size six, but I sat too much, writing, for that to be obtainable.
When he didn’t say anything, I crossed my arms defensively. “I mean, it didn’t all fall off, obviously. But I’m fine with the way I am now.”
His gaze snapped back up to my face. “You’re fine with the way you are now?” he said slowly.
Gritting my teeth, I tried not to be offended, but my weight was something I was sensitive about. When you grew up being called names like Tubby, Beached Whale, and Fatty Fatty Two-by-Four, it kind of stayed with you.
“Yes, I am.”
He studied me. “Why do I get the feeling you’re thinking about throwing a blunt object at my head?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you might have forgotten that my size is something that plagued me in my youth, and that sticks to a person. Having someone point out that I’m not actually considered thin makes me a touch defensive.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and we just stared at each other.
Then he uncrossed his legs and pulled them back before resting his arms on them as he leaned forward.
“Yeah, we need to clear something up. Then … then we need to set some boundaries. But first, let me say this one time, and then I won’t mention it again,” he told me as he looked straight ahead.
His head turned then, and his expression was serious, to the point that it verged on severe.
“Your body is fucking perfect. I struggled to keep my eyes off your tits throughout dinner the other night, and when you got up and walked off, the sight of your ass had my dick so damn hard that it was painful,” he said with a raspiness in his voice that sent chill bumps down my arms and caused my nipples to pebble.
“Now, I hadn’t planned on telling you that because I want to keep the friendship we’ve held over the past ten years. But it seems you’ve got some shit in your head about your body that needs to go. Yeah, I was looking at it, but not in the way you seem to think.”
A soundless chuckle left his lips, and he shook his head as he looked at the ground between his legs, hanging his head slightly.
“You turned into a successful, extremely fuckable, smoking hot babe.”
When he cut his eyes back up at me, there was a crooked grin on his face.
“Now, there is my honesty. That’s what I was thinking.
But if we are gonna keep this friendship, that will be the only time you hear me say it.
In fact, I plan on imagining the cat lady you described from now on when you text me. ”
A laugh bubbled out of me. More from my disbelief at what I had just heard Ransom Carver say about me—ME—Noa Raines.
Never had I imagined that in the many scenarios I’d come up with.
But if he thought I was going to forget he’d said it, then he was very wrong.
I might replay that in my head several times a day until I died.
“Good. I prefer you laughing. I’m not a fan of having you scowl at me. Now, why don’t you go make your ugly ass presentable and let me take you to lunch? I’m starving.”