CHAPTER 5. Noah #3
Cassidy falls into step with me as if none of the earlier awkwardness ever happened and starts talking—about the property, the view, the hills around the lake. She has a gift for filling silence that I’ve always vaguely admired and currently resent.
“It’s just beautiful out here,” she says, gesturing toward the lake. “Do you know if there’s kayaking? I read that the lake is big enough.”
“Yeah, I think so,” I say, remembering a shed full of equipment I saw by the dock during our horse ride.
“Amazing. Rick, we have to do kayaking tomorrow.”
“Sure, babe,” Rick says, and I hear his footsteps just behind me on the gravel path.
I don’t look back at him.
Then I hear him ask Connor if he’s Irish. Connor says yes, and Rick starts telling him about the trip he and Cassidy took to Dublin a month ago. I just listen to them, completely in my head, already wishing this weekend was over.
When we step into the cottage, Connor steps beside me. His hand finds mine without ceremony, his fingers sliding between mine, and I feel the anxiety in my chest ease a little.
The cottage is warm and quiet, and for a moment I wish Connor and I weren’t sharing it with Rick and Cassidy.
Once we’re upstairs, I let go of Connor’s hand, and he gives me a quick reassuring smile before heading into our room.
I push open the left door. It’s basically the same as ours, maybe a little smaller.
Cassidy steps past me and makes a soft approving sound.
“Oh, it’s so cozy in here!”
Rick pauses in the doorway.
“This is great, Noah,” he says. “Thanks.”
“Sure,” I say, even though I had nothing to do with any of it.
He looks at me for half a second—and there it is again, that unreadable look that doesn’t quite fit the polished Rick of birthday parties and dinners out. Then it’s gone.
“See you at dinner,” he says.
“Yep,” I say.
I walk into our room and pull the door shut behind me. Connor is pulling off his wet flip-flops, dripping water on the floor.
“You’re dripping,” I tell him, and Connor snorts.
“Yeah, I forgot to take a towel with me.”
“Take your soggy shorts off,” I say, smiling despite myself.
“If you ask me nicely, baby,” Connor says, lowering his voice a little and waggling his eyebrows.
I roll my eyes and chuckle, then take off my hoodie because it’s damp and not exactly dinner-appropriate, while Connor rummages through his bag.
We’re completely quiet for a few seconds. Then from the next room we hear Rick’s voice and Cassidy’s laugh.
I turn to look at Connor.
“The walls,” I whisper. “They’re as shitty as the ones we have back home.”
Connor straightens up to listen.
Cassidy laughs again, softer this time, and I hear the low murmur of Rick’s voice underneath it, too quiet to make out the words.
Something clenches in my chest. Not jealousy. Or maybe it is jealousy, but not the kind that burns—the kind that aches. The kind that makes you feel physically sick that the person you once loved gets to have this separate life without you.
“I’m going to shower,” Connor says.
I look at him. “That would be, like, your third shower today, right?”
He picks up a heap of clean clothes and says with complete composure, “So far.”
Then he walks into the bathroom and closes the door, and a moment later I hear the water start.
I sit down on the bed, lean back on my hands, and stare at the ceiling.
From the next room, Cassidy says something I can’t make out, and Rick responds, and then there’s the sound of a drawer sliding open. The whole thing is perfectly innocent and mundane and still manages to feel like pressing on a bruise.
I need to stop listening. I need to do something useful—reread my emails or make a to-do list for tomorrow or organize my toiletries. I reach for my phone, but I don’t even unlock it. I just hold it in my hand and breathe.
The knock comes about a minute later. And then I hear Rick’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Hey, Noah? Sorry to bother you. Do you happen to have an iPhone charger? I think mine’s still in the car and I’d rather not—”
I scramble up from the bed, my heart pounding, cross to the door and open it.
Rick is standing in the hallway in a fresh shirt—a gray linen one, sleeves rolled, hair still perfect. He looks at me, and I look at him, and for a moment neither of us says anything.
“The iPhone charger?” he prompts, but there’s the slightest hitch in it. “I’ll give it back to you after dinner.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say. My voice comes out steadier than I expected.
I go to my bag, suddenly aware of him behind me, and pull the charger from the side pocket. When I turn back, I catch Rick eyeing the room, taking in the king bed, the bags open on the floor, the general evidence of two people sharing a space.
He blinks when he catches me looking.
“Thanks,” he says, taking the charger from me, but doesn’t rush to leave. “So you and him—” He trails off, as if waiting for me to continue.
“Connor,” I say.
“Connor,” he repeats. “Right. You two are pretty serious?”
The question is so casual it’s like he doesn’t care at all, but I know Rick. He wouldn’t ask if he didn’t care.
“Yeah,” I say. “We are.”
Rick nods, his jaw tightening. He looks at me for a second, then shifts slightly, so that I think he’s about to leave, but instead he says, “You said you started dating a couple of months ago? That’s fast.” He pauses, catching my eyes, and I just blink at him, stunned he has the audacity to say that to me.
I should tell him that he has no right to ask me this. Tell him he was the one who started dating Cassidy a week after breaking up with me. Tell him to go fuck himself.
But I just freeze on the spot, my whole body going cold, suddenly unable to utter a single word. Before I can gather my thoughts, I hear the bathroom door creak behind me.
“Noah,” Connor calls me.
I turn and see him standing in the bathroom doorway in nothing but a towel, slung low on his hips, still wet and dripping. He is absurdly good-looking in a way that feels almost unfair to Rick, especially right now.
He gives me a mock-stern look and says, “I thought we were showering together.”
There’s a beat when I wonder if Connor just heard Rick’s voice or if he overheard what he was saying and came out on purpose, just to piss him off.
“Right,” I say, which isn’t a real sentence, but it’s what I have. “I’ll be right there, baby.”
Connor holds my gaze for exactly one second—and in that second there’s something in his eyes, something satisfied and absolutely unreadable—before he disappears back into the bathroom.
I do everything I can not to look smug when I turn back to Rick. Not that it matters, because I’m pretty sure my face is on fire. My ears are on fire. I can feel the heat all the way down to my toes.
But to my surprise, when I turn around, Rick is already gone. The door of his bedroom closes with a soft click, and I feel a warm rush of satisfaction.
Good. He can go fuck himself.
I close our door, adrenaline still pounding through me, my heart hammering so hard it feels like it’s trying to break through my sternum. Through the wall, I can hear Cassidy talking, though I can’t make out a word over the pounding in my ears.
I cross to the bed, then sprawl across the covers, face up, staring at the exposed beams of the ceiling. I feel powerful and vengeful, and yet Rick’s words keep turning over in my head.
That’s fast.
Like I am the problem. Like I destroyed everything that we had.
And for some reason, I still feel like shit.