CHAPTER 12. Connor #3
But that’s nothing new.
That wouldn’t explain Noah’s desperate need to leave, or the fact that he can’t stop crying.
“The bed,” Noah says suddenly, his voice hoarse. “We should make it.”
I nod, grateful for the task.
We move to opposite sides of the bed and pull the sheets and comforter up in silence.
Noah smooths the fabric obsessively, like he’s trying to erase all evidence of our presence.
I watch his hands—the same hands that were tangled in my hair just yesterday—as they fuss with the pillows, arranging and rearranging them.
“Do you have everything?” I ask.
Noah looks around the room.
“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”
We leave the cottage in silence, our bags slung over our shoulders. I place our keys on the small table by the door, then turn to Noah.
“Ready?”
He nods, not meeting my eyes.
I follow him to my car, watching his hunched shoulders, his trembling hands clutching his bag.
The early morning air is cold enough to send goosebumps crawling up my arms, but I barely feel it.
All my senses are focused on Noah, on the quiet, broken gasps he keeps making as he tries to control his breathing.
It’s still dark, the sky just beginning to lighten at the edges, and the cottages around us are silent.
The trunk opens with a soft click. We load our bags carefully, as if making too much noise might summon Rick or Caroline or anyone else who might try to stop us from leaving.
Then we slide inside, the doors closing with quiet thumps. Noah immediately takes off his shoes and draws his knees up to his chest, making himself as small as possible in the passenger seat.
I start the engine, but I don’t put the car in drive yet. Instead, I turn to Noah.
He’s staring straight ahead, tears still sliding silently down his face.
“Noah,” I say, my voice low. “Listen—”
I don’t finish the question. I just reach for him, and Noah crumbles against me.
The center console digs painfully into my side as I lean across it, pulling him into an awkward hug. His whole body shakes with silent sobs, and I wish more than anything that I could take this pain from him, absorb it into myself, let him breathe again.
“It’s okay,” I murmur against his hair. “We’re leaving. It’s all going to be okay.”
For several minutes, we stay like that—Noah pressed against me, my hand moving over his back, my shoulder getting damp from his tears. I don’t push him to talk. I just hold him and let him get it out.
Finally, Noah’s breathing settles a little, the shaking easing. He pulls back slightly, wiping his nose on his sleeve again in that heart-wrenching way.
“Sorry,” he whispers, voice scratchy from crying. “I wasn’t planning on being this dramatic.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, smoothing his hair back from his forehead.
Noah looks at me, and the pain in his eyes makes my stomach twist.
“Can we go?” he asks, his voice small. “Please?”
“Of course,” I say, shifting back into my seat and putting the car in drive.
We roll down the driveway in silence, the headlights cutting through the early morning darkness. As we leave the property, I glance in the rearview mirror, watching the cottages disappear behind us.
Once we’re on the main road, I reach over and take Noah’s hand. His skin is cold, fingers limp in mine, but he doesn’t pull away. He stares out the window, watching the trees go by.
“Noah,” I say softly, squeezing his hand. “Can you tell me what happened? With Rick?”
Noah takes a shaky breath, then another.
“He—” His voice breaks, and he swallows hard before trying again. “He said he still loves me.” He sounds like he still can’t believe it. “That he made a huge mistake. That he wants me back.”
There it is. The confirmation of what I’ve been dreading since that first text message. My chest feels hollow, but I keep my face neutral, even though I’m crumbling inside.
“He said he won’t marry Cassidy,” Noah continues, his words coming faster now. “Said he’ll come out to his parents, to everyone. And that he’ll do anything if I give him another chance.”
Another sob escapes him, his shoulders shaking.
“Three years I waited for him to say those words. Three years of hiding, of being his secret. And now he finally says it, and I just—”
He breaks off, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks.
I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white, trying to process what I’m hearing.
This is exactly what Noah wanted, isn’t it? Rick jealous, Rick crawling back, Rick willing to finally acknowledge their relationship publicly. This was the whole point of our fake relationship—to make Rick realize what he lost.
And it worked.
It worked fucking perfectly.
So why is Noah falling apart?
“Noah,” I say, my voice sounding strange and distant to my own ears. “If that’s what you wanted…”
I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t bring myself to give him permission to go back to Rick, to end whatever this thing between us has become.
But I have to know.
Have to hear him say it.
I swallow hard, glancing over at him. “Why are you crying?” I ask instead, reaching out to wipe a tear from his cheek. My touch is gentle, tender, even as my heart is being shredded inside my chest. “If Rick is giving you what you wanted…”
Noah shakes his head frantically. “You don’t understand,” he says, his breathing ragged. “There’s more. He—he dropped to his knees, Connor. Right there on the beach. He told me he loved me and begged me to marry him.”
I blink, my whole body going still.
Marry him?
Jesus.
The idea of Noah marrying not just that asshole, but anyone at all, makes me sick.
Fuck. What the hell do I do?
“And then,” Noah continues, “Cassidy showed up. She’d been looking for Rick, and she found us there, with him on his knees in front of me.”
“Jesus,” I breathe.
This is getting worse by the second.
“She heard everything,” Noah says, his voice breaking.
“She just stood there, staring at us, and then Rick—he told her, Connor. That he’s gay, that he loves me, that he can’t marry her.
He just…said it all. Right there. And she started crying and ran off into the woods, and Rick went after her to try to calm her down. ”
He draws a shaky breath.
“That’s why I was gone so long. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat on the beach, trying to process it all, and then Rick and Cassidy came back and he and I talked more, and I just—”
He breaks off, overwhelmed.
If I’m honest, I’m genuinely surprised by Rick.
I wouldn’t have expected him to have the balls to come clean like that, to choose Noah over his convenient lie of a life with Cassidy.
It makes me respect him a tiny bit more, even as I still want to punch his perfect teeth in for hurting Noah in the first place.
For making him cry now. For trying to get him back after all this time.
“That’s…” I search for the right words. “That’s intense. But it’s good news, right? Our plan worked.” I try not to sound bitter, but I can’t quite keep it out of my voice. “Rick wants you back. He’s jealous. You got what you wanted.”
Noah makes a small, broken sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He turns to look at me, his eyes red-rimmed but suddenly fierce.
“That’s the thing, Connor,” he says, a single tear sliding down his face. “Tonight, I realized something.”
I blink at him, confused.
“What?”
He shrugs. “I realized I don’t love him anymore.”
I stare at him, trying to process that.
“What?”
“I don’t love Rick,” Noah says, more firmly this time.
“Part of me will always care about him. We have history. He was my first boyfriend. But after what he did to me, after how he made me feel about myself for so long…” He shakes his head.
“I could never trust him again. I could never go back to that.”
Relief hits me so hard it’s almost dizzying. I have to focus on the road, on keeping the car straight.
“Then why—” I start, confused. “Why are you so upset?”
Noah stares at me, and something in his expression shifts. There’s a vulnerability there I haven’t seen before. He takes a shaky breath.
“Because,” he says, his voice breaking, “I’m in love with you, Connor.”
The words hit so hard I lose my breath. I nearly swerve the car, my hands jerking on the steering wheel before I get it under control.
Did I just hallucinate that?
Did Noah Caldwell—the man I’ve fallen for so quickly it still scares me—just say he’s in love with me?
“What?” I manage, my voice barely above a whisper.
Noah looks at me through tears, his face full of horror.
“I know it’s insane,” he says quickly, the words tumbling out like he can’t hold them back anymore.
“I know we barely know each other, and this was all supposed to be fake, and I’m probably freaking you out right now…
” He’s rambling, the way he does when he’s nervous.
”I just—” Noah wipes at his face with the back of his hand.
“These past three days have been the best…the best I’ve had in such a long time.
And I know it’s crazy to say that after just three days of being together, and I know you don’t do relationships, and I’m sure I’m not your type, but pretending to be boyfriends with you, I’ve been happier than I ever was with Rick.
So now that I know how…how happy I can be, I won’t go back to him.
Not ever. Because now I know what I want. What I could have.”
I realize I’m gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles have gone white. My heart is pounding against my ribs like it’s trying to escape, blood pulsing in my temples.
I should pull over. I don’t think it’s safe to drive when I’m this wound up.
I pull the car onto the side of the road, the tires crunching over gravel as we come to a stop.
When I turn to look at him again, Noah is staring at me, confused.
“W-why did you stop?” he asks, like he’s suddenly uncomfortable having all my attention on him.
I stare at him, still trying to process what I just heard.
Did he just say he’s in love with me?