Chapter 20 #2
I’m not going to fall in love with my husband, but it doesn’t mean I can’t love the way he treats his siblings.
The way he shows up every day. At work. At home.
For everyone. The way he deals with the loss of his parents, and the responsibilities too-soon bestowed on him.
I used to crush on him because he was the real nice guy with a nerd vibe and an outdoorsy body.
I didn’t know everything else hiding under this yumminess.
And I can love all that without being in love with him.
Right?
“Babe?” Noah nudges me when he comes back. “Gotta slide in there,” he grumbles in my ear. There’s ten of us milling around the booth, more coming, and that means we’re sitting in pairs. Women on their men’s laps. Pregnant woman at the head of the table.
Noah slides in and pulls me onto him as if this were the most natural thing.
As if we did this all the time. I have to say, our movements are natural.
There’s no awkwardness. His palm scoops me up, his hand lands on my hip, nudging me against him.
I feel a brief tremor coming from him, some understandable tension.
But what are we going to do? We’re newlyweds; we’re supposed to not be able to keep our hands off each other.
His hand that was on my hip slides down my thigh while the other twirls my hair, moving it to the side. “You okay?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious of my weight.
The rumble of his voice comes right back. “Never been better.”
I lean into his ear, getting a whiff of his scent. “You’re sure I’m not too heavy?” I whisper.
His hand clenches on my thigh. “What did you say?”
“I said—” I start, but he interrupts me with a spasmodic clench on my thigh.
“Don’t ever say that again,” he growls. “You’re perfect,” he says loud enough for everyone to hear, but not in an ostentatious way.
Then he turns me sideways on his lap, my back to the wall so we can see each other.
Picks up a potato chip, homemade by Chloe, from a bowl in the center of the table and… brings it to my lips.
“They’re the best,” he says. “Come on, open wide.”
Across the table, Kiara averts her gaze from us, her cheeks tinting. I open my mouth, letting Noah drop the chip on the tip of my tongue, briefly feeling the rough pad of his finger.
“You like it?” he asks.
I clench my thighs and try not to choke as air rushes inside my lungs.
He takes another chip and pops it in his mouth. “Go ahead,” he says, pointing to the overflowing shared plate he made for the two of us.
There’s no way I can push anything down right now. Everything in me is clenching. Belly. Lungs. Thighs.
“Willow, when are you giving up your apartment?” Grace asks.
“Yeah, the new bartender at the restaurant was hoping to rent it,” Chloe chimes in, “but he found another place.”
Water. I need water. “I’m locked into my lease for a little bit,” I lie. “I was gonna take my time sorting through things.”
Kiara leans in, clearly enjoying this moment.
“Let us know, and we’ll help with the move.
Colt will take some of his stuff back. He’s been missing his big ass TV.
” Colton left a lot of his furniture to me when he moved in with Kiara, and now I feel totally selfish for not moving out faster.
First my job, now my apartment. Everything that made my life seems to be taken from me.
“I have not,” Colton counters. “I have you,” he says as he kisses her neck. To me, he says, “Take all the time you need.”
His reassurance isn’t enough to lift my anxiety. I wasn’t going to give my apartment up. I was going to keep it so I could go back to my home when all this is over, but clearly I didn’t think this through! Because of course people would notice.
Stupid, horny me for thinking about the PDA—right—and not the most obvious: not just moving into Lilyvale but officially moving out of my apartment.
Noah wraps his arm around my waist, pulls my side to his front, and nuzzles my ear lobe. “Stop worrying,” he whispers in my ear.
My spine arches in delight before I can stop myself. Then Chloe says, “So, Willow, when did you know Noah was the one?” and the whole table quiets down.
Chloe is fairly new to town. She’s been here what—a year? She loves the caring tapestry that this whole town weaves; she doesn’t know the history of each strand.
She doesn’t know about my long-standing crush on Noah, and how my childhood friends kept warning me against it. I suppose this means they didn’t tell her about it either, which in a sense is super respectful but also puts me in a pickle.
Especially now that Owen has wandered to our table, plate in hand as he makes the rounds like the politician he is.
I open my mouth to answer, but Noah answers instead, “Willow believes in soul mates.”
“Ooh,” Chloe coos. “And you don’t?”
I feel more than see him shrug. “I believe in Willow.”
Suddenly that shepherd’s pie is a fascinating object to study.
The whole table awwws, except for Kiara who, I find out when I finally raise my gaze, is throwing daggers at me.
Thankfully that closes the chapter of questions people have for me.
For the rest of the evening, I’m snuggled on Noah’s hard thighs, listening to Chloe go on about how their dog Moose keeps running away, Chris explaining to the guys what it means when a baby drops, and Kiara talking wedding cakes with Grace and Alex.
When we leave, Noah walks me out with an arm around my shoulders. “Owen is onto something,” he whispers under his breath, and I instinctively tug myself closer to him.
“Little weasel,” I say into Noah’s neck, and push my hand in his back pocket. “I hope he’s watching.”
He doesn’t answer, just runs his lips on my temple as we head for the wide-open doors, onto The Green.
I almost trip on Moose, Justin’s massive dog, as he sneaks inside, his fur matted with mud. “Hey buddy,” Noah and I say at the same time, but the dog just continues on.
A cool breeze coming from the river envelops us, and I instinctively wrap my shawl tighter around my shoulders, while Noah runs his warm hand up and down my upper arm, like a proper husband.
“What did Owen say?” I ask once we’re at a safe distance.
Noah glances behind us. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he says, “That he doesn’t believe our marriage is real.”
“So?” I whisper back. "Why do we care about Owen?"
“ He represents developers, and I’ve turned down offers that came through him in the past. When he said he was warning me about our marriage, he made it sound like a threat. I can’t even talk to my lawyer about this.”
“I never liked Owen.”
“I should hope not.”
We reach the end of The Green and make the left onto Elm street, nearing the store.
The awning is rolled back. In the dim inside lighting, the display windows have the potential of showing soft coziness—if the accumulation of stuff there didn’t look so haphazard.
I removed the umbrellas and placed the board games back where they were, which made me extremely unhappy.
“Who normally does the windows?” I ask Noah.
His voice is clipped when he answers. It’s something I’ve noticed whenever he talks about the store. He seems stressed. “Whoever has time. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time we did anything to it.” Yes, the layer of dust attests to that.
“Maybe I could take a stab at it?” I could see thematic displays by season or occasion. Cute kitchen items displayed at varying heights. A pine shelf with bath products and fluffy towels artfully arranged. Toys piling out of a painted chest. Clothing is trickier—but I’m sure I can figure it out.
“Knock yourself out,” he says, turning his gaze straight ahead as he takes us at a fast clip away from the store and toward Lilyvale.
Glancing behind us, he removes his arm from around my shoulders. “Coast is clear,” he announces with a grin. My hand slips out of his pocket as he sidesteps to a respectable distance.
“Phew,” I joke, wrapping the shawl tighter around my shoulders, unable to repress a shiver as a gust of wind penetrates through the thin wool layer.
Noah moves closer to me, as if to warm me up, and shoves his hands in his pockets, looking up to the star-filled sky. “Can’t believe we have this cold spell now.”
Then as we reach the house, he holds the door open for me, and I brush against him as I make my way in, bracing myself against the feeling of safety he gives me. Against the feeling of being cared for. Reminding myself that I can’t fall too deep for Noah.
I kick my shoes off while Noah turns some lights on. Beck and Lane were still at Lazy’s when we left. “Chloe almost busted us. I can’t believe I didn’t think about the lease on my apartment.” Where am I even going to live after this is over? “How long… how long d’you think we need to stay married?”
His gaze registers something like pain, and yeah, I get it. It must be a real pain in the ass for him. He sleeps on a couch each night, for fucks’ sakes.
“Would be great if we could stretch it until after my birthday. If it’s okay with you.” His voice is low, like he doesn’t dare ask me, and his vulnerability slices through me.
“Of course,” I say. I’ll think about the rest of my life later. “But we have a problem. We don’t know each other well enough. Something’s bound to come out between now and then.”
Noah takes his glasses off and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Nah.” He sets his gaze on me, effectively rooting me to where I’m standing, while a sad smile softens his expression. “I’d say we gave them a good show tonight.”
A pang of desire mixed with sadness stabs me. It was all a show and yet… I let myself believe it was real. And it felt so good.
Idiot.
“You don’t understand,” I counter, my outer self insisting on being all fiery, when inside I just want to curl up in a sad little ball.
“What if… what if someone contests our marriage and-and-and we’re asked to testify or something?
You know how they ask parents going through a divorce the name of their kids’ best friend or favorite stuffed animal? ”
“They do that?”
Pretty sure I saw that in a movie, but that’s beside the point. “What if they did that for us? You know how Owen can get. Always looking to create trouble. It’s like he can’t stand to see other people happy.”
He huffs “What do you suggest?”
“We need to study each other.”