Chapter 22
twenty-two
Willow
Of course he went for the spreadsheet. I’m impressed, though, that he would change his computer password to our wedding date. “Sounds like a hack. You know, for men to remember their anniversary.”
“Smart one at that,” he replies, “if you need a hack.”
“Why can’t more men remember their wedding anniversary?” I might as well have asked, Why can’t more men be more like you, but he doesn’t seem to get my cryptic compliment.
“Seems to me the wedding is more the woman’s thing? I wouldn’t know.”
My heart sinks a little. “See? That’s why I don’t want to get married for real.”
“And why is that?!”
“Men don’t care,” I say, looking at the empty spreadsheet, my stupid little Noah fantasy about to be crushed. It’s about time, Willow. Wake up.
I sense Noah’s gaze on me, and his voice deepens when he answers. “They don’t care about the party. About the drama. About the weird speeches. About having to pose for pictures when everyone else is having a drink.”
I hate to admit that I wouldn’t care much about that if I’d ever consider getting married. “My point exactly.”
“What they do care about is to be married.” His gaze drops to my left hand.
“To put a ring that was their mother’s on her finger.
To call her mine. To know there will always be someone strong and soft at the same time to go home to.
To go through life with.” My mouth is dry, my throat tight as he finishes.
“Men care about the marriage, not the wedding.”
I take a sharp inhale as despair and reassurance take fifty-fifty control of my heart. I knew Noah would be the perfect husband. I also always knew he’d never see me that way.
“We should add a row for first argument,” I say, needing to get back on track. “Let’s just put ‘Wedding.’”
Peeling his eyes off me, he focuses back on the computer screen. “I’m not going to remember our first argument. Or the second. Or the third. It’s petty.”
“Ok, so I’m petty,” I snap. Fuck me. Why do I need to be mean now? Where did that come from?
“I didn’t say that,” he replies patiently, not picking up on my tone. “I said remembering the argument was petty. And you know what? Maybe that’s how you function. Maybe you log in every argument you’ve had with everyone so they don’t screw you over again. It’s a perfectly valid mechanism.”
That cuts deep, because I’m not like that. Not at all. Ashamed of how I just talked to him, I take a long sip before quietly answering. “No one ever fucked me over.”
He takes a deep breath, and his leg starts bouncing up and down. “People screw people over all the time, Willow. It’s the way of the world. Maybe that should be one of the entries on the spreadsheet.” He types in People Who Screwed Us Over, then moves the cursor to the column under his name.
“See?” I say. “No one fucked you over either.”
“I’m just trying to remember how to put several entries in the same cell,” he bites back.
A little dagger twists right below my ribcage. Who would want to fuck over Noah? I’d like to have a word with them.
Before I can say anything that will betray my feelings, I snap, “Alt+enter, smartass.”
He glances at me, his glasses fogging as he shakes with silent laughter. Then he goes to a new row, types First Argument, merges our two columns and types Willow called Noah a smart ass.
I snort, then laugh so hard, droplets of my drink make it through my nose. It hurts like hell. While I cough my way out of this, he types: Outcome.
I put a hand on his forearm. “You don’t need to type anything there.”
“No? I was going to say ‘Willow drowned her embarrassment in a Manhattan.’” His eyes dance with mischief up and down my face, pure gold. There’s a tiny wrinkle at the corner of his eye, and I allow myself to imagine what can’t be there: a deeper connection.
He’s waiting for my retort, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. “That’d be a tell that our relationship is fake. Any normal couple settles an argument with sex.” An unexpected flash of heat creeps up my neck as Noah kills our eye connection, straightening and turning to the spreadsheet.
Clearing his throat, he promptly erases the Outcome cell.
Is it his body or mine that’s vibrating? There’s a tension between us that’s hard to ignore. “Here,” I say, handing him his glass of whiskey.
“Thanks,” he says then takes a long gulp. The man doesn’t like talking about sex. Maybe he should add that to the spreadsheet.
The slight guilt I feel at embarrassing him is nothing compared to the glee of making him lose his composure. “Better?” I ask.
“Much better.” Setting the glass down, he types DOB in the left-hand column.
This is going to take forever, and we’ll never even scratch the surface. “I have an idea.”
“No shit,” he says as he fills in his answer.
Birthday in September. I should be counting the days until I’m free of this “project,” but instead I find myself picturing a large get-together at Lilyvale, with a birthday cake to replace the wedding cake, the smell of a barbecue, the ringing laughter of people spilling from the patio to the porch to the river to the rose garden, a bonfire and marshmallows after sunset, fire crackling into the cool autumn air, and all the bedrooms occupied by people happy to stay over.
“Don’t be snarky,” I retort.
“I’m trying.” A semi-smile dances in his eyes.
“Are you, though?” He types in my date of birth, getting it right. “Okay, I guess you are trying.” Why is my voice so… unsteady?
“It’s a thing I have with numbers. I always memorize them,” he says. This time his mouth twitches. Is he full-on pulling my leg, or am I just delusional?
“Oh, you know how to make a girl feel special.”
He stays quiet, giving me nothing to interpret how he remembers my date of birth, but his leg resumes its bouncing as he creates new rows: major illnesses or accidents. Allergies? Food dislikes? First bike (how old were you). First car (make and model).
“Color of the first car,” I chime in, wanting to feel useful.
He types it in and continues, row after row, his long, strong fingers flying on the keyboard, his veined forearms flexing subtly. Sitting close to him, I tune into his breathing, inhale his scent.
God, what am I doing?
I go sit next to the fireplace, taking a deep, calming breath as I look up to the ceiling where shadows are dancing.
“What did you say after allergies?” he asks. Our gazes lock for a fraction of a second. I’ve never opened up to anyone the way I’m about to with him. What is it about Noah Callaway that makes me feel safe?
“Politics and religion,” I answer.
He glances at the screen. “Got that. There was something else.” He pushes his glasses up and turns his gaze to me, squinting as if the answer is written on my face. “Oh right. Memories. Childhood memories. There. That should settle it.”
There’s something extremely sad about the way he types the final entry in the spreadsheet. “Don’t you think there’s something concerning about how a husband and wife can reduce their knowledge of each other to a spreadsheet?”
He pushes his glasses up his nose, a telltale sign of moderate nervousness. “That’s one way to look at it.” His voice falters, like he’s about to say something.
Silence stretches between us. “What’s another way?” I push him. So what if my feelings are on the line? I still want to know everything about Noah Callaway.
His voice is so low that when he answers it’s almost as if he’s talking to himself. But his gaze in unmistakably on me. It’s confession time. “People should start with that, would avoid heartache.”
This is the part where he opens up about how he’s not over his ex-fiancée, and my stupid little heart will cry silently while my face stretches into a comforting kind of smile. “How so?” I ask. This is going to hurt so good.
He comes to sit next to me in the other chair facing the fireplace, but instead of talking, he just twirls his drink, looking straight through it at something on the faded oriental carpet.
For some twisted reason I’m craving the heartache, because I push. “How was she—Anika?” My strangled voice barely comes out, protesting the pain my words are sure to bring me. Now I’m going to hear all about how she hopelessly owns his heart
He glances up at me, a flash of surprise in his eyes. Was she not the heartache he was talking about? He shrugs and takes a sip of whiskey. “She was your all-American woman, the girl next door.”
“That doesn’t really define a person. So she likes the Patriots like you do—
He stands. “I forgot that. Favorite sport, favorite team, favorite athlete. Let me add it.”
I ignore him and continue with my train of thought.
“And she wears her ponytail through the strap of her cap and her Chuck Taylors are always as white as her teeth and she makes the best chili on the block. So what? Does that mean she knows how to comfort you when you had a bad day? Does that make her more understanding of your child’s night terrors?
Or was she going to make Noah The Third a perfect, all-American boy who’ll be too neurotic to even talk to a therapist?
” I can’t help but let my frustration seep through. What did he see in her?
He manages to chuckle. “For all your speeches about not wanting to get married, you seem to have some pretty set ideas on marriage and children.” He comes back to sit in front of the fire.
Taking a steadying breath, I answer, “The upside of being single. You have time to observe others. How they mess up their life when they’re trying to make it complete.
” I make air quotes around the last word, realizing what a hypocrite I am.
I’ve never felt so complete as in this moment, talking about life with Noah.
“I didn’t take you for such a cynic,” he says, squinting again as he seems to try and pierce my soul with his gaze. There’s a chance he might succeed, so I look away. “I see lots of alt plus enter for you in that column about people who effed you over,” he says.
Damn him.
“Effed me over?” I laugh. “You don’t do curse words?” Atta girl, Willow, bring this convo back to surface-level and take a breath.
“Oh, I do curse words alright, though not in daily conversation.” His gaze grows darker, in a way that makes me feel deliciously dirty.
“Really,” I say on a breath. Did the all-American girl with her ponytail and her cap like his dirty talk? I bet she did. I know I would. I clear my throat. “What do you mean by not in daily…?” Damn, that drink is making me more than chatty. It’s making me brash. Even I can tell.
“I don’t think anyone will ask you…” There’s fire in his eyes, and it’s not just the reflection of the flames three feet from us.
“Will ask me what?” I’ll stop at nothing to make Noah, master of Lilyvale, Emerald Creek royalty, and nerd extraordinaire in the body of a mountain man, squirm under my indecent questions.
“You like playing with fire, don’t you,” he states—not a question.
My heartbeat picks up wildly. “You always knew that.”
“True. It’s what… attracted me to you.” He takes a long sip. What is he saying? Is this for real or for the spreadsheet?
He’s definitely not squirming—I am. Under his stare, under his confidence.
He breaks the silence. “We’re going to be living here, together, for the next few months.
Playing house. Sleeping in the same bedroom.
I’m not sure opening up to each other about our sexual habits is the safe way to go about it.
And it certainly won’t be brought up in whatever legal inquiry your curious little mind dreamed up we might get entangled into. ”
My heart hammers in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I say, not feeling sorry at all.
I’d do anything to hear him say again that for the next few months, we’ll be living together, playing house, sleeping in the same bedroom.
“You’re right,” I concede. He’s absolutely right that no one will ask us about S.E.X.
He twirls his whiskey in his glass, the quickly melting cubes clinking softly.
“There’s one thing my wife should know. Something that never comes up in conversation, so you might have missed it.
” He tips his head back and downs the rest of his drink, then adds, “My birth mother left me and Dad when I was four years old.”
A cold shiver takes hold of me as I stay speechless.
I didn’t know there was a birth mother. “I… I thought…” I only ever thought of Amy as his mother, and it’s bad enough that she died years ago.
“Noah, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” Sitting up in my chair, I place a comforting hand on his forearm—such a meager attempt to compensate for the unthinkable.
He shrugs. “I just didn’t know under what category to put that on the spreadsheet. Childhood memory?”
I take a beat to process that, then harp on his self-deprecation. “That would be perfect under the People Who Fucked Us Over.”