Chapter 29
Noah
Students will be able to hover.
“It’s fine,” Shay said when I kneeled down beside where she was seated on an ice chest behind the Little Star table and reached for her wrist. “It’s just a little scrape.”
“I want to see it.” How I managed to say this without roaring was a mystery to me.
Hell, I didn’t know how I managed to function.
All I could see was the moment when that asshole grabbed Shay’s arm and yanked her down like he had a death wish.
The precious seconds it took me to cross the market had felt like hours, days.
I didn’t see how I’d ever get over that.
“If it’s scraped, you need it cleaned. Some antibacterial cream too. ”
With a sigh, she leaned back and pushed up her sleeve and—that fucking bastard was going to pay in blood and bone—her entire wrist was already swollen and bruised.
A thin scrape circled the base of her wrist where the chain had bitten into her skin.
A number of small cuts in the shape of her charms were dotted with blood.
For a moment, I could only stare at her skin while a snarling breath huffed out of me.
I should’ve punched that guy when I had the chance.
I’d never punched anyone but this seemed like a perfectly justifiable reason to start.
“Show me that you can bend your wrist,” I said as I unhooked the bracelet and dropped it into her other hand. “Move it side to side.”
“It’s fine.” She rotated her wrist though I wasn’t convinced we didn’t need to make a stop at the urgent care clinic. “Please don’t worry.”
I ripped open an alcohol swab from the first aid kit I kept with the market supplies. “This will burn but it will be quick.”
She winced when the alcohol met abraded skin though she was quiet while I tended to her wrist. These injuries were minor yet that didn’t make them any less enraging.
The fact she was injured at all was a problem for me.
I knew I should’ve shut down sales and accompanied her to meet that fucker. I should’ve been there.
“Whatever he said to you,” I started with as much calm as I could find, “is bullshit. It’s all bullshit and I need you to believe me about that.”
She blinked at me, her eyes glassy and distant.
She was somewhere else, just the way she’d been when she arrived in Friendship all those months ago.
I needed her to wake up and come back to me.
I needed her. Especially in the weeks to come when Gennie and I left to visit Eva and—with any luck—came home unscathed.
I couldn’t do this all on my own. Not anymore.
Not now that I knew what it was like to have someone by my side.
“Wife,” I said sharply, “tell me what he said.”
Her lips kicked up into a sad smile. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me and it matters because you’re trying to decide if he’s right,” I argued.
“Maybe he is,” she whispered. She gave a small shrug. “He can be right and be an asshole at the same time.”
“What did he say?”
“Just that I force things,” she said. “I forced him to propose.”
“Yeah, I don’t buy that for one second.” That guy was a lot of things but he was no doormat.
He popped the question because he had something to gain and I wouldn’t entertain any other explanations.
And I would’ve said as much to Shay but I didn’t want to shame her for her relationship with him.
I couldn’t understand how they ended up together but they did and thank god it was over.
Thank god she was mine.
“But I invent a lot of projects,” she said.
“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I dabbed antibacterial cream on the cuts, adding, “Let me ask you this: Why are you willing to believe him over me?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you—”
“That’s what it looks like to me.”
She chewed on her lower lip. Then, “What if he’s right?”
I dropped my hands to her thighs and gave her a firm squeeze. “He’s not. Sweetheart, I swear to you, there’s nothing in the world he’s right about.”
She stared at my hands. “Jaime told me I shouldn’t see him.”
“Have I mentioned how much I like Jaime?”
A thin laugh puffed over her lips. “You told me I shouldn’t see him.” She opened her other hand and studied the bracelet coiled in her palm. “Why is it so obvious to everyone else and I can’t—I just can’t see it?”
“You came for closure and the only person to blame for what happened today is that fucking fucker.” When she didn’t respond, I asked, “Has he ever done anything like this before?”
“No.” She gave a single shake of her head as I wrapped a measure of gauze around her wrist. “He traveled all the time. We lived together but it was like a weekends-only arrangement. We weren’t together too often.
He hated my earrings.” She ran her finger over one beaded strawberry. “I think they set him off.”
“He’s never hurt you before?” I needed a reason to find him and kill him.
Or slam him with frivolous lawsuits. That was more to my skill set than murder.
I could litigate my ass off but I didn’t know the first thing about getting rid of a body.
Then again, I owned hundreds of acres of farmland. I could figure it out. “Not even once?”
“No. He just needs to sell that ring so he can buy something for the woman he was cheating on me with.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes.
“Or he’ll just give her that ring and call it a day.
Oh, god, he’d do that too. Why didn’t I realize he was such an ass until now?
Saying these words out loud just makes it so obvious that he was a walking red flag and I chose to ignore that because I was busy convincing him to propose. ”
I’d always known but it was painfully clear now that Shay aimed way too low.
She carried herself with all the confidence in the world but it was only skin-deep.
She didn’t believe any of it and she didn’t feel it.
And that was how she ended up with pathetic tools like her ex and that dumbass lacrosse coach.
I closed up the first aid kit. “We’ll skip this lunch. It’s not important. We can head home and—”
“No, we can’t cancel your lunch,” she interrupted. “Not because of me. I won’t add to the insanity of your inbox because my ex decided to come here and be rude. And we’re meeting up with Jaime and everyone later. Really, Noah, I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine. She looked like she needed a warm blanket, a stiff drink, and a steady stream of reminders that her ex was full of shit. She looked like she needed to be held and adored for days.
“You’ve been through a lot this morning and it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later,” I said. “I don’t want to push you. We can skip the lunch and still see Jaime.”
“We’re not skipping the lunch.” She paused before saying, “Thank you, Noah. For everything. What you said to him…well, thank you for being there for me.”
“I’ll always be here for you, Shay. Always.”
She took my hands and gave me a squeeze. “I don’t think anyone’s ever stood up for me quite like that.” She glanced to the side. “His life flashed before his eyes when you threatened to sue him.”
“Good.” I leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth. “It won’t be the last time I stand up for you, wife.”
“We should probably—” She tipped her chin up, toward the table we’d ignored for the past half hour.
The line stretched all the way to the opposite end of the tent and it was obvious that everyone near the front had been listening to our conversation. One of the women closest to the table held up a hand and said, “No rush. We can wait.”
A few people were directing the line to keep it from blocking other vendors.
Someone had tasked themselves with cleaning up the jar of spiced pear I’d dropped when I saw the fucker grab Shay’s wrist. Another person stood nearby with a bottle of water and a handful of tissues, ready to hand them over to Shay.
People drove me fucking crazy but they also humbled the hell out of me.
I glanced down at Shay, sitting on the ice chest with her legs crossed in front of her. She looked young—and lost. A lot like that first morning when I offered her a ride to school. I held out my hand to her. “Do you feel like putting those cute earrings to work, wife?”
A touch of color warmed her cheeks as she took my hand. “I’d love to.”
* * *
The remainder of the market and the lunch that followed flew by in a blur.
It was good and productive but I couldn’t tear my focus away from Shay for long.
I kept looking for signs that the day was catching up with her though I couldn’t find any.
The morning had shaken her but she seemed determined to forge ahead with a smile.
I did not share that determination. All that mattered to me was keeping Shay close, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do while walking through the bustling streets of Boston’s North End.
“Forgive me for asking,” I said after we’d ducked around a tourist group, “but how does Jaime afford an apartment in this neighborhood on a teacher’s salary?”
“She has three roommates,” Shay called over her shoulder as she moved in front of me to avoid a woman pushing a double stroller. “But the key detail is that one of the roommates’ boss and his wife own the building and they offer it at a reasonable price.”
“Are we going to meet these roommates?”
“Probably.” She leaned into me as we waited to cross the street. “Dylan is the one with the boss who owns the building. Layla is in college. Linnie works somewhere in the Back Bay. Marketing or something.”
“And who else will be there?”
“Emme, Grace, Audrey. Maybe a few other people from my old school. It won’t be a huge group.” She pointed up at a building on Prince Street. “This is it.”
We climbed the stairs to the second floor of this old warehouse and traveled down a long hallway that reminded me of my first apartment in Brooklyn. It was a building just like this one but the stairwells always smelled like boiled cabbage.
We waited at the door, Shay’s head lolling against my arm as I stroked her waist. “They’re coming,” she said after a minute.
I kissed the top of her head. “I’m in no hurry.”
The door swung open to reveal Jaime, her hair pinned up in rollers and her smile contagious.
“Get in here, you two. I’ve been bouncing around here all afternoon, just waiting to see you.
Come in, come in.” She leaned in close. “What happened with the ex? No, wait, don’t tell me until I pour some drinks. I have a feeling we’ll need drinks.”
“We’ll need drinks,” Shay said.
I followed them into the apartment, spacious by Boston standards, and toward an industrial-style kitchen. Jaime looped back toward me, whispering, “Well done with the birthday cake.”
“Then you won’t be sending the mafia after me?”
She grinned. “No. I’m on your side now.”
“I had to bake the perfect cake but that fuckbag ex of hers could just go around being a fuckbag without you sending the mafia after him? Is that how it goes?”
Jaime rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Believe me, that’s not how I’ve wanted it to go. I wanted to get rid of him years ago.”
“What the hell stopped you?”
She tipped her head toward Shay, who was busy chatting with two other women in the kitchen. “She wasn’t ready for that. It sounds like she might be there now.”
I hoped so. I really fucking hoped so.