Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
NOAH
I ’m still reeling from yesterday’s hike. More specifically, from Victoria falling against me in a way that pressed every inch of her body against mine and filled my brain with a dozen thoughts that I definitely should not be having because we are work colleagues . I repeat that last part over and over in my mind, but it’s no use. When her hands landed on my chest and she looked up at me through those fluttering lashes, it took every ounce of my self-control not to wrap her in my arms and kiss her senseless.
My brain has been oh-so-helpfully playing that moment on an endless loop—all through dinner yesterday, all through game night last night.
And all through my dreams until daybreak.
I was still thinking about her at breakfast when I accidentally poured orange juice into my coffee.
“Hey there,” Sophie says, watching me as I sit down with my second attempt at coffee. “Your sister called again.” She slips me a note that says, Hannah says Need proof of life, please.
“Thanks,” I tell her.
“You doing okay there?” She raises a brow.
“Sure. Just had trouble sleeping.”
“Your shirt’s on inside-out,” she says, sipping her tea.
When I glance down, I see the rough seams of the tee, the tag sticking out from the side. As I grumble into my coffee, Sophie smirks. Rarely has she seen me out of sorts. Today, I feel like I’ve been completely dismantled and then put back together—but missing a couple of pieces.
“Man, the owls were loud last night,” she says, popping a strawberry into her mouth. “They kept waking me up, too. They’re frisky this time of year.”
“Right,” I said. “The owls. Frisky.”
The door behind us opens, and Victoria drifts in like a breeze, wearing hiking pants and a tank top, her hair pinned up in some kind of loose knot that’s just begging to be let down. She smiles at us as she heads toward the breakfast bar, and my heart hammers against my ribs.
“I should call Hannah before our meeting,” I tell Sophie. “I’ll see you in a few.”
I’m out the door before Victoria makes it to the table with her breakfast, hoping that if I move fast enough, I can outrun the memory of how right it had felt yesterday when she’d let me catch her and hold her close.
By the time I make it to the cell phone tree—the one spot on this campus where we get a clear signal—I’m almost thinking straight again. When I position myself just right under the fir’s massive limbs, I call Hannah, and she answers on the third ring.
“Everything okay?” I ask her.
“It’s about time, brother,” she quips. “How’s camp going? I thought when you didn’t call me back that you’d been snatched up by a Bigfoot.”
“It’s way worse than that,” I mutter, pacing under the tree.
She snort-laughs. “Did you finally get a little bunch of little wild things? It was only a matter of time before your run with all the sweet little geniuses ended. The odds can’t always be in your favor.”
“No kidding,” I grumble, thinking the odds are never in my favor. For the first time ever, I’m unable to sleep here, but it’s got nothing to do with the kids. Or the frisky owls. “But whatever. It’s fine.”
“What’s wrong?” she says, and I can imagine her eyes narrowing the way they do when she smells trouble. “Something’s awry.”
“Awry? Are you Benoit Blanc now?”
“Your voice gets that cute little hiccup in it when you’re lying. And when you’re stressed.”
“I’m not lying, and I’m not stressed.” I cringe because I hear the little waver in my voice that says otherwise.
“Want to try that again?” she drawls. “Once more with feeling?”
“Okay, I might be a little stressed,” I tell her.
“You’ve done this camp for a million years,” she says. “It’s like your paradise. What’s so different this time?”
Pacing under the tree, I mumble, “Victoria’s here.”
There’s a long pause, filled with the crackle of a cell signal that’s bouncing along the mountain tops, all the way over to Hannah’s neighborhood in Charleston.
“Wait,” she says. “Victoria from college? The one that got away?” Her voice is getting higher in pitch, her words running together like they do when she’s excited.
I bite my lip before I argue with the one that got away because we’ve had this conversation, and Hannah always wins no matter how much evidence I produce. So instead, I just say, “The same.”
Hannah lets out a squeal that makes my ears ring as she nears a pitch that only dogs can hear. A flock of crows burst from the limbs above me, squawking in alarm, and I hold the cell phone away from my ear and check to make sure I’m still alone out here in the clearing.
“Noah!” she yells. “What are the chances? That’s amazing!”
“It’s terrible,” I say. “I can’t focus on anything. I keep catching myself spacing out.” I leave out the specifics, like how my brain goes straight to thinking of Victoria’s perfect lips and long legs and contagious laugh because my sister doesn’t need to know those details. “The kids are going to think I’m distracted,” I grumble. “And I am!”
“Awwww,” she says, and I can tell from that syrupy sound that she’s clutching her hand over her chest like one of the Bridgerton ladies who’s just spotted the new most eligible duke and is already picturing their happy-ever-after. Hannah insisted I watch all the episodes with her, so I know how these things work. Heart-eyes are contagious.
I also know that shutting down all my thoughts about Victoria is impossible. We’re barely one week into the session, and I’m coming undone.
“You’re in your very own second-chance romance!” Hannah cries, and we’re back to making my ears ring. “I always liked her. I was so sad when things ended between you two.”
“Hannah,” I scoff. “It’s not that. Not even close.” But the words sound false even to my ears because this weird, tangled feeling in my chest feels a lot like hope.
Hope that we might try again.
She hums and says, “That’s what they all say in act one.” Then her voice drops an octave, and she says, “But you need to put your fence-mending pants on because you broke her heart.”
“Hey, whose side are you on here?”
She huffs. “It was obvious to everyone—except you, for some reason—that Victoria was completely in love with you. Big-time.”
“It was?” I always knew she liked me—maybe loved me in the way that good friends do. But it wasn’t until she kissed me on that beach that I ever let myself believe it could be more. But then she acted like it had been a mistake, and that was far easier to believe.
Hannah groans, and I can practically hear her eye roll. “ Noah, ” she drawls. “She went on trips with you. She gave you birthday presents. She came home with you to meet us for my birthday that year.”
“We were best friends,” I tell her. “That’s what best friends do.”
She sighs. “And then she finally got up the courage to kiss you, and you left the country with another girl.”
I never should have told Hannah all of those details.
“You broke her heart, dummy,” she says. “But now you get to fix it.” I can hear her typing on a keyboard, which means she’s at work. “So what’s your big romantic gesture going to be?”
“Hannah,” I plead. “I can’t think about that right now. We’re working together. I’m practically her supervisor.”
“Oooooh,” she says. “Forbidden love is the best.”
“Stop. Go back to your dukes and duchesses. Forget I said anything.”
“You can do it, my dude. I believe in you.”
I smash my palm against my forehead. It was a mistake to mention Victoria, but it slipped out like a piece of gossip at the grocery store. Hannah makes it impossible to hide anything from her. Why she went into IT instead of espionage is beyond me.
“How is she even there?” Hannah says. “Is she one of the instructors?”
“No, she’s on staff. Like me.” I relay only the broad strokes that Vic’s told me about wanting to try something new and taking this job on a whim. The rest I keep to myself because it’s not my story to share.
My sister lets out a long whistle. “That’s the universe working big-time. Think of all the pieces it had to move to get you two together on that mountain.”
“Hannah,” I groan.
“Noah,” she groans back. “Why can’t you accept this as the gift that is is?” She’s always talking about harnessing the power of the universe and teaching it to conspire for me. All that woo seems to work great for her, but when it comes to me, I think the universe is holding a grudge.
“Because I feel like I’m having the world’s longest panic attack?” Even as I say the words, my chest tightens, and my throat starts to close up. All week, I’ve been trying to keep it together and think of Victoria as just another co-worker. Like Sophie. Like every other person I’ve worked with at these camps.
But that’s not working. Every time I see Vic, I’m pulled back to the time when we were so close that we told each other all of our secrets. When we spent every evening together, sharing our dreams and fears. When I thought nothing could ever tear us apart.
That closeness I felt with her? I’ve never felt it with anyone since.
And when she fell into my arms at the waterfall? When she sat in her pajamas in the dark and told me about her big fear of never being good enough? I wanted to fold her into my arms and never let her go.
“You should talk more,” Hannah says. “I think you two still have a lot of things unsaid.”
Understatement of the decade, I think. But what I tell her is, “That feels wildly unprofessional.” I pace under the tree, wishing there was an easy solution here that didn’t involve digging up lots of hurt feelings. I mean, should we talk about what happened between us? Probably. Should we talk about it here, secluded in the woods where we have to continue to get along and not want to use each other for bear bait? Definitely not.
“Here’s what I think,” she says, and I can tell from her voice that she’s shifted into problem-solving mode. “You need to rip this Band-Aid off and lay it all on the line. Tell her how you felt then, how you feel now, and stop waiting for the right time. Because, spoiler alert: there is no right time. There is now, and there is too late.”
When I don’t answer, she says, “Don’t push her away, Noah. You have to break that habit.”
“I don’t push people away,” I grumble.
“I love you, but it doesn’t take a pro to see that you keep everyone at arm’s length. You surround yourself with people who will only be around for a short while—like these kids at camp. I know they adore you, but you need deeper connections with people who can love you the way you deserve and have your back when you need it.”
“I do have friends, you know.” Kind of. Does trivia night with my fellow counselors count?
“You have co-workers and acquaintances,” she argues, “and maybe one person who has a spare key to your house.” She sighs, and her voice softens. “She’s not Dad.”
The words hit hard. I pace a little farther from the tree, halfway hoping to lose the phone signal. But I can still hear Hannah’s voice clear as a bell. She’s right, of course. She’s always right.
“It’s safe to let people get close to you,” she says. “Not everyone will leave. But when they do, it’s because of them. Not you.”
“This is not why I called you,” I tell her, feeling like my baby sister has surgically removed my heart and is now studying all of its nooks and crannies for answers. She’s all about studying data, but I’d prefer she wasn’t scrutinizing mine.
“Some people will leave you,” she says. “Some is not all .”
“Have you seen him lately?” I ask her, desperate to shift her focus.
“We were supposed to have lunch last weekend, but as usual, he didn’t show. Texted me the next day and said something came up.” She sighs. “I just expect that will always be the case, and on the rare occasion that he does keep his word, I just consider that a pleasant surprise. Like winning a couple of bucks on a lottery ticket.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. She puts up a tough facade, but I know how much it still hurts to get ditched by our father because someone more interesting came along. Whether it’s his co-worker’s party or the new woman he’s dating, it never gets any easier.
“Don’t be,” she says. “I keep leaving the door open for him. My decision, all the way. A small piece of me keeps hoping he might change, but he never does.” She lets out another weary sigh. “But think about what I said, all right? Not everyone is as careless with our feelings as Dad.”
“I know.” And logically, I do know that every person on the planet can’t be like him. But for all these years, I’ve felt like the only people I could depend on were Hannah and my mom.
And Victoria—until she pushed me away.
“I need to go,” I tell her, feeling that knot forming in my chest again. “We have a planning meeting before lunch.”
“Not everyone gets a second chance, Noah. And besides, what do you have to lose?”
“Okay, I love you. Talk to you later,” I say, the words rushing out. “Bye.”
She says something else that sounds like “This isn’t over,” as I end the call. My chest is filled with butterflies, and my head’s buzzing with a hundred different thoughts. But one question Hannah asked that struck me hardest is the one with the most terrifying answer.
What do you have to lose?
Nothing , I think. Or maybe everything.