Chapter 13
NOAH
After my blowup at Xavier and subsequent rather dramatic exit, my anxiety spiraled.
Hard. I called Jared immediately, while sitting on the floor in the little gap between my bed and the window, but it went to his voicemail.
I hung up without leaving a message, then hovered my finger over Miles’s contact—Millie—before discarding that as an awful idea.
He’d only try to use this as an excuse to make me quit.
Fuck. Had I just shown all my cards down there?
Did they all know now? They must. I was so fucking obvious, but at the same time I kind of felt good for saying what I’d said.
Aside from Jared and Miles, no one knew what Rich had done to me.
Thankfully, my face had been carefully edited out of all Peaches content, so unless someone knew my naked body intimately, there was no way to know it was me.
I sat there on the floor, staring blankly at my phone for long enough that my pulse calmed and the tension of anxiety ebbed out of my muscles, leaving me feeling drained.
And fuck, now that I thought about it, my ankle actually really hurt.
The anti-inflammatories I’d taken at the top of the climb must have worn off.
The bedroom door opened softly, and I sat up enough to peer over my bed and confirm it was just Skye.
“Hey, Noah,” he said with a lopsided smile, coming over to join me on the carpet beside the window. “You okay?”
I bit the edge of my lip, putting my phone down. “Yep. So fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Okay, that could use some work because even I winced at how forced my “okay” voice sounded to my own ears. Skye just smiled and shrugged. “I dunno, you seemed pretty upset downstairs. Do you wanna talk about it?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Guys don’t talk about their feelings, Skye.” I intended it as a joke, but his smile faded away as a small crease formed in his brow.
“Can I be honest with you, Noah? I feel like…like we’re friends, right? And friends should be able to trust each other. Right?” He nervously fidgeted with the carpet, avoiding eye contact while waiting for my response.
Guilt welled up in my chest because he was right.
We weren’t just roommates and teammates; we were friends, and I’d been keeping a major secret from the moment we met.
I wet my lips, feeling like shit. “You can always trust me, Skye. We’re basically twins, remember?
At this point I think I like you more than my own sibling. ”
A weak smile touched his lips at that comment. “I know. But do you know that you can trust me, too? Being part of Team Olympus doesn’t automatically mean we have no secrets or privacy, you know? If you ever needed to talk…I’d keep your confidence.”
An uneasy feeling curled through me, and I shifted my position to lean closer. “I do trust you, Skye.” And I meant it. Three weeks of sharing space had bonded us like I’d never anticipated possible. He was the best friend I’d never had.
He sighed, running a hand through his messy, golden-blond hair.
“A couple days after you moved in, I did something…not okay. You had been a bit weird about sharing a room, and I got it in my head that you maybe didn’t like me.
So when you took a call with your manager, I, um… I listened through the door.”
My brow furrowed as I tried to remember the day he was talking about, then it clicked in my brain.
I’d opened the door and found him and Ace in the hallway with some weird excuse.
Ace had given no reaction at all, so I’d convinced myself they hadn’t heard me, but Skye…
? Now that I thought about it, Skye had been weird all night, and then a few days later he’d told me it was okay to take my “back brace” off at night.
Oh fuck.
I inhaled sharply, panic washing through my whole body, and Skye reacted just as fast, reaching out to grab my hand in his.
“I haven’t breathed a word to anyone, Noah, I swear.
I feel fucking awful for breaching your privacy like that, and then every day that passed without telling you that I knew…
I’m an asshole. Noah, I am so sorry, but please know that you can trust me.
” His eyes were wide with sincerity and his grasp tight on my hand.
“No one else needs to know. I gathered that there are extenuating circumstances, which really are none of my business, but I just need you to understand that this is and will always be a safe space for you, okay? You can be yourself in here.”
My lungs were tight, my breathing coming in short and sharp pants, and my throat tightened to the point I couldn’t have responded even if I’d had the words.
He’d known for three weeks and never said a word.
Not to me or anyone else on the team. He hadn’t acted differently, except that he’d been sleeping with a blackout mask.
He told me it was because he struggled to sleep soundly, but it’d also helped me feel safe without a binder at night.
Fucking hell, that was…incredibly sweet.
“Nothing changes, right?” he asked, his blue eyes wide with worry. “It makes no difference to the Games and the team, so we just pretend I don’t know anything. Okay?”
I wet my lips, forcing myself to find some response. “Okay,” I whispered, my head spinning. “You won’t—”
“I won’t,” he insisted, squeezing my hand firmly. “You couldn’t waterboard that secret out of me because it’s not mine to tell.”
I believed him. My breath exhaled in a shaky sigh, and a small measure of tension eased out of my shoulders as I accepted the fact that I believed him. I trusted him.
“That stuff with Xavier downstairs…” he said softly, his grip on my hand easing to a gentle hold as I dropped my eyes to the carpet. “It was personal for you, wasn’t it? Do you know her?”
It was an echo of what Xavier had asked, but this time I couldn’t bury my reaction with anger. My eyeballs heated and my jaw clenched, but it was no use. When I glanced up at Skye, the tears were already overflowing.
His worried expression shifted to shock as he understood exactly what I couldn’t ever find the words to say out loud. “Oh. Oh fuck… Noah. Shit.” He pulled me forward, dragging me into his lap and hugging me like I was an oversized teddy bear he’d just won at a carnival.
I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to be hugged until then.
My chest cracked open, and all the months of suppressed emotion came pouring out as I clung to my roommate and just sobbed.
When I’d first discovered what Rich had done, I’d been full of anger and retribution.
Jared hadn’t hugged me because I’d never let him see how utterly broken I’d been.
Miles had been literally in traction, so he couldn’t have hugged me even if he’d known I needed it.
But Skye? I hadn’t even needed to say a damn word and he knew.
He didn’t offer any useless platitudes or empty reassurances. He just hugged me tight and let me cry out months—or years—of betrayal, emotional abuse, low self-esteem, and utter heartbreak. When I was done, he dried my face with the sleeve of his hoodie and gave me a firm nod.
“You wanna go watch movies in the theatre room? Everyone else is downstairs playing Tekken still. Better yet, it’s dark and no one will see how red your eyes are.”
A laugh bubbled out of me and I scrubbed a hand through my messy, tangled hair. It was funny, though, because that was how I expected him to handle it. I cried, he comforted me, now let’s change the subject and move on. Exactly what I needed.
“Yes.” I sniffled. “That sounds great. Can we watch something scary?”
“Shit yes, we can.” Skye climbed to his feet and offered me a hand to pull me up as well, then started gathering an armful of blankets and pillows off our beds. I liked the way he was thinking.
The theatre was an existing part of the house rather than a converted bedroom, but it was only just big enough for eight plush recliners in two rows of four, facing the full-wall projector screen.
Skye and I set up our nest of blankets and pillows in the middle of the front row, then he used the remote to browse through the movie selections on the various streaming services.
“Okay, are we thinking real-life scary, like serial killers or… hmm…religious possession and exorcism?” Skye tipped his head my way, offering me the choice.
“Exorcisms, definitely,” I chose quickly. “The messier the better.”
He laughed, flicking through the options and settling on one with a clearly demonic nun on the title poster. Perfect.
The opening scene involved a woman screaming so loud it shook us both, and Skye frantically scrambled to turn the volume down as we dissolved into laughter.
It wasn’t what I’d expected, but it had done exactly what I needed: flooded me with sweet adrenaline and chased away the sadness.
I could never be sad while my pulse was racing with my very favorite drug.
“What the fuck are you two watching?” Z asked a couple minutes later, coming into the theatre with takeout boxes in hand. “Is this Sister Demon? The movie that got banned from commercial cinemas for disturbing content?”
“Yup,” I replied, grinning wide and probably looking possessed myself in the darkness of the theatre. The screen itself projected enough light that we could see just fine, and a soft glow from below the seats helped. “Want to join us?”
Z grimaced as the protagonist onscreen slit the throat of a chicken to complete her demon-summoning ritual. “Fuck no. I just came to deliver your tacos.”
“Thanks, bro,” Skye replied, taking the boxes from Z. “You heading out?”
“Mm-hmm,” he nodded, eyes still locked on the screen in horrified fascination. “How the hell do you guys like this shit?”
“What’s not to like?” I asked with a laugh, making Z turn to give me a puzzled look.
“Ah. Adrenaline junkies. That checks out.”
“Uh-huh, whatever. Have fun with Tessa.” Skye flapped a hand like he wanted Z to shut up and leave already, but now I was curious who Tessa was and where Z was going with her.
He just rolled his eyes and left us to our movie, though, so I grabbed the remote to pause our movie. “Explain?” I asked Skye, gesturing to the door where Z just exited. “Tessa?”
Skye shrugged. “His girlfriend.”
My jaw dropped. “Z has a girlfriend? Since when? Wait, I thought our contracts stated—”
“Our contracts state we can’t publicly be involved in any romantic relationships, but what the public doesn’t know can’t hurt them. Besides, he’s been with Tessa for years, on and off. Mostly off, to be fair. She’s…a lot. And she hates that he has to hide their relationship.”
I was floored. “Is anyone else hiding a secret relationship? I can’t believe I didn’t know this by now.” Also now I was feeling really fucking dumb for all the moments I’d felt like there was some level of chemistry with Z when it’d been entirely fabricated in my own mind.
“If they are, I don’t know about it either. Although honestly I would not be shocked if there was something more between Torin and August.” He said it with a chuckle that implied he was joking…but I could kind of see that.
“Are they both…um…into guys?” It was a question I’d been wanting to ask for weeks, and Skye was now offering the perfect opportunity.
He just shrugged, though. “No idea. Maybe? I’ve never asked. Do you have more questions about the team’s relationship availability or are we gonna watch this demon summoning go horribly wrong?”
My lips parted and a shocked, indignant sound escaped. “I wasn’t— That’s not— I don’t—”
“Uh-huh, sure,” he teased, smirking. “If it’s reassuring, I’m pretty sure Z and Xavier are the only ones who are one hundred percent straight, so you could totally have a shot with the others even without revealing your secret.”
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed in a strangled voice, smacking him in the face with a pillow. “Not why I was asking at all! Fucking hell, Skye, just press play.”
His delighted laughter blended seamlessly with the screams from the movie as he started it again, and I shot him a mock-glare as he handed my box of tacos over.
For ten minutes or so we happily ate our tacos in silence, eyes glued to the movie and fully engrossed in the storyline. So much that neither of us noticed Minho and Ace joined us until Minho grabbed my uninjured ankle under the blanket and I screamed.
“Not funny!” I protested, kicking frantically despite how much I was laughing.
Thankfully, they didn’t come to chat and were happy to settle in quietly to watch the movie with us. Or, Ace was. Within twenty minutes, Minho was asleep with his head in my lap as I absentmindedly twisted his silky hair into tiny braids.
Skye glanced over at one stage, meeting my eyes with a pointed look as he dipped his chin to Minnie sleeping peacefully through the screams of the demonic nun. I narrowed my eyes and shot him a middle finger, then continued playing with Minho’s hair. Because I liked it. And him.
Shit.