Chapter 10 #2
"When did you get so philosophical?" I ask, deflecting slightly from the emotions his words stir.
"Around the same time I started running into burning buildings for a living." His smile returns, crooked and endearing. "Gives a man perspective."
We lapse into comfortable silence, his fingers still playing with mine. Outside, birds continue their morning songs, a gentle soundtrack to this unexpected interlude.
"Tell me something I don't know about you," I say eventually, curious about the decade-shaped gaps in my knowledge of him.
"Something you don't know." He considers this, thumb rubbing circles on my palm. "I took up woodworking about five years ago. Built my own cabin on the north side of the lake."
"Really?" I prop myself up again, genuinely surprised. "Noah Morgan, craftsman? The boy who could barely assemble IKEA furniture without swearing?"
"Hey, I've evolved." His mock offense dissolves into laughter. "Though there was still plenty of swearing involved in the learning curve. Ask James about the dining table incident sometime."
The mention of shared history—both old and new—warms me. "I'd like to see it. Your cabin."
Something flares in his eyes, heat reigniting despite our recent exertions. "I'd like that too."
For the next hour, we talk and touch and occasionally kiss, filling in the blank spaces of our separate lives.
I learn about Noah's promotion to Fire Chief—the youngest in county history.
He asks about my first major byline, listening with genuine interest as I describe the mixture of terror and exhilaration that came with the extra attention.
We laugh about shared memories—the disastrous camping trip senior year when it rained for three days straight, the time we got caught making out in the high school auditorium by the drama teacher.
Stories that once might have been painful to recall now feel like treasured artifacts from another life, precious in their ability to connect us across the years of separation.
Eventually, practicality intrudes. Noah checks his watch with reluctance. "Trail should be clear enough now. We should probably head back before they send out a search party."
Reality crashes back like a cold wave. Back to Angel's Peak means back to my article, my deadline, my life waiting in Chicago. Back to the impossibility of whatever this is between us.
"Right." I sit, suddenly aware of my nakedness and reaching for the now-dry clothes hanging near the stove. "Of course."
Noah watches me dress, making no move to do the same. "Riley." His voice stops my nervous movement. "What happened here... I don't regret it. Not one second."
I turn to face him, vulnerability a tightness in my chest. "Neither do I."
"But?"
"But I'm still leaving in a few days." The reality hangs between us, inescapable. "And you're staying."
"Yes." He sits up, the blanket pooling at his waist. "Those are facts. They don't negate what happened or what we felt. What we still feel."
"Don't they?" I pull my shirt over my head, needing the barrier. "What's the point of reopening old wounds if we're just heading for the same outcome?"
Noah finally rises, reaching for his own clothes. "Maybe the outcome doesn't have to be the same."
I want to believe him. Want to believe there's a version of this story where we don't end with goodbye. But hope feels dangerous, a luxury I'm not sure I can afford.
"Let's just... take it one day at a time," I suggest, turning away as he dresses. "No pressure, no expectations."
"If that's what you need." He steps up behind me, fully clothed now, hands resting lightly on my shoulders. "But I'm not eighteen anymore, Riley. I know what I want, and I'm not afraid to fight for it this time."
The conviction in his voice sends a shiver down my spine—equal parts fear and anticipation. I lean back against him, allowing myself this moment of contact before we return to the complexities waiting below.
"We should get going.” I step away to gather my things.
Noah nods, respecting the space I've created. He efficiently packs up our makeshift camp, returning the cabin to its original state while I tidy my hair as best I can without a mirror. We work together in companionable silence, the air between us charged but not uncomfortable.
Before we leave, Noah pulls me into a kiss—slow, thorough, his hand curved around the back of my neck like he's memorizing the shape of this moment.
"Just to be clear," he murmurs against my lips, voice low and full of quiet fire, "I'm not hiding this. I'm not ashamed of you. Of us."
"I'm not asking you to be," I whisper. "I just... need time. To figure out what this means. Where it goes."
"Fair." He leans back just enough to look at me. "Come to the cabin tonight. Let me cook for you. Stay with me."
The simplicity of the invitation catches me off guard. No grand declarations. No ultimatums. Just a man asking a woman to have dinner. To stay.
"That sounds dangerously normal," I say, and the corner of his mouth curves.
"Maybe that's what we need. Normal. After everything."
He's right, and the rightness of it settles something in my chest. Not the breathless, edge-of-a-cliff feeling from when we were young. Something warmer. Steadier. Like finding solid ground after years of treading water.
"Okay," I say. "I'll be there."
Something lights behind his eyes—not triumph, not hunger. Relief.
He kisses my forehead, lets his lips linger there, and I feel the words he doesn't say pressed into my skin.
"Ready to face civilization?" he asks, stepping back.
"Not in the slightest."
He laughs—a real one, warm and surprised—and threads his fingers through mine.
"I don't want slow," I tell him as we reach the door. "I want right. And this... this is right."
He doesn't kiss me.
Not yet.
Instead, he pulls me down the narrow trail with purposeful strides, our fingers still laced together. Neither of us speaks. We don't need to. The tension crackling between us says everything, and I match his pace without hesitation, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips.
By the time we reach his cabin, dusk has bled fully into night. He opens the door and ushers me inside, then closes it behind us. The click of the latch sounds like a held breath finally released.
We stand in the fire-warmed room, facing each other. The space between us feels electric, loaded with ten years and everything we just promised on that mountainside.
Noah reaches for me first—his hand finding my jaw, tilting my face up. But he doesn't kiss me. Not yet. He just looks at me, and the raw wanting in his expression makes my chest ache.
"Hi," he says softly, almost laughing. Like he can't believe we're here.
"Hi." My voice shakes, and I don't care.
I reach for the hem of his shirt. My fingers are trembling—actually trembling—and he notices. His hand covers mine, steadying it.
"We've got time," he murmurs.
"I've waited ten years. I don't want time." I pull the shirt over his head, and then he's standing in the firelight, and my breath stops.
He's broader than I remember. Harder. The lean boy I knew has been replaced by someone carved from years of physical labor, of hauling hose and breaking through walls. A scar I don't recognize curves along his left rib. I trace it with my fingertip, and he shivers.
"House fire," he says. "Three years ago."
"You're more beautiful than I remember.” I mean it in a way that has nothing to do with aesthetics. He's survived things. Grown into someone. The evidence of that is written on his skin.
His hands find my back. His knuckles drag against my spine, and I feel every millimeter of contact like a lit match on paper. The cool air raises goosebumps across my arms.
Noah goes still.
His gaze moves over me, unhurried, and what I see in his face isn't hunger—not yet. It's wonder. Like he's watching a sunrise he thought he'd never see again.
"God, Riley." His voice is rough. "You're—" He doesn't finish. Just shakes his head and pulls me against him, skin to skin, and the shock of full-body contact after a decade apart rips a sound from my throat I didn't know I was capable of making.
His mouth finds mine. And this kiss is nothing like the careful ones before. This is desperate, deep, his hands sliding up my back, my fingers raking through his hair, both of us trying to close a gap that ten years hollowed out.
I fumble with his belt. He helps, shoving his jeans down, and then there's nothing between us and the feeling of him—all of him, warm and solid and here—makes my eyes sting.
He pulls back, breathing hard. "You okay?"
"I'm so far past okay." I pull him back to me. "Don't stop."
He lifts me—one arm under my thighs, the other cradling my back—and carries me to the bed like I'm something he can't risk dropping. Lays me down on the quilt and follows, bracing himself over me, and the weight of him is so familiar my body remembers before my brain catches up.
"I can't believe we're here," he says against my collarbone, and his voice cracks on the last word.
I pull his face up to mine. His eyes are bright. Not quite tears, but close. I kiss the corner of each one.
"We're here," I say. "We made it back to each other.”
He drops his forehead to mine. We breathe together for a long moment, foreheads pressed, noses touching, the firelight flickering across the ceiling. Then his mouth drifts lower—my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat—and thinking becomes very, very difficult.
His lips trace the curve of my breast, and I arch into him, my fingers digging into his shoulders. "Noah—"
"Tell me what you want," he murmurs against my skin. "I want to hear you."
"Your mouth," I breathe. "Everywhere. Don't skip anything."