Chapter 27 Noah
NOAH
“I think this is the last of it,” I told Elia, lifting the small duffel I’d filled with the scraps of my fifteen-year-old self.
I hadn’t owned much back then. Clothes mostly. I’d donated the nicer ones. And not many toys either. We lived our fun outside, with saddle sores and scraped knees, not action figures.
“You know you always have a home here,” Elia said.
“I know.”
He gave me that look brothers give when they want to say more but figure a man doesn’t need words to know he’s loved.
“Hey, I haven’t forgotten about Whiskey & Barrel,” he added.
“Whenever you’re free,” I said. Claire was in the thick of her veterinarian exams, and Elia had been stretched thin. I wasn’t about to press.
“Gimme a couple of days. Claire’s almost done. After that, we go?”
“Works for me.”
I drove back to The Sundown with my bag in the passenger seat. Reko greeted me at the door, his eyes full of questions. I scratched behind his ears and walked straight to the coffee table, setting the bag down.
I sat on the couch, leaned forward, and unzipped it sluggishly.
My hand hovered inside, my fingers brushing the edge of the thing I’d packed last. I didn’t take it out. I just sat there with my elbows on my knees, staring at the floor like maybe the answers were hiding in the rug fibers. Maybe they’d always been.
The front door opened.
“Hey, baby,” Maya called out.
I looked up, and there she was, car keys still in her hand, her hair mussed from the wind.
There’d never be a better time to hear her call me that. Or a worse time to feel like I didn’t have the right to it.
“What’ve you got there?” she asked.
“Some stuff from my old bedroom,” I said. “Come sit with me.”
She dropped down beside me, warm and close. I reached into the duffel and pulled out the old folding knife. The handle was scuffed, the metal dulled and spotted. Still, it sat heavy in my hand the way things do when they once meant something.
“My sister gave me this for my tenth birthday. It used to make me feel like a proper cowboy, not some kid tagging after his older brother.” I smirked, turning it in my palm. “Even though the only things I ever used it for were peeling apples and carving a girl’s name into a tree.”
Maya’s lips quirked. “Let me guess. She broke your heart?”
I gave her a theatrical wince. “Nah. She moved before I could tell her I liked her. Didn’t even get a shot.”
She let out a sympathetic coo, paired with that cute little twist of her mouth.
I tried to flip the blade open, but it barely moved. It was rusted solid.
She leaned in, took it gently, and gave it a try herself. Nothing.
“Never mind,” I said, setting it back down. “I’ll clean it someday.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at me for a long second, like she knew what this was really about.
“My sister didn’t just die,” I said quietly. “She was murdered.”
Maya stilled. “Noah…”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. That night at the wedding, when you told me about your dad and about your mom going silent on you. You held me like I was something you were afraid to lose.”
“But I did leave you that night.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You did. But you didn’t run when I came for you.
Your hold, Maya. I knew then. Only someone who understands loss can hold like that.
And someone like that doesn’t walk away for good.
” I reached for her hand and held it the same way I had on that dance floor.
“I kept thinking, if I could just get to you in time, if I could remind you, you’d stay.
Because the part of you that understands what it’s like to lose everything?
I believed it wouldn’t let you walk away from something real. ”
She squeezed back. “You believed right.”
I gave a nod, then let her go and picked up the knife again. I turned it in my hands, letting the rust bite into my fingertips. “I haven’t talked about this. Not with anyone.”
The words scraped their way out. My chest felt too small to hold the grief. Too brittle.
I felt dizzy.
I felt sick.
And I hated it. Hated talking about Tessa. Hated the way even thinking her name cracked something inside me.
But with Maya, I wanted her to know.
And maybe more than that…I needed her to.
She stayed close, her fingers brushing mine. Just that. A little touch, but enough to keep me from drifting too far into the dark.
“I was fourteen,” I said. “It was Friday night. Elia and Tessa were acting off. They kept telling me to stay home, like I was some tag-along kid who’d get in the way.”
Maya didn’t speak or move. She just listened.
“I figured they were sneaking off to a party, and I wanted in. Wanted to be like El. Loud, fearless, and already grown. But I chickened out.” I gave a dry laugh.
“Morning came, still no sign of them. I thought, screw it! I figured the party hadn’t stopped, so I grabbed my bike and rode to The Willow. ”
The words scraped my throat raw. I hadn’t said that out loud in years. Maybe ever.
“The Willow?”
“It’s a little cottage. Tessa’s escape hatch whenever The Lazy Moose got too much.”
The images came slowly but relentlessly.
“I let myself in. It was dead quiet. No music, no mess, no party. I called her name. Nothing. I thought maybe she was just sleeping it off. I walked to her room.”
My breath stuttered. I could see it all…that door, slightly open.
“She was lying on her side, her back to me. But her skin…God, she looked off. Not asleep. Just…wrong.”
Maya shifted closer, her eyes steady, soaking in every word. There was no flinch. No pity either.
I continued, “I stayed outside. Never even crossed the threshold. But I knew. I smelled the drugs. And something else. Like something in the room had gone sour.”
My hands curled into fists. Maya’s fingers moved over my chest, tracing tender circles. Then she rested her cheek against me, right over it. I didn’t think she even realized what that meant.
“I left,” I whispered. “Didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t call for help. I just got back on my bike and rode. Around town. Through the woods.”
Shame punched through me.
“Who the hell does that?” I spat. “Who finds their sister dead and just rides around?”
“You were in shock,” she said gently.
“I shouldn’t be.”
Her head lifted. Her voice sharpened, not cruelly, just true. “You were fourteen.”
I shook my head. That line again. Everyone said it like it excused everything. But it didn’t fix what I did…or didn’t do.
Maya reached for my hand and held it firmly. “Actually, I take that back.”
I looked at her. She met my gaze head-on.
“It has nothing to do with being fourteen. You could’ve been thirty and done the same thing. You saw someone you loved—your sister—dead. That does something to you. There’s no script for that, Noah. No right way to react.”
My throat burned. She didn’t let go.
“You think you should’ve handled it better?
” She leaned in. “I think you handled it like someone whose whole world just shattered. You rode around town because death like that…it shouldn’t be real.
It shouldn’t be normal. And the second you pretend it is, that’s when something breaks in you for good. ”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. But something in me let go, just enough to breathe without it catching in my throat.
She didn’t press or try to fill the silence with platitudes. She just stayed right there. Holding me together without trying to fix me.
She understood the shape of the loss. The kind that wasn’t supposed to level a so-called tough-ass kid, but did anyway. She got it, even before I’d said any of this.
“My mom died when I was little,” I said eventually. “I was eight, maybe. I can still kind of hear her voice, but I can’t picture her face.” I glanced down, my thumb brushing the curve of the rusted knife. “But Tessa?” My voice dropped. “Growing up, she was the closest thing I had to a mother.”
Maya rubbed my arm. It wasn’t power in the physical sense. It was deeper than that. The kind of strength that held you still inside.
When I started this conversation, I didn’t think I’d make it through. I thought I’d choke on it and fold in on myself. And yeah, I was a mess, but not in the way I feared. In a way that made space instead of crushing me.
I held onto that feeling and used it as momentum, because if talking about Tessa had nearly undone me, the part that came next was worse. Not because it was old. But because it still bled.
“I kept riding and hiding until I found Elia,” I said, the words rough now.
“At first, he just swatted my head like I was being a dumbass.” I huffed out a broken chuckle.
“He thought I was messing with him. But when I dragged him to The Willow…” The words caught.
“His face. God, I’ll never forget it.” I paused, my chest tight.
“He told me to go home. He said it over and over. Go home, Noah. Go home. Like if I disappeared fast enough, it wouldn’t be real. ”
Maya shifted, her palm cupping my cheek, anchoring me there. Her fingers were warm, her touch sure.
“I went home,” I said. “And I cried. Like a damn kid.” I dragged a hand through my hair. The guilt always settled in the same place, right at the base of my skull. “What if she were still alive when I found her?” The words stuttered, dragging along the inside of my throat.
Maya didn’t flinch. “Why now, Noah? Why that question?”
“Because I never asked it before,” I admitted. “Not once. I never talked to anyone. Never said it out loud.”
“Then it’s time. You need to ask Elia.”
“What if she were? What if I could’ve saved her?”
“You’ve already lived like you believe that,” she said. “You’ve carried the guilt. Every day.”
She was fucking right. But that didn’t make it easier to sit with.
“It still hits different if it’s black and white.”
She met my gaze. “You’re right.”
That hit harder than I expected. No trying to soothe it away. No easy answers. Just the truth, held gently.
Then she added, “But you’ve got me. I’ll be with you.”
It wasn’t some dramatic vow. Just her. Standing in it with me.
My Blue. Not delicate. Not dark. A kind of rare that thrived where nothing else could. She didn’t just hold pain. She understood it.
“Know this, Noah,” she said. “I’m not afraid of the hard stuff. You were right. I wanted to shield you from more hurt. But sometimes, hurting together makes the weight a little lighter.”
And I knew she meant it. She’d lived her own kind of hell. She’d watched her father die because he couldn’t stop two dirty cops from taking his daughter. That kind of pain didn’t just fade. It rooted. And twisted into something you carried for life.
“But promise me something,” she said. “Ask Elia. Don’t live in the space of doubt.”
She wasn’t saying I was innocent. Wasn’t telling me to let go. She gave me a kind of courage no one else ever had.
And that…that meant everything.
When I’d first asked Elia to meet me at Whiskey & Barrel, I still wasn’t sure I’d go through with it. Part of me had every intention of keeping that wall right where it was. But now? Now I couldn’t keep it up even if I tried.
I curled my fingers around hers, my thumb brushing a slow circle against her skin. “Thank you,” I said. “That means more than I can say. And I will talk to El.”
“Do you want me there?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve got this.”
Her smile came easily. Confident and proud.
I took both her hands in mine. “You know, Blue,” I said.
“I told you I wasn’t going to lose you. Ever.
” The image came back sharp—her dangling off that cliff, her fingers slipping, and me terrified down to my bones.
“I said it was because I’d already lost someone.
And now you know who. But the truth is, that wasn’t the reason.
” I squeezed her hands. “I don’t want to lose you because I love you. ”
A choked breath caught in her throat.
Then she threw herself into my arms.
I caught her without thinking, wrapping her up so tight that I didn’t know where she ended and I began. She was shaking. Or maybe I was. It didn’t matter.
“I love you too, Noah,” she whispered against my shoulder.
I pulled back just enough to look at her before I kissed her.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t desperate.
It was the kind of kiss that made me forget I’d ever lived without it.
“I will never leave you,” I told her, my forehead resting against hers. “And I never, ever want to lose you.”
She buried her face in my neck, her breath threadbare against my skin. “But you don’t know what life’s going to hand you next,” she murmured. “Time. It’s the one thing you can’t control.”
Was she talking about what was coming next with the heist? Or something bigger…final? Either way, it rattled me.
“You’re right, Blue.” I held her tighter. “But whatever time we’ve got, I swear to God, I’ll give you the best of me for every second of it.”
She nodded against me, then whispered, “You probably think I’m this fearless girl who always finds a way out. But I won’t pretend with you.” She paused, her breath catching. “I’m scared, Noah. I’m really scared. Because what I’ve done, it’ll catch up to me.”
“I know, baby,” I said, kissing her temple. “Me too.”
She searched my face for something. Maybe strength, maybe certainty.
Whatever she saw, it must’ve been enough.
“Couples who get scared together, stay together,” she said, a shaky smile tugging at her lips.
I cupped her face, brushing my thumb along her cheek and memorizing the shape of this moment.
No masks. No lies. No distance.
Just us.