29. Chapter 29
twenty-nine
Jamie
I t was me and you. Here .
I tip my head back beneath the shower in this apparently fated hotel and let the hot water pound my face. I’m freaking out about what Noel just told me, and I can’t decide if it’s the good kind of freak out or the bad kind.
Part of me wants to hold onto it the way I did when she told me about the money, about opening my business. The way I did when she told me about Becca, and I avoided marrying someone who clearly didn’t love me because of it.
On the other hand, it’s hard not to hear something else in that confession: Noel’s only mine because she saw it in the vision.
I open the tiny soap packet and scrub my skin, trying to metaphorically wash away this train of thought.
It’s an old habit, like Em said—counting myself out of the equation—and I want to keep from going down that hole right now.
Noel’s been sleeping in my bed or me in hers since our first night together.
I’m not misinterpreting this thing between us.
She knows me. She chose this right along with me.
But I also know her; how careful she is.
I can still picture her running away on that beach.
Would she have chosen any of this if she didn’t have the vision behind her?
Would she have even agreed to see me again after I passed out on her porch?
Or kissed me on her couch that night? All of a sudden, it feels wholly unlikely that the two of us end up together without it.
And why didn’t she say anything? Maybe she’s just been going along with it, hoping I’d grow on her.
The thought makes my stomach clench and I shove it away.
She did not say any of that, Bishop.
Fuck. My pep talks were never very effective.
The bathroom door clicks open, and I hear Noel make that tiny squeak she makes when she’s cold.
“I’m coming in,” she yelps, right before the curtain slides and she steps over the tub edge, arms around her chest, dancing on her tiptoes.
I pull her under the water and spin so she’s getting most of it.
When she’s wet her hair, she looks up at me with her lip between her teeth. “Hi.”
“Hi, Noe.” I lean down to kiss her so I don’t have to force a smile. My hands squeeze at her like she’s an apparition about to disappear. Jesus. Quit acting weird .
Now I’m self-conscious, and I reach for the shampoo, squirt some in my palm.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Of course,” I say, but I wouldn’t believe me either with the way my voice has gone all raspy.
Noel rests her cheek on my chest, fingers smoothing over my sides while I work shampoo into her long hair.
I try to let myself enjoy the warmth of her skin beneath my fingers, the way she burrows in, gives herself over to me.
I close my eyes and tell myself to feel it, but they pop right back open.
“It’s just… what if you have one about someone else? ”
She looks up through the water, brow furrowed. “A vision?”
“Whatever it is.”
“Now it’s ‘whatever it is?’” There’s hurt in her voice that’s worse than anything so far, but something’s telling me to loosen my grip on this. “Jamie. I think the point is that I won’t.”
“Right.” I clear my throat and step back while she rinses the suds I’ve made in her hair. I’ve never been good at saying the right thing when I start to feel like this. Like I’m on the outside of something. Like I was misunderstanding a thing that everyone got but me.
This feels like one of those moments. I can’t shake the feeling that I earned this with about as much effort as I earned everything else I have. Good fortune. A lucky break I stumbled on. Absolutely nothing to do with me.
But if I’m already down in the count, I can’t risk her rethinking this entire thing because I’m being weird. I need to figure out a way to accept what she told me, because this is exactly where I want to be.
She squeezes water from her ponytail, and I cup her elbow. “Come here.” She does, and I press her bottom lip with my thumb, my other hand slipping around her waist. “When you saw us,” I whisper. “What were we doing?”
“We were in bed.” Pink flushes up her neck, and I press my mouth to it and slide my knee between her legs.
“Was I touching you?”
“I couldn’t see your hands. After they slipped beneath the sheet.”
“I know I was. There’s no way I could keep my hands off you.” I’m impossibly hard for being pissed off and confused about two minutes ago, but I need to feel instead of think. To slip into instinct.
Noel tilts her chin, kissing a drop of water from my jaw, and I notch us closer, my arm contracting around her waist to bring her to her toes.
I can feel her melting into what I’m starting here, molding like clay beneath my hands, and it soothes my anxiety.
I just need to see her react to me, to us together. Something I can’t misinterpret.
Her bottom lip is pushed out and swollen from how long we kissed last night, sleeping, then waking to her fingers on my stomach. Her leg wrapped around my waist. That was all real.
Now, I scoop my hands beneath her thighs, pressing her back to the shower wall while we kiss so I can make it real again.
“I haven’t ruined it?” she asks, as I fumble between us, centering myself between her legs. “It isn’t weird now?”
“No, baby. It isn’t weird.” I slide in slow, my head falling back at the warmth of her. “It’s fate.”
I just have to trust it’s still on my side.