22. Queenie
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘LOOKING TOO CLOSELY’ BY FINK
For a second, I consider throwing my pillow at Noah when he knocks. But everything aches, from the tips of my fingertips to my back. So, I just stay curled up in the fetal position, hugging my pillow for comfort while Linkin Park blasts through the room.
In the end, it doesn’t even matter, I sniffle to myself.
I close my eyes against the harsh glare of the light Noah switches on. I hear him sigh. Then, he does the sweetest thing ever and kneels down beside the bed.
“Hey, desi girl, I heard you yelled at Ares for being a pie thief.”
I laugh weakly. “I didn’t call him a pie thief. He’s lying.”
“That’s not what he told me.” His deep voice burrows inside my skin. Warming me up with the liquidness of his accent, especially how ‘tohld’ rolls off his tongue.
“Definitely lying.” I open my eyes. “I thought you were at practice.”
“Practice ended in the arvo,” he answers. Then elaborates with, “The afternoon. I was out for a drive.”
“Right.”
He looks freshly showered, with a hint of the beard to come. His nose is a slash of shadow. His eyes are so dark, so patiently focused on mine. It takes no effort to remember this man charmed me into going to a secondary location after a few hours. And I loved it.
“Why are you curled up in bed, Hellcat?”
I sigh and consider asking him to fuck off. But he’s here and I feel so low already. “I’m on my period. The cramps are bad. And I hate the world right now because my uterus is exploding.”
To his immense credit, he does not flinch at the U-word.
“Your back’s paining? Or your abdomen and pelvis?” he asks clinically.
“Everything hurts.”
“You take meds for the pain?”
I nod. “The student health nurse started me on something for the cramps. But they…” I sniffle. “They’re worse because I carry weight around my middle and thighs. At least it’s what the nurse said. Very judgmentally.”
“The ignoramus,” he murmurs. “Weight is not the only important factor when it comes to menstrual cycles. Any medical professional knows that.”
I sniffle again, touched by his instant defense. “That’s what I told her. Then she gave me the pills.”
Noah stares at me a long moment. “I’m going to touch you now, okay? Don’t bite me.”
I chuckle weakly. “You’re not that dangerous.”
He touches my forehead and then moves his fingers down, to the back of my neck. His callused fingers give a quick squeeze. “Why isn’t your BFF here? Mischa.”
I try and not melt into him. “She’s on a trip to Disneyland with her mom and her siblings. They’ve planned it for two years.”
He continues massaging my neck as I talk.
“Too bad, I guess you’re stuck with me then.”
“Too bad,” I murmur. Feeling five percent better than I did a minute ago.
“A warm bath will help with the cramps,” Noah says briskly. “As will a hot water bag. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate.”
“I can’t get out of bed to go buy chocolate, Noah.”
“You’re not bathing on the bed, Queenie.” He touches my cheek briefly and stands up in a fluid motion. “Take a nap. I’ll be right back.”
I snuggle into the pillow and breathe through the cramps attacking my midsection. The pills help a little but, once every few months, it’s bad. This is one of those months.
I hear him puttering around in the bathroom and, again, it doesn’t freak me out. Or make me feel unsafe. The juxtaposition of what Noah did to me and who he is, is beginning to give me a migraine, so I shut my brain off. And just live in the moment.
Noah comes out in a minute or two, shaking his wet hair. “The bath’s filling up. You have a good hot soak and then come downstairs, okay? All this prison blackness is probably making the pain worse.” He winces when Chester Bennington screeches particularly loud in One Step Closer. “The angry rock is no help.”
“You sound like you know a lot about caretaking. Running a bath. And talking about pain management,” I tease him.
He looks out the window when he says, “I used to do all of this for my mum when the chemo rounds got bad. I was twelve and she got sick.” He slides his dark gaze to me and answers my unasked question. “Cervical cancer. Took her out within eight months.”
I sit up from the shock, the pillows and cover falling from me. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head, as if to clear it of the memories. “It was a long time ago.”
“Come here,” I order him shakily.
Noah walks slowly on soundless footsteps. He’s in board shorts again, so I notice the delineated calf muscles and hair on his legs.
He is solid, like a tree. And I’m tired of thinking he is the asshole – not to be trusted. He’s just trying to do his best, like me.
We have that much in common. It’s enough.
He pauses at the edge of the bed.
I point at the seat next to me. “Sit.”
He sits. A carefully blank expression on his PGSOFS face.
My heart breaks for what he’s gone through at such a young age. And to watch his mother, the person he loved most, fade away…
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “For what happened to your mom. It’s horrible. I’m going to touch you now, okay?” I don’t wait for his consent. I just scoot closer to him and put my arms around his neck and shoulders.
He is still and unyielding, exactly like a tree.
I hold him tighter. And tighter still. The muscle groups on his back move with a huge breath. “I’m sorry you had to take care of your mom. Where was…was your dad not there? Your siblings?”
“Dad used to work a lot,” Noah talks slowly. “And once he realized she couldn’t be saved, he basically lived at the office.” Now I know why he was so closed off about his dad.
“And your siblings?”
“Only child.” He puts one arm around my waist and holds it lightly. “Mum started getting sick when I was three and was diagnosed for the first time a few years later.”
“Oh, Noah.” I run my hand into his hair. “You shouldn’t have had to do so much on your own. It’s too much for a child.”
Noah grips my arm. Tight, clawing into my skin. “It was my mum. My mum.”
Tears prick my eyes and roll down slowly. “I know. I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not yours either.” He looks up at me. “It’s not your fault either, Noah,” I repeat again.
So many storms go through his lovely eyes, emotions running riot, turning the iris and pupil almost the same color. His gaze bores into mine, digging hooks into my skin, my heart, right into my bones. “I?—”
I put my finger on his lips. “It’s not. It never was.”
Noah speaks in a low voice “I know it’s not my fault.”
“But you feel it anyway,” I finish for him.
His stare is enervating. Weakening me with the depth of the things I see in him. Longing and guilt and yearning.
The same yearning I feel around him no matter how much I deny myself. It exists, like a sure thing, just waiting to be acknowledged and felt. Made real.
I lick my extremely dry lips.
He leans in and hugs me tight. Crushing me against his hold, his large hand brushing through my messy hair, sifting through it to find my skull. His breaths fan my sweaty neck and stir the hair there. It’s unbearably moving.
I make soothing motions over his back and hold him as much as I can. Our hearts in sync, our bodies so close we are almost one.
“Thank you,” Noah whispers. “For saying what you did. Only Fox and Ares know about it.”
My heart knocks uncomfortably. Noah’s sharing confidences and deep truths about himself. Being vulnerable with me. That’s not an asshole move. Is it?
“I mean every word,” I say at least.
We lift our heads slowly. Our faces are so close, a hairsbreadth apart from each other. His nostrils flare and his obsidian gaze dips down to my mouth.
I lean forward, lips parted, heart pounding, wanting more, wanting so much more, but?—
“Noah, Fox wants to know if we’re having pizza tonight,” Ares yells as he blitzes in through the door.
I jerk back like a puppet on strings. Noah stays sitting where he is, a million questions in his eyes. But his hand fists around the covers, tanned knuckles turning white.
“Are you better now?” Ares asks uncertainly.
“She’ll be fine,” Noah answers for me. “She’s going for a bath. And we’ll have pizza for dinner, if Queenie wants it.”
I nod. “Pizza sounds like heaven,” I confess.
But I’m looking at Noah’s lips when I say it. At the shoulders carrying a terrible burden since he was a child. At the heart hiding a mountain of feeling in it.
“Great!” Ares looks at Noah again, nods awkwardly and leaves.
A cramp shoots up my back, and I suck in a breath to ward it off.
“Alright, then, time for a bath.” Noah scoops me up, like I weigh nothing.
I shriek and hold his neck in a death grip. “What are you doing? You’ll drop me!”
“In the bathtub, yes. Not before.” He slides off the bed and starts walking toward the bathroom.
“I’m too heavy,” I say breathlessly. “Put me down.” My thighs wiggle and my middle bulges in this angle. Everything jostles when he lopes toward the bathroom.
He stops right outside the bathroom. “If you ever refer to yourself like that again, you and I are going to have a problem.”
“I’m just stating facts,” I say stubbornly, even though my heart speeds up at his words.
Why is he being so incredibly gentle with me?
His hands hold me impersonally. Confidently. His rapidly beating heart knocks against my chest. It’s the sensation of all of him, pressed to all of me. So close and so unreachable…
His response is dry. “Your facts are based on a weighing scale and the judgment of other people. They aren’t who you really are, desi girl. You know this, you’re a medical student.”
“Former medical student,” I protest automatically.
“Stop. Arguing.” Noah bites each word off.
I sigh. And drop my head on his bicep. “Stop being so nice to me. It’s confusing. I thought we didn’t like each other and didn’t trust each other.”
“I live to confuse you, Hellcat. Now are we clear?” He uses a stern voice but some of the sorrow is fading from his eyes.
I nod, reluctantly. “We’re clear.”
“Good. You can soak in there for twenty minutes. Ten for the shower. Be out in thirty or I’ll barge in again.”
“I thought you were going to get in the bath with me,” I grumble.
I’m secretly touched at the no-nonsense way he’s just taking charge and doing what needs to be done. This man has caregiver written all over his bones. It’s the sexiest thing ever. Even more than his six-pack and firm delts.
“You don’t want that. Not tonight,” he says simply.
Noah puts me down gently on the edge of the seat. I’m very aware of how close he is…of his taut midriff inches away.
“You’re implying like I might want it some other night.”
“It depends on you,” he says simply again. “Whatever you want, goes.” Then he nods and leaves before I can think of a suitable retort.
I watch his sexy, squeezable butt move in the shorts and I don’t say anything. But when I shed my clothes and get into the pleasant-smelling bath with Taylor Swift drifting in through the speakers, I acknowledge the simple truth.
My hate for Noah’s manipulation is fast fading. And, whether I like it or even understand it, I trust him. I always did.
And there’s nothing I can do about it. It is simple fact.