Chapter 11 #3
I widened my stance and held him securely, keeping pressure away from his injured hip and arm. His breath touched the side of my throat.
The instinct to pull him closer nearly overwhelmed me.
I waited instead.
Noah’s fist tightened in my shirt.
“The room moved.”
“It’s stopping.”
“I hate this body.”
My heart broke cleanly.
“It is working very hard to keep you alive.”
“It betrayed me.”
“It survived for you.”
He made a small, furious sound.
I moved my palm once between his shoulder blades.
His muscles softened gradually beneath my hand.
“I’m here,” I said.
“I know.”
“You don’t have to stay upright by yourself.”
“I want to.”
“I know.”
His breath steadied.
“But not right now,” he whispered.
“No. Not right now.”
He allowed more of his weight to rest against me.
I closed my eyes.
His body had changed. The shape of his ribs beneath my hand was sharper. He held his injured side differently. His balance was no longer automatic.
The feeling of him against me had not changed at all.
His cheek rested over my heart. His right palm flattened against my ribs. My arm held his waist with painful care, cautious of healing bone and even more cautious of hope.
“I understand the dream now,” he said.
“Which one?”
“The warm room.”
My heart stopped.
“The hand at the back of my neck,” he continued. “I thought it was a photograph.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No.”
He shifted closer by the smallest amount.
“It was this.”
“Being held?”
“Yes.”
His voice roughened.
“I think my body remembers you.”
I could not answer.
Noah lifted his head.
Our faces were only inches apart.
His gaze moved over mine.
“You’re crying.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
I should have chosen a gentler truth.
Instead, the real one escaped.
“Because I have missed you while you were standing directly in front of me.”
Pain crossed his expression.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Never apologize for that.”
I loosened my arm in case he wanted space.
He did not step away.
His right hand lifted.
Tentative fingertips touched my beard.
He traced the line beside my mouth, the same place he had touched the night he asked whether we could begin again.
“I wish I could give you everything back,” he whispered.
“You owe me nothing from the past.”
“But you miss him.”
“I miss us.”
His fingers remained against my face.
“And I am grateful for you.”
“Me now?”
“You now.”
He searched my eyes.
“What happens if I never become him again?”
“You won’t.”
The answer startled him.
“Neither will I,” I said. “We are not going backward. Even if every memory returns tomorrow, we’ll still be men who went through this.”
His eye shone.
“What if I don’t know how to love you?”
“Then you don’t force yourself.”
“What if I want to?”
My pulse thundered.
Noah looked frightened by the question.
“Wanting to know me is enough,” I said.
“For you?”
“For today.”
He nodded.
The dizziness had passed, but he stayed close.
“I still need to use the bathroom.”
A laugh broke through the tightness in my throat.
“Of course.”
His mouth curved.
“You’re very good at that.”
“At what?”
“Holding me.”
“I have practice.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you to do it again?”
“Whenever you need.”
I helped him into the chair.
While he was in the bathroom, I stood at the kitchen sink and waited for my hands to stop shaking.
When Noah emerged, droplets of water shone on his face.
“I feel better.”
“Good.”
He maneuvered the chair toward the couch.
“You mentioned puzzles.”
“You insulted puzzles.”
“I’ve revised my position.”
I retrieved a box from the shelf.
It was not a cottage, flowers, or a beach at sunset. Owen had found a thousand-piece aerial photograph of Greyhaven Harbor taken before the expansion of the north marina.
Noah studied the lid.
“I know that shoreline.”
“You grew up here.”
“Not this section.”
He pointed to a narrow strip of land beyond the old cannery.
“The channel markers were there.”
“They moved them four years ago.”
He looked up sharply. “Is that another memory?”
“Possibly something you knew before you left Greyhaven.”
“No.”
Certainty entered his voice.
“I remember being angry about it.”
“Who were you speaking to?”
His eye closed.
For several seconds, concentration tightened his features.
Nothing came.
Frustration darkened his face.
I sat across from him at the dining table.
“Let’s separate the edge pieces.”
“You are changing the subject.”
“Yes.”
He gave me a severe look, then tipped the box over.
For the next hour, we divided water from rooftops and forest from sky. Noah’s concentration arrived in brief, intense stretches. He would place three or four pieces, rest his head against the chair, then return.
He found the first corner.
I said nothing.
After a moment, he looked at me. “You may acknowledge it.”
“Acknowledge what?”
“That I did well.”
“You identified a corner in a rectangular puzzle.”
“You’re terrible at encouragement.”
“I am respecting your distaste for praise.”
“Selectively.”
“Would you prefer applause?”
“No.”
“A formal certificate?”
“Be quiet.”
I smiled and handed him another edge piece.
At three, I went downstairs to inspect the security alarm and retrieve a package that had been delivered to the office.
When I returned twenty minutes later, Noah sat on the couch beneath the blanket.
The puzzle remained untouched.
His expression was controlled so tightly that fear showed through the seams.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I put the package down.
“Noah.”
“I woke up.”
“You were awake when I left.”
“I fell asleep.”
His hand clenched in the blanket.
“And you were gone.”
“I was downstairs.”
“I know now.”
I crossed the room but stopped several feet away.
“What did you think?”
“I didn’t know.”
His breathing quickened.
“The room looked familiar, but I couldn’t understand why. Marlowe wasn’t here. The light had changed.”
“I left a note on the table.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“I should have reminded you before I went.”
“You did.”
His voice broke.
“You told me, and I forgot.”
The fear in his face was not anger at me.
It was terror of his own mind.
“I lost twenty minutes.”
“You fell asleep after I left.”
“But you told me.”
“Your brain didn’t hold on to it.”
“That is the entire problem.”
I sat on the low stool in front of him.
“I’m here now.”
He looked at me.
“The yard is beneath us,” I said. “Caleb and Owen will be downstairs tomorrow. Maeve will return. We can set an alert on your phone whenever I leave.”
“More alarms.”
“A whiteboard.”
“More instructions.”
“You can come downstairs with me.”
His brow tightened.
“I can’t follow you everywhere.”
“No.”
“I need to learn how to be alone.”
“Yes.”
His fingers loosened slightly.
“But not today,” he said.
“No. Not today.”
His shoulders lowered.
I held out my hand.
Noah took it.
“You are the only thing that stays the same.”
My throat closed.
“The hospital changed. The doctors changed. Then this place. Sometimes I wake up and lose the day. Sometimes I know a thing I shouldn’t know, and then there is nothing around it.”
His grip tightened.
“But you are always there.”
“I’ll keep telling you before I leave.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
I waited.
“You feel the same everywhere.”
The words reached somewhere defenseless inside me.
I turned his hand over and pressed my mouth to his knuckles.
The kiss was instinctive.
I realized what I had done only when Noah went still.
I drew back.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
His gaze fixed on my mouth.
“Do it again.”
I held his eyes. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
I lifted his hand slowly.
This time, I kissed the center of his palm.
His breath caught.
His fingers curled, brushing my cheek. A flush climbed from his chest to his throat.
The room altered around us.
Not with the practiced certainty of the intimacy we had once shared.
With the fragile danger of desire being discovered for the first time.
His thumb moved over my beard.
“I like that.”
“You told me.”
“Before?”
“Last week.”
“Oh.”
Disappointment dimmed his expression.
I kept his palm against my face.
“You chose it then. You chose it now.”
His gaze returned to mine.
“That’s better.”
We stayed that way until the moment softened into something we could both carry.
When I finally released his hand, Noah looked toward the unfinished puzzle.
“Will you complete the border with me?”
“Yes.”
“And remain upstairs?”
“Yes.”
I brought my laptop to the dining table and answered work emails while Noah sorted pieces.
Every few minutes, he looked up.
Every time, I was still there.
Dinner was the first meal we cooked together after the accident.
Nothing complicated.
Salmon with lemon and herbs. Potatoes crushed with butter. Green beans that Noah declared overcooked before they had finished steaming.
He sat at the island in his chair and tore parsley into a bowl with his right hand.
“I can cut something.”
“Not safely with one hand.”
“I have one functional hand and years of experience with knives.”
“You also have dizziness.”
“I’m seated.”
“You are exhausting.”
“You love me.”
The words left him casually.
We both froze.
Noah’s face changed.
“I meant—you told me—”
“I do.”
He looked down at the herbs in his hand.
“I know.”
The silence afterward was not awkward.
Only full.
I gave him a butter knife and a bowl of mushrooms.
“You may slice these.”
“With this?”
“It is the only weapon permitted under your current license.”
He mangled the first mushroom.
“This is degrading.”
“It’s merely uneven.”
“It has been destroyed.”
“It will taste the same.”
By the fourth mushroom, his control improved.
By the tenth, he was smiling.
We ate in the living room without turning on the television.
Noah asked which boats were booked for Monday. I told him about a trawler with a failed bilge alarm and a sailboat whose owner had repaired a shore-power connection with garden wire.
“That should be a criminal offense,” Noah said.
“It may be.”
“Bring me the old depth gauge tomorrow.”
“The corroded one?”
“Yes.”
“You are not taking it apart until Maeve approves.”
“I only want to inspect it.”
“You will inspect it until it becomes separate components.”
“I dislike how accurately you assume the worst of me.”
I smiled.
“You could come downstairs for an hour.”
Interest sharpened his face, followed immediately by worry.