25. Noah
Fuck, she looks so beautiful.
Her hair is up in a ponytail, tendrils framing her face. Her shorts are highlighting the crap out of her insane curves. And she looks so good in white.
Honestly, she looks good in everything. She could wear a goddamn trash bag and look absolutely perfect.
“You don’t need to change,” she says before she breaks out into a small fit of laughter.
I literally can’t help but smile when I’m around her now. Admitting my feelings for Dani, even though it’s only been to myself, has unlocked this side of me where it’s impossible for me to ignore the little things. I notice the crease she gets in between her eyebrows when she smiles and the different kinds of laughs she has.
“Do you want to take my car or yours?” I ask.
“Can we take mine?”
“You’re answering my question with a question.” I grin.
“I’m sorry.” She fiddles with her fingers, looking down at the floor.
Her mouth gapes open until she presses her full pink lips together.
I put my hands on hers to stop her from playing around with her shaking hands.
She looks at my hands and meets my gaze.
“You never have to do that with me,” I say.
When I would get in extremely uncomfortable situations at school or at home, I would fidget with anything I could get my hands on. Sometimes I would just play with my own hands.
I want her to know that she’s safe with me.
I don’t want to be a source of anxiety for her.
I want to be the calm before the storm.
I want to be her everything.
“Dani, are you ready?” I ask, standing in the foyer.
She comes out of her bedroom, purse slinging over her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Archie comes running up to us, meowing up a storm.
“Hi, buddy.” She smiles at him.
He rubs Dani’s legs, looking up at her.
“Hey, Archie.” I pick him up and he grabs onto my shirt.
“Archie!” She wrestles with him until she finally gets him off me, meeting my gaze after she puts him down on the floor.
She punches me in my right arm in a playful way.
“I told you to stop punching me.”
“I barely touched you.” Her nose scrunches.
I’ve never seen her do that before. If she ever does it again, I’m fucking done for.
“You don’t listen very well, do you?”
“You know I don’t listen, especially not to you.”
I lick my lips, walking closer to her. There’s only a sliver of a gap between us.
I’m looking at her face in pieces instead of as a whole.
Her freckles are peeking through the makeup on her nose. They fade out as you look under her eyes. Her eyelashes are long and thick.
She’s even more beautiful up close like this.
“I think we can change that. Don’t you?”
She rolls her eyes. “Good luck with that.”
We’re both breathing heavily and staring deeply into each other’s eyes.
God, I want to kiss her so fucking badly.
I close the gap between us.
Her lips are barely grazing mine. And yet it’s enough to send me over the edge.
She sucks her lips in, chest slowly heaving. “We should go.”
She escapes the forcefield around her.
I shake my head, clearing my throat.
God, why did I do that?
“Yeah, we should.” I stop her before she makes her way out the door. “Am I driving or do you want to drive?”
“You can drive.”
I stick my thumbs up in the air as she walks out the door with me trailing behind her.
When we get into the car, my hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard I might break it.
“Noah.”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. All I could think about was Dad, Lizzie, and Mom.”
And you.
“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t get enough sleep last night either.”
“Guess we both have a lot of shit on our minds.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
I back out of the driveway, glancing at the backup camera to make sure there aren’t any cars driving by or any people walking behind us.
Once the coast is clear, we’re off.
It’s been about five minutes since we left the house, which isn’t too long. The Promenade at Sunset Cove is around a ten-minute drive from Crystal Harbor.
The radio blasts our ears with Lorde.
She goes to turn the volume down, but I gesture to her to keep it on. I extend my arm out, twisting the knob clockwise to turn the volume up.
“I didn’t know you liked this song.” She projects her voice, so I can hear it over the music.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” I glance at her, grinning ear to ear.
She smiles, turning away from me to hide her flushed cheeks.
“The chorus in the song is so freaking good. Here it comes.” She waves her right arm up and down to the rhythm of the song and starts moving the upper half of her body.
She’s dancing while sitting in the driver’s seat. I can barely hear the music over Dani’s singing. While it’s not an award-winning voice, I can’t help but smile the entire time she’s singing the chorus.
I turn down the music a little bit, so I don’t have to yell over it. She”ll be able to hear me easier.
“You know if the whole author thing doesn’t work out for you, I think singing might be a great second backup plan,” I tease, even though my tone sounds serious.
She puckers her lips out and pulls them back, curving them up to create a smile that lights up that pretty face of hers. “Actually that’s a horrible backup plan. I’m guessing you can’t hear like a normal person. I wasn’t blessed with good singing genes.”
“I know. I’m just being nice.” I burst out in laughter that becomes louder than the music currently playing.
“You’re lucky I’m driving right now because you’d have a small bruise somewhere on your arm from me hitting it.”
That’s one of the reasons why I brought it up.
I’d do anything to get her hands on my body.
We’re driving around the area where Sweet Salty is to find a parking spot.
Why did I think coming here on the weekend was a good idea?
“There’s one!” Dani points to a space on my left and wiggles her hand in my face.
“Can you not do that? I’m driving.”
“Sorry.”
Shaking my head, I lick my lips and smile away from her.
I pull into the parking space and we unbuckle our seatbelts.
Dani’s sitting there staring at the sign for Mom’s shop. Her eyes are growing wide like this is the first time she’s been here when it’s actually the millionth time.
“This is going to sound really cheesy, but I’m really happy that your mom opened Sweet Salty. It’s always been a safe space for me, but even more so when my dad passed away.”
She looks away from me, but I reach my hand out to turn her face back in my direction.
I squint my eyes, my gaze fixating on her. “That’s not cheesy at all. We all have our safe spaces. I know I do.”
Fuck, her eyes are going to obliterate me.
“What’s your safe space?”
“I don’t want to tell you. You might steal it.”
She scoffs. “I would never do that.”
“Just like the time you said you didn’t steal my phone on family game night when we were in sixth grade.”
“I didn’t steal your phone.” She opens her mouth, closing it to conceal a laugh that’s about to explode out of her.
“You’re full of shit, Solomon.”
I put my index finger and thumb underneath my chin. My index finger and pad of my thumb are resting on the edge of my jawline.
Dani shakes her head, rolling her eyes at me. “I’m getting out of the car now, so feel free to yell at me on the way in.”
She closes the car door, and I slam mine.
She’s looking at me like she’s about to jump me and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “What?”
“What the hell did my car door ever do to you?”
I inspect the door to make sure they’re aren’t any dents, scratches, or marks. “It looks perfectly fine to me.”
“It better be because you would’ve been paying for any damage you would’ve caused. Just saying.”
How about the emotional damage you caused after you stopped talking to me?
She walks into the bookshop, with me trailing a few steps behind, and the bell dings as the door opens.
God, I haven’t stepped foot in here since Mom opened the place.
It still looks the same. Bright white bookshelves filled to the brim with romance books. There’s a ton of pinks and greens to make the space cozy and make sure people know that this is a romance bookstore when they walk in here.
You can’t get a bookstore that’s pure romance any more than Sweet Salty.
Dani’s smiling like crazy which is having a domino effect on me, causing me to smile as she walks aimlessly around the shop.
Her smile is blinding, but it’s also incredibly beautiful. Her eyes are sparkling like fireworks lighting up the night sky.
She turns around to face me. “You know I used to work here full-time when I was in high school? Luckily, your mom let me come back to work here during the summer to earn some extra money.”
“Yeah, she told me she offered you a job.”
“Before working at Sweet Salty, I called this place my second home because it was. And it still is. It’s surreal I’ve had the opportunity to work here. I’ve learned so much about running a small business and found out about self-publishing during my time here. I’m thankful for your mom, Noah. You have no idea.”
“She talked about you a lot. The way you’d light up when you had a book in your hand and when a customer would come up to you, asking for a book recommendation. She said you were in your element. And she isn’t wrong. You’re glowing.”