Chapter 5 Noah Today #2
“You look exactly the same,” he’s saying.
“Well,” she smiles, despite herself. “Not exactly.”
“You’re right,” he says, his eyes raking down her body. “You look even better.”
And then she blushes. She actually fucking blushes.
All pretty and demure. And I can’t fucking believe what I’m seeing because Nell never fell for Damien’s game back in the day.
She was the first one to call bullshit—even to his face.
She complained about him to me all the time.
And now she’s aglow under his gaze while she avoids mine?
If anyone is going to look down her low-cut top, it should be me!
Since when did the earth become the sky?
And I am nodding along to what Cara is telling all of us about the history of the estate and the incredible biodynamic wineries in the area, listening vaguely to Nell and Damien respond, comparing notes about the places they’ve heard we should visit.
But I am absorbing none of it thanks to the rushing in my ears.
On the outside, I might seem calm. But, in my head, there is an ocean in tumult.
“Is that the spa building?” Nell asks. She tries to raise her arm to point and visibly grimaces, grabbing her shoulder in a way that you’d have to be blind to miss.
“Oh no!” Cara says. “Is it your rotator cuff again?”
Nell chances a real glance up at me for the first time since we’ve been standing here and I raise my eyebrows. Shoulder’s not a thing anymore, huh?
“Yeah. I don’t know. It’s no big deal.”
“You need to let Noah look at it,” Damien says.
And Nell half laughs like he’s kidding. Like he’s made a bad joke and she’s playing along.
“No, really,” he says. “You know he works for like the Dodgers and Clippers and shit, right?”
“Right.” She smirks up at me. “What are you? Like the ball boy?”
Damien opens his mouth to answer her, but I put a hand on his forearm to stop him. “If she wants to believe I’m a nothing, let her,” I murmur. What the hell do I care?
There was a time when I believed that, too.
“Yeah,” I nod to Nell. “I’m a ball boy. With the rest of the children and the dogs.”
“Well,” she says. “The dog part tracks.”
I glare at her hatefully and she glares back at me. So much for civility.
“You guys, I’m so sorry I put you in the same suite!” Cara blurts out, her brow furrowed. “If you want to switch, please tell me. It’s not too late!”
Damien’s eyes go wide. He lets out a sharp guffaw. “Wait. No way! The same suite? You two?”
“Yup,” I say. “Us two.”
“Damn,” he says, pointing. “It’s on.”
“Nothing is on,” Nell says. “Ever.”
“We have very separate rooms,” I mumble at the same time. “Thank God.”
Damien takes another look at Nell, scanning her from head to toe like he’s a fucking MRI machine I’m about to smash. He shrugs. “I’ll switch with Noah.”
“Really?” Cara says, hopeful.
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll take his room, no problem. I’d happily share a suite with Nellie. We can catch up on old times. Watch movies on the couch. Eat popcorn. Bond.”
Nell’s eyes widen. Despite the tension between us, she casts a panicked look my way. Thank the Lord. She is still in there somewhere. And she has no interest in alone time with Damien.
“No, thanks,” I say. “I already unpacked.”
And I see Nell exhale just as I hear a female voice behind me purr, “Then let me help. I’ll switch with Nellie. Noah and I have always gotten along. Swimmingly.”
Go fish.
And there is Lydia in all her ginger glory, sucking her teeth from behind bright-red lips. And if I thought Nell’s top was a little low cut, Lydia’s makes it seem church-worthy, dipping down to reveal an expanse of freckled cleavage that commands center stage.
Nell’s expression goes from relieved to pinched in an instant. A shot of something like anger, but maybe even pain akin to when her shoulder spasmed, crosses her face and disappears before it goes stony.
I hate this closed look even more than the angry one. She is shut down. I want to reach over and brush a thumb across her cheek to flip the switch back on. But the instinct is just muscle memory, so I stay put.
She doesn’t acknowledge Lydia’s offer. Or Lydia at all. And I’m grateful. I don’t want to share a suite with her either. Lydia is not a fan of boundaries, and I need space more than anything right now.
“I see Sabrina,” Nell says. To Cara. To Damien. To the people to whom she actually speaks. And then she races away to anywhere else, taking a deep sip of wine as she goes.
We all watch her leave. Damien lets out a low whistle. “Wow,” he says. “It’s like not a day has passed.”
I think he may mean this in a good way. But it is in no way good.
“Except Ben and I are married with kids,” says Cara, desperate to keep things light. “And Sab is with Rita. And Nellie has Alfie, of course.”
I snap to attention at that.
“Alfie? Who the hell is that?” asks Damien. And I’m grateful he asks because it means I don’t have to.
“Her fiancé!” Cara says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like Alfie is the easiest answer on Jeopardy!
“Fiancé?” we all say at once—even Lydia.
And now my heart is pounding again. Even though this is a good thing, right? This takes the pressure off. This means Nell will be hanging with some guy the whole time and we can fully ignore each other.
Damien scans the deck. “But where is he? I want to check this dude out.”
“Oh, he couldn’t come,” Cara shrugs, frowning. “He had a work thing. He’s a big-deal political journalist. Nellie’s usual type.”
Her usual type. Brainy. High-achieving. Not like she sees me—the ball boy.
If Cara knows she’s said something triggering, she doesn’t show it. And we all nod like this is no big thing. Fiancé. The word stutters in my brain like a scratched record.
“So, you guys are the single crew!” Cara adds, as if this is a good thing. Damien nods, thoughtfully. Lydia looks up at me, lasciviously. And I just try to breathe.
My normal life, the one in which I feel like a full human and people take me seriously and I have friends and coworkers and successful interactions, is receding further and further from my consciousness, so that I am already having trouble connecting with it.
It’s like I’m aging backward in the worst possible way.
From a distance, I see Nell huddling with Sabrina and Rita, her tried-and-true friends, and I kind of wish I could be there too.
There was a time when I would have been.
When that would have been my inner circle too.
It’s magic hour, and the light is settling over the women in swaths of tangerine.
Fairy lights twinkle over their heads, wound around the branches of overarching trees.
Maybe it’s just me, but Nell seems to actually glow.
And I am reminded of the first time I saw her, across a crowded club. Like she was my north star, lit from within.
Something wrenches in my chest.
I don’t know why it should matter if she’s engaged.
We’re practically mortal enemies. But, for some reason, it does.
My insides are glitching. I try to push the feeling aside, remember what a pain in the ass she is, remind myself that I’ve had long-term girlfriends too—but it won’t budge.
Sensing my gaze on her, she glances up. Meets my eyes.
Gives me a questioning look, like, what?
Then shakes her head clear and goes back to her girls.
I feel an icy palm rest on my forearm like a wake-up call. Lydia. Her nails long and sharp. “Single is more fun anyway,” she says. “I can’t wait to get the lowdown on you.”
And in that moment, I know for sure it’s going to be a really long week.