Chapter 20 Nellie Today #6
And I can’t tell him it’s untrue. That would be disingenuous.
Because let’s be honest—I am still angry after all these years.
At least I was, as recently as this morning.
Even before Noah left me waiting all by myself, scared and destroyed that night, I had already begun to mourn him—at least the version of him I had loved and who had loved me.
It was like the boy who was everything to me had disappeared. I had never felt so alone.
“Thank you for saying that,” I say now. Because that’s what I can offer.
That’s what is true. I’m grateful for what he’s saying, how it’s releasing me from the shackles of this decades-long hurt.
“I think I owe you an apology too,” I add, forcing the words out.
“I hated that feeling of needing you, of not having you show up for me so much that a switch just flipped inside me. And I decided I wasn’t going to consider you in any of my plans. ”
“I’m not going to lie,” he says, exhaling. Even now, some light goes out of his face at the memory. “It stung so bad. But that was the smart thing to do, after what I did. Considering how I’d been acting.”
“Maybe,” I nod. “Like I said, I’d rather be alone than wrong. So, I wiped you out of my future.”
“Well, to be fair, I wiped myself out of your future—at the party. As long as we’re airing all the dirty laundry.”
I open my mouth to respond, but all that comes out is an almost inaudible “Why?”
He closes his eyes for a brief beat, shakes his head.
“I think I was just in search of an escape… from myself, from reality. It’s hard to explain, but it was torture for me to see you see me in those days.
I felt like garbage every time you looked at me—pity or confusion or hope in your eyes.
And, with you, I couldn’t hide. You have always been able to see me. Like actually see me.”
I nod. Because this all makes sense but also doesn’t change anything.
“But that’s not an excuse,” he adds, as if he knows exactly what’s in my head. “The first mistake was egregious enough. I didn’t need to compound it by hooking up with someone else.”
I sigh. “Yeah, maybe let’s not dwell on that.” Because, even so many years later, I can’t think of that night without hurt taking over. I shake my head, memories flooding through me like something visceral. “God. If you could have seen the look on Lydia’s face when she told me—”
“Told you?”
I cringe. Am barely able to form the words: “She made sure I saw. Pointed you out, kissing her friend.”
He swallows, hard. “Lydia pointed us out?”
“Yeah. And she was over the fucking moon.”
He nods carefully. “Explains why you hate her.”
“I always hated her.”
“Fair enough.”
But now I’m worked up. “She beelined for every good-looking guy who showed a modicum of interest in me,” I say, still irate after all these years. “Even you! And when that didn’t work, in a vulnerable moment for us, she basically pimped out her friend to you.”
He rubs a hand across his eyes, sighs. That’s fact.
“I’m so sorry I took the bait, gave her extra ammunition.”
He looks like he really is.
But now I’m on a tear. “She still does it, by the way—chases every hot dude who looks at me anytime we’re forced together for Cara. I mean, she hasn’t been able to keep her hands off you this whole trip!”
“Wait.” He cocks his head to one side, a bit of fire sparking in his eyes. “Are you calling me hot?”
“That’s what you took from what I just said?”
“Pretty much.” He shoots me a small smile that takes me down. “At least that seemed like the good part.”
“Yeah, well. You’re okay.”
He gives me a look that calls me on my bullshit. “You’re okay too,” he says, his gaze dropping from my eyes, down to my lips, down my body, and then back up again.
With effort, I stop myself from doing the same to him.
My hand is still covering his, but now it feels conductive. It’s hard to focus on anything else. But again I feel like moving it is even more conspicuous.
“Anyway,” I say, trying to play it cool. “Now it’s all water under the bridge.”
“Right,” he says, eyeing me. And it feels like I’m being lit up from within.
“Now we can be friends!” I say.
“Right. Friends.”
He flips his hand over and grasps mine before it can flee. His forearm flexes and I die a little.
The “friendship” between us is palpable.
So, gently, I take my hand back, reach across the table, and punch him in the arm. Maybe harder than intended.
“Buddies,” I say with a forced grin.
He shakes his head at me. “Nell.”
There’s just too much history and too much distance now, between my life and his. This can’t be a thing. Because I can still feel how seminal this all is and was, for both of us. It’s not light, even if I want it to be.
I realize that’s what Noah meant in the hot tub. This can’t be casual.
Needing something to do, I stand up and start clearing, coming around to his side of the bar to grab the pasta bowl. He watches me move, and I feel a little like stalked prey.
And, the thing is, I like it.
A lot.
Part of me wants him to grab me by my sweatpants pockets and yank me toward him. Send plates flying. Pasta sauce on the pretty wood floor. And me, bent over the kitchen counter.
But I shake my head to let that go. What am I thinking?
I don’t know whether to stop drinking or down the rest of my cider. I go with the latter. Because my nervous energy has ramped up a notch.
We manage to clean up dinner, avoiding contact in the narrow kitchen. But I can feel him like a pulsing inches from everywhere I move.
I had figured we’d hang out for the rest of the evening, but now I don’t think I can handle it. Full darkness has descended outside, even the light emanating at a distance from the general store seems to have gone out, and the wind is whistling past the windows like a tease.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asks.
I do. But I shake my head.
“I think it’s bedtime,” I say.
Noah raises his eyebrows. “Tired?”
I shake my head, temporarily forgetting to lie. I have never been less tired. If I sleep for a single minute tonight, it will be a miracle. A croissant with Jesus’s face. An oil lamp that burns for eight days.
“If you’re not tired, why don’t we hang out?” Noah flops onto the couch, pats the seat beside him.
But there is no way. I am not strong enough. And I’m not wearing underwear.
I shake my head.
He cocks his. “If you’re not tired, why go to bed?”
“I’m cold,” I say. Which makes zero sense.
He holds up the throw blanket. I shake my head. “That’s too fleecey.”
He meets my gaze for a beat, then nods slowly—with some version of understanding. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go to bed.”
For a second I’m not sure if he means together.
“You don’t have to just because I am!” I say more quickly than is normal.
“Nah,” he says. “I should get sleep too.”
Noah offers to take the loft bed, though at some point he will definitely smash his head on the ceiling. But that’s just how he is. He is a take-the-loft-bed kind of guy.
As he starts up the stairs, I head toward the bathroom to brush my teeth. “Good night, Noah,” I say as lightly as I can manage.
He pauses and looks down at me, almost mournfully. Smiles what kind of looks like a pained smile. I’m sure I’m mistaken. “Sleep well, Nell,” he says.
I finish brushing my teeth, then head into my room and climb into bed.
Soon, I hear him pad back down the stairs, make the rounds, turning off lights throughout the bungalow. Through the crack in my door, I watch them go out, one by one, the communal space blackening until only a sliver of light remains, probably from the bathroom.
My whole body is vibrating. It’s like someone flipped a switch and now I am on.
Night is day. Rest is an impossibility. Instead of relaxing me, the cider has turned up my volume to maximum horniness.
And I can’t think of a single thing besides Noah lying in the bed directly above me in few, if any, clothes, rumpled sheets grazing his warm skin—his strong forearms, thighs, firm stomach, calves.
His dark lashes closed against his cheeks.
I don’t know what the hell to do with myself. I even briefly consider stepping outside to cool off, but it’s pouring rain and I’m in the middle of breathtaking nowhere.
But I cannot stay still.
So I stand up and tiptoe to the bathroom, careful not to wake him.
Aware of every creak as I cross the floor.
But as I reach to slide the door open, Noah steps out—in the middle of pulling off his shirt, exposing the top of those low-slung sweatpants.
And I gasp, like he’s a ghost. The hottest apparition. And, to be fair, he is haunting me.
My palm lands on his chest as he drops his T-shirt back down and we nearly slam into each other like we’re characters on a laugh-tracked sitcom. I snatch my hand away like I just got burned.
I try to pull myself together, bring a palm to my heart to stop it from pounding. Because I am not on edge. I am a completely normal person.
“Sorry!” he says, also flustered. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just brushing my teeth. I thought you were asleep.”
I shake my head. “I can’t sleep.”
“Well,” he says. “It’s only like nine thirty.”
“Is it really? It feels like two a.m.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“Long,” I agree. “But weirdly good, right?”
He shoots me a crooked smile that almost ends me. “One of the best.”
He holds my gaze. If he can’t hear my heart thumping, it’s a fucking miracle.
“Well, good night,” I say before I do something dumb—dumber. And turn back toward my bedroom.
“Weren’t you going to the bathroom?”
“Yeah,” I say, looking back at him and his crinkled brow. “But—I’m good.”
Deranged. But good.
“Are you sure you’re okay up there?” I add. Because that’s all I can think about. Him. Up there, up there, up there.
“I’m fine. It’s actually pretty cozy,” he says.
“Ah, I want to see it!”
He arches an eyebrow. “You want to see it… now?”