Chapter 24
NOAH
That drive home with Xavier was worse than I ever could have anticipated and not for the reasons I may have initially thought.
Sure, it was uncomfortable, in a pulse--racing, sweaty--palm sort of way, being literally wrapped around him, but that wasn’t the biggest problem.
Nope, the biggest issue was that I started falling asleep.
It’d been three days since we got back from Camp Beaver, and I’d barely managed a couple of hours’ sleep among them, comprised of cat naps in cars and on couches.
Turned out that when I was robbed of all other stimulation and forced to sit still on the back of Xavier’s motorcycle—-in peak rush--hour traffic, no less—-the exhaustion quickly caught up with me.
Had we been in a car, not a problem. On the back of a motorcycle? Problem.
When Xavier had realized, he’d taken to squeezing my hands every time I started to doze, my grip on his jacket loosening. After a while, that stopped working, and he shifted to squeezing my thigh instead, which was equally worrying, because surely he needed both hands to steer?
Either way, it was torture. And if I were totally honest, I was grateful that Xavier kept trying to wake me up instead of letting me fall off and die on the highway.
“What’s up with you, Little Dude?” he asked when we finally arrived home and I waited patiently for him to unbuckle the helmet.
My fingers were too stiff, and I couldn’t work it out.
“Why so tired? Are you sick?” His hands were surprisingly gentle as he loosened the clip and tugged the whole helmet off my head, giving me a worried frown.
“No, I just haven’t been sleeping,” I admitted in an embarrassed mumble. Despite the fact that the stained tiles had been magically replaced the day after Z found me outside in my weird little depressive state, I still couldn’t sleep well. “Thanks for not letting me die, though.”
Xavier grunted, folding his arms over his chest in a way that I found altogether far too sexy for a man with his shitty personality. “Seems like the bare minimum of human decency, does it not?”
I shrugged, not wanting to admit I didn’t expect even that from him. Seemed like a bit of a dick thing to say after he showed kindness to me. So I just yawned and started to turn away, but he caught my wrist and stopped me.
“Little Dude, about the Hot Falcon campaign… We can change the flavor if it’s that upsetting for you. I was just being funny, but if you’re going to be butthurt about it, we can pick something else.”
I let out a frustrated breath, too tired to continue our argument from earlier.
Beside the fact that Xavier didn’t have the full picture for why the mention of peaches upset me so much, I really wasn’t playing fair.
Besides, I couldn’t let Rich totally destroy an entire fruit for the rest of my life, now could I?
“It’s fine,” I forced myself to say. “It’s just a flavor.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Is it?”
No. It’s really not. “Mm--hmm. Anyway, thanks for keeping me alive and shit.”
“You already said that part,” he replied with a ghost of a smile, making my stupid inner teenager squeal with delight. Fuck, he was sexy. “Go to bed, Little Dude. You need to sleep.”
It wasn’t even dinnertime, but I couldn’t argue with that point. I really, really needed to sleep more than an hour, but once Xavier released me and I headed into the house, a deep shiver of dread and anxiety ran through me.
I was scared.
So instead of going to my room, I continued up to the third floor and pinned my hopes on finding Torin in his art studio. To my relief, the soft sounds of music trickled out from under the door, and I tapped lightly before letting myself in.
Torin looked up at my entry, his startled expression quickly shifting into delight when he saw me.
“Hey, Short Stack, how were your meetings?” He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing just a loose pair of shorts that were splattered all over with clay, as were his hands and arms and a little on his face.
It was a good look on him, though. I never would have thought I’d be into dirty men, but Torin was setting that standard.
“Um, good. Or one of them was. I sort of missed the other one, but it sounds like Xavier had everything under control.” I said it with a healthy dose of sarcasm, and Torin cocked his head in question.
I blew out a heavy sigh as I flopped down in his big beanbag chair, my happy place.
“I dunno, he was being a dick. Per usual.” I mumbled that part, lacking the usual heat of conviction because he hadn’t actually been that much of a dickhead today, and I was exceptionally late for the meeting in the first place, so, yeah, I probably would have done the same.
“I see,” Tor murmured, his hands smoothing out the clay he was working on as the potter’s wheel spun at dizzying speeds.
I noticed his phone set up on the tripod and nodded to it. “Are you filming?”
He nodded. “Time--lapse, though, so you’re safe.
” He shot me a wink, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
Then I shifted uncomfortably in the beanbag as my binder bit into my flesh and my aching ribs protested.
“Take it off,” Torin told me, nodding his head with pointed meaning. “You can wear my sweatshirt.”
My knee--jerk reaction was to decline, but why?
I was uncomfortable, my body hurt, and I was exhausted.
If I wanted any hope of sleeping, I couldn’t do it in a chest binder.
So I sat up and reached under my shirt to loosen the Velcro, but to get it off properly, I needed to take my T--shirt off.
It was barely a three--second debate before I gestured to Torin. “Cover your eyes, Tor.”
He did as I asked, fingers splayed wide--open teasingly as I laughed and pulled my garments off, flashing him a whole five seconds of tits before pulling his black, ripped--hem crewneck on. Torin gasped dramatically, staring at me with his jaw unhinged, then shook his head slowly.
“That was mean,” he commented with a grin, returning his hands to the clay on his wheel. “Fuck, Short Stack, I’ve committed to this piece, and you’re over there flashing the goods?”
I laughed, settling back down in his beanbag with his well--worn sweatshirt on me like a warm hug. “I just came to hang out, not distract you from working. Keep going. I’m just going to watch.”
He grumbled jokingly, then shifted on his stool like he was suddenly uncomfortable himself. “You can change the music if you want,” he offered, pointing to the sound system remote on his work bench. “I’ll be working on this piece for a few hours, at least.”
I shook my head, slithering farther into the beanbag until I was horizontal across it. “I’m good. I like your working playlist.”
“Did Ace tell you that we’re getting a new challenge tomorrow?”
My brows rose with curiosity. “He did not.” But I have been going out of my way to avoid him, so of course he didn’t. “Any hints?”
Tor shrugged, his muscular shoulders flexing in a way that would make the girls—-and some boys—-weak at the knees.
Good thing I was already lying down or I’d have been joining them.
“No clue. I hope it’s something fun, though.
Something without any life--or--death scenarios.
Maybe swimming with dolphins?” He glanced up, then winced and shook his head.
“Maybe not that. Uh…petting zoo? Small animal petting zoo.”
I chuckled, my eyelids already heavy. “Maybe. Tell me about what you’re working on.”
“Ah, this?” Tor slapped the side of the still--solid mass of clay on his wheel, making muddy water splatter his chest. “This is what I’d call a big lump.
But maybe, if the muse is being kind, I can make it into something beautiful.
” He shot me another wink, and my heart sped up a little. Romantic little fuck.
“I bet your muse is always kind,” I replied with a yawn, “because everything you create is beautiful.”
Torin’s only response was a soft chuckle as he zoned in on his art. I let my eyes close, allowing the sound of his music and the steady whir of his pottery wheel to soothe me to sleep.
For once, my own racing pulse and cold dread didn’t wake me within the hour. Instead, it was the sound of hushed voices that gently roused me from the depths of what felt like the best sleep I’d had in years, and it took a solid minute to remember where the hell I even was.
“…well, she’s asleep now, and has been for nearly five hours. I’m sure as hell not risking waking her up just to move her.” That was Tor, and he was annoyed. Wait, five hours? Holy crap. No wonder I felt so rested. “She’s comfy here, and safe. Leave it be.”
“I’m just worried, Tor,” came the whispered response. Ace. “Xavier said he needed to wake her up every five minutes on the drive home or she’d have fallen off the back of his bike. And if she’s been sleeping like that she’ll be—-”
“Hey, have you guys seen Noah?” Z interrupted, speaking at normal volume, only to have both Tor and Ace shush him violently. “Shit, sorry. Is he sleeping?”
“I was,” I mumbled, rolling onto my back to stare up at the ceiling. The room was a lot darker than when I fell asleep, with only a small lamp at Torin’s work desk lit. “Why are you arguing in the doorway?”
“We’re arguing?” Z asked, genuinely confused. “What are we arguing about?”
“Nothing,” Ace and Torin both snapped at the same time, and I heaved a sigh. Five hours sleeping in a beanbag wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had, and my neck was a little stiff as a result, but otherwise…I felt great. My ribs didn’t hurt, for once, and my head wasn’t pounding with lack of sleep.
I groaned a little as I sat up, running my fingers through my hair.
It had grown a lot since I first chopped it, but I was finding it hard to care much about maintaining the disguise when half the team already knew.
“Okay, cool, good chat, guys. I’m going to go to bed.
” I stood up and yawned, then immediately shivered with dread at the thought of going back to my own bed.