Chapter 18 Willow
eighteen
Willow
Iraise my gaze to Noah, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by his concern. This should not be happening right now. I shouldn’t be opening up to him.
Not if I’m to protect my heart. Keep myself from falling harder.
“Willow,” he insists softly, his hand reaching for mine, then quickly retracting as if he remembers at the last minute that this marriage is fake.
His concern for me isn’t.
The heat of the drink he made for me fills my lungs as I take a sip.
“We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and she needs…
” I take a deep breath. Understanding of what’s going on with Mom is crystallizing as I talk to Noah.
“She can’t help the way she is. Sometimes it seems that she just needs to bring me down.
And other times, it’s like she’s trying to replace all the times we didn’t have together, but…
” I turn my eyes to him and find his gaze on me, deep and understanding “…it’s too late now. ”
He frowns. “It’s never too late to repair a relationship,” he says quickly. “She’s sick and…” His words hang in the air as he struggles to finish his sentence. I know what he means. That he wishes he had more time with both his parents.
“Mom was not… she was not a model parent like yours.” Understatement of the year. I still remember hoping she’d never visit me in Emerald Creek, so I didn’t have to face the other kids’ curious stares.
“It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt just as much to lose her.”
“I suppose not,” I whisper. A mother is a mother.
He takes a sharp inhale as if he’s about to speak but stays silent.
“What?” Somehow, now that I’ve opened that door, I’m craving this heart-to-heart. I’ve hardly shared with anyone the shame and trouble of my early years. But Noah’s gentle understanding makes it easy to unburden on him.
The earlier compliments at Mom’s didn’t exactly hurt either. How does he know all this about me?
“No… I…” He takes another quick inhale.
His hesitancy is endearing. “Go on. You can ask me anything,” I say. Truthfully, it feels good to unload on someone who actually cares.
“What’s with the nickname?” he asks. I noticed his frown when Mom called me Weeping, but I never thought anything of it.
“I used to cry a lot as a baby. I guess it stuck.” At least she never called me Pillow.
I chase that bitter memory away by smiling encouragingly at Noah.
Another question right about now would work out just fine.
“Your father…?” He narrows his eyes on me, his concern clear.
I shake my head, a small smile spreading on my lips. “Never knew him. I don’t think she did either.”
He doesn’t even flinch. Just raises his chin, his stare on the fire. “She probably didn’t have an easy life.”
“No, she didn’t,” I whisper. Did she have a choice?
Or was she just too weak to fight for a better life for us?
“I can’t believe she brought up the stolen land thing.
I thought that stupid story died with Gramps.
He was always complaining about everything and blaming everyone for the way his life turned out.
” And yes, he was jealous to the point of obsession of the Callaways, and clearly Mom retained some of the toxicity on that topic.
Noah grunts, his gaze still on the fire.
“I don’t know if she takes advantage of being ill or if she genuinely is more abrasive because of what she’s going through.
But just so you know, it’s not normally like this.
” I realize it’s unimportant how bad it is or isn’t.
He didn’t genuinely meet the parents. It was a matter of necessity for me, of appearances for him.
“I didn’t ask her about her health tonight,” he says, looking at me. “It felt too personal, for a first time. And now I realize I haven’t asked you either, and that’s really shitty of me. I’m sorry I’ve been so self-centered. How… how is she… is she going to be okay?”
It was not self-centered. We’ve talked about it, if briefly.
And I started using his credit card to pay for medical bills.
“She was diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer late last year. She had chemo and surgery, and she was stable for a while. Last month, they found it had returned. But it’s small, and slow growing.
So for now she’s staying home, on daily meds. ”
“How does she manage that?”
I shrug. “She tires easily, can get a little confused. Her hair is growing back slowly, so that makes her happy. Gives her hope.” She still wears a scarf when she’s not alone, as her hair is growing back in uneven wisps.
“She’s lucky to have you,” he says, his gravelly voice making me all kinds of funny inside.
“You know what, I think you’re right.”
He laughs. “You know your worth, and I love that about you.”
My heart stumbles at his unfortunate word choice. Don’t dwell on it. He didn’t mean it that way. You know he didn’t. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Well aren’t you two cute!” Lane calls out.
I jump in my chair as if I’d been caught kissing in the janitor’s closet. “Hey, what’s up?” I ask, my gaze snapping briefly to the handsome man at her side.
“This is Jake,” she says with a wink for me. “He’s just visiting Emerald Creek, you’re forbidden to ask awkward questions, and I’m just grabbing my ID,” she says as she runs up the stairs.
Noah sizes the guy up and down but doesn’t get up. “Jake. Noah. Where are you guys going?”
“The Grumbler? The Howler? The Grunter. I think she said the Grunter.”
“The Growler,” I offer. It’s an event space up in the hills with several bars, live music, pool tables. Trouble will find you there if you’re looking for it, or you can just have a really good time. “That’s awesome. You’ll have fun. D’you know who’s playing tonight?”
“I didn’t even know they had live music.”
Noah takes my hand. “Maybe we should go?” He squeezes it spasmodically as if he’s trying to pass along a message in Morse.
“Babe, I don’t think that’s what Lane wants.”
“What? Like a double date.” He stands. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Jake stretches a smile and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Sure,” he says.
“Sure what?” Lane asks, materializing at his side. She touched up her makeup and is holding the cutest sparkling clutch that matches a bedazzled jacket.
I stand next to Noah and tug on his hand, leaning my body against his, feeling his tension.
“Babe, next time. It’s their first time going out together.
” I can feel him relax against me, and it brings me a tiny little bit of joy.
Then I pull out my phone and snap Jake’s picture before anyone has a chance of knowing what’s happening.
“You can never be too safe,” I say with a wink for Lane.
She pulls on Jake’s hand and rolls her eyes at me.
“You kids have fun,” Noah says, and I stifle my laughter.
As the door starts closing on them, he adds, “Don’t—” at a high volume, but he doesn’t have time to finish.
Whatever he was going to say? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
Don’t come back past midnight. Don’t sleep with—scratch that, I sure hope he wouldn’t go there.
Point is, anything he was going to say starting with Don’t is a bad idea.
So before I can think about it, I implement my terrible idea, which is to shut him up with my hand on his mouth right as the door closes, leaving us both alone and way too close.
Time seems to stop as his lips touch the palm of my hand and his glasses slightly fog. I drop my hand as if nothing happened, eyes widening on him. But it’s too late. Heat spreads from my fingertips to my whole body, and I have to step back to keep myself in check.
“I got his picture,” I croak to shift his attention from my inappropriate touching.
“I saw that,” he answers in a perfectly normal voice. As if he hadn’t felt it too. As if the tension in his body, the light flickering in his eyes, his briefly erratic breathing, weren’t a tell of anything. “You’re actually worse than me.”
“I can be sneaky,” I admit, “but only for a good cause.”
“I think we’ve established that already,” he answers, his gaze dropping to my mouth.