Chapter Twenty
For someone who just said a whole lot, I now have nothing to say. I feel the weight of her stare on the side of my face, my confession hanging in the air between us.
“Was that…” she trails off, “Was that for me?”
“Everything I do is for you,” I rasp. “I exist for you.”
“Noah,” she whispers, a hitch to her tone that suggests she’s on the verge of crying.
I turn and reach for her, terrified I’ve just gone and fucked this all up.
Fuck!
I thought she was sleeping! I thought I’d be able to say what I needed to say to get the damn weight off my chest. The words had been choking me, and it wasn’t until I finally spoke them that I realized they’d been trapped inside me damn near my entire life.
The truth is meant to set us free, but I may have just ruined it all.
“How long?” She asks, turning to me so that we face each other in the dark.
“Since we met in high school.” I confess.
“All this time?” She croaks. “You’ve waited all this time to tell me this? Is this why you offered to do this for me?”
“I offered because there isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t give you,” Gently, I slide my hand toward her, seeking out her own.
Our fingers bump, and she allows me to thread our fingers together, the connection easing some of the panic rising up inside my chest, threatening to choke me harder than stifling those words did.
“And yeah,” I whisper, “perhaps there was some selfishness to it. No, not perhaps, I was entirely selfish. I thought if this was the only way I could have you…fuck! It sounds insane.”
“Noah, you do understand there would have been a baby at the end of this?”
Would have been…
“I know,” I swallow thickly, “I just wanted to be close to you.”
“Are you sure this isn’t, you know, the sex talking?”
I chuckle without humor, “It isn’t the sex, though the sex is the best I’ve ever had.”
“Wait, really?” Sidney bolts up, her hand grasping my wrist.
“That’s what has you stumped?” I blink up at her, only able to see her shape and nothing more.
“Well, you’ve slept with a lot of women, Noah.”
“That what you think?” I shake my head, “Yes, there have been women, but not as many as you think there have been.”
“I’ve walked in on you before.”
“Once,” I cringe, “and that was a long time ago. I was trying to get over you! But they just weren’t good enough. They weren’t you, so I stopped trying.”
Silence ticks between us for a beat, so I release a sigh and sit up to join her. The darkness helps; it means I can’t see the rejection on her pretty face when she tells me we’re just friends and nothing more.
“I didn’t know,” she breathes.
“I didn’t want anything to change between us, cricket. I’m in love with you, more than just friends. I love you, but I am terrified of losing you.”
“But everything changes,” she says softly.
“Have I lost you, cricket?” Fear clogs up my throat, a sweat breaking out across the nape of my neck.
“No, Noah,” she answers quickly, “you haven’t lost me.”
“I haven’t?”
She chuckles lightly and I see the silhouette of her head shake, “Not even a little bit, but I wish I’d known sooner.”
“Why?”
“So, we could have done this earlier,” she moves quickly, catching me slightly off guard, but I manage to catch her before we both go tumbling off the bed and her mouth latches, her arms wrapping around my neck. She kisses me intensely, her tongue slipping between my lips as she holds on tight.
“We’ve lost so much time,” she says breathlessly, peppering kisses to my lips and at the corners of my mouth, “I have loved you for just as long.”
“Fuck,” I groan, kissing her again, “Say that again.”
“I love you.”
“Are you sure?” I chuckle, “It’s not just the sex?”
She pushes back and swats my chest, “You’re not funny.”
“You wound me, Sidney,” I capture her hand, desperate to see her but knowing that maybe we need the dark right now. “Are we doing this?”
“You mean for real?” She says.
“For real,” I confirm.
“I’m scared.” She admits, “More scared now than I was when we agreed to just sex.”
“Tell me what you’re scared of.”
“It’s different now. We could do this and not come out of it intact.”
“Do you think anything between us will change?” I ask.
“Well, of course it will,” she moves to slide off my lap, but I don’t let her escape.
“It doesn’t.” I assure her, “We are the same Noah and Sidney we have always been. We just have a label.”
“A label?” She chuckles. “What label is that?”
“Is this where I ask you to be my girlfriend?”
“Oh my god,” she groans loudly, “No, don’t do that.”
“Why not?” I flip us quickly, letting her land on the mattress on her back, the bed bouncing slightly as I hold my weight above her. “Will you, Sidney Summer Adams, be my girlfriend? I’ll even let you hold my hand in public.”
“Noah!” She squeals with a giggle.
“Is that a yes?” I coax, leaning down to press my lips to hers.
“You’re ridiculous!”
I trail my mouth to her throat, my lips hovering over her hammering pulse, “That didn’t answer my question, cricket. It’s really simple. Yes or no.”
“Yes,” she answers me softly.
“Oh, thank fuck,” I kiss her again, “I thought you were gonna say no and then this was going to be really awkward.”
She laughs between kisses, everything in me lightening, the confessions we have spilled here in the dark of my bedroom finally putting us both on a path that maybe we needed to be on together to end up where we are right now.
“Do we still want babies?” She asks when I eventually let her catch her breath. Not sure how I’m meant to stop now she’s technically officially mine.
No more agonizing on long nights when she’s on a date with another man. No more watching other men try to flirt with her, no more watching her give out her number. She is mine.
Mine to love.
To worship.
To please.
I get to do everything I have wanted to do since I was just a kid. Take her on real dates, buy her chocolates and flowers, and kiss her any time I damn well want.
“I’ll give you however many babies you want, cricket,” I promise.
“Even if I said I wanted a whole horde of kids?” She teases.
“They’ll be part of you, and nothing would be better than having mini you’s running around.”
Wow. I’m going to need to rein it back or something before I scare her off.
“How have you held all this in?” Sidney jokes, “You always been this sappy, Calahan?”
I clear my throat and rub at the nape of my neck, feeling my cheeks burn just a little.
When I don’t answer her, she grabs my face and kisses me.
“Hey now, I never said I didn’t like it.”
“We can have the babies, and a white picket fence with a house on a quiet street with a garden and a dog.”
“You’re scared of dogs.”
“Just the little ones,” I shiver dramatically, “little demons.”
I won’t even pretend I’m not scared of those little chihuahuas and terriers. I had one run-in when I was seven and I’ve hated them since. Even have the faded scars on my ankles to prove it.
Sidney laughs, “No little ones, promise.” She says seriously. “We really gonna do this, Noah?”
“We are,” I cradle her face, “All of it.”
“When I created those pages in my scrapbook, it was you I thought about.” She admits it so quietly, but it may as well have been screamed from the highest mountain for the whole world to hear.
I know how much those pages meant, those goals, and it was me she dreamed about this whole time.
“I’ve always known it was you, but I didn’t think you felt the same way. ”
“Well, now you do,” I settle into the bed beside her and drag her toward me, her back to my chest, and breathe her in. “And we get to make up for all that lost time.”
“Have we lost time, though?” She asks.
I suppose the answer to that is yes and no.
We already have the foundation, the sturdy backbone of our relationship, built over years of trust and love.
The years have passed us with no strings, no expectations, and built us to be the way we are today.
Do I wish we could have started sooner? I think I always will wish that, but then I’m not sure we would be who we are today.
I kiss her temple in answer and curl her in tighter to me, “Goodnight cricket.”