30. Noah
NOAH
It was dark when we pulled into the gas station.
Macey pointed out that the distinct lack of people and absence of light made the scene look like a scary movie.
I reminded her that it was midnight, and Sunday was crossing into Monday.
Of course there weren’t going to be people getting gas at a random station outside of Chicago.
Normally, at this point in the night, we’d be in a hotel somewhere sleeping off the drive or just coming back from a day of exploring. Things were changing now, though.
It reminded me of summers as a kid—how you spent three months straight eating hotdogs and playing games with kids in the neighborhood, only for it to disappear in the span of a weekend. Suddenly, you woke up on Monday and were forced to return to school.
I hadn’t felt that way in a long time, yet here I was, on the cusp of returning to classes, homework, and exams.
We’d dropped Daphne off in St. Louis earlier today. She and Macey had teared up when we said our goodbyes, and Daphne made it very clear that if Macey and I ever broke up, she was on Macey’s side. Fair enough. Fortunately, I never intended for anything to get in between Macey and me again.
After three months on the road, Daphne was ready to see her schoolmates and get back into class.
I didn’t know I felt ready to do something similar until today.
It had nothing to do with being prepared—I brought a handful of textbooks and all my old school notes with me to read this summer—but it was more about my mental state.
I wasn’t sure if I could ever be ready for change, but this was as close as I got.
And it felt pretty good.
I stepped out of the car, and Macey followed.
“How much longer until Chicago?” she asked as I inserted my card at the pump.
I typed in my zip code. “About an hour. Maybe less, if you’re behind the wheel.”
She rolled her eyes. The speed at which she drove terrified me, but Daphne found it exhilarating. I loved Macey, but I felt much safer when I stayed behind the wheel. It was inevitable, though, that we needed to trade spots when I was tired.
“Are you excited to be home?” she asked.
“I’m always excited to be with you.” I monitored the pump as gas filled the car. “I don’t care if it’s Aruba, Kansas City, or Chicago.”
“Good way to avoid the question,” she teased. “You don’t miss home, then?”
“No, I do. The change makes me a little nervous, that’s all.”
Macey stepped closer and rubbed a hand over my bicep. “Yeah. Change is scary. But you’ve got me.”
“I do,” I said, running my lips over her hairline.
While Macey’s blog thrived this summer—I couldn’t keep track of her subscriber count anymore—I hadn’t opened social media once.
I didn’t want to see what people said about me, if they said anything at all.
It would be difficult to stay off social media when my girlfriend was a rising travel blogger, but I felt comfortable returning on a part-time basis.
She brought her free hand to my cheek and tugged me down. No effort was needed because I moved eagerly, capturing those sweet lips with mine.
When she started to pull away, I reached forward again. “There’s no one here.”
“I’m not having sex with you at a gas station.” She laughed against my lips.
Sex had been hard to find time for when you were constantly with your sister.
“Of course not,” I said, planting a string of kisses down her throat. “A gas station doesn’t have everything my plans need.”
A small sigh, and then, “Plans?”
“Lots of them.”
I slid my hands up the lithe curve of her waist, where the base of her ribs flared with every breath.
“Tell me about them,” she demanded.
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by how far we’d come. This brilliant, beautiful woman was all mine, and we’d never have to fake anything again.
“I can share a preview,” was my generous offer.
It was delicious to kiss like this, slowly, lazily, able to enjoy every anticipatory moment. I found myself leaning down, pressing her back against the SUV I had to return tomorrow. When our lips came into play once more, her hands strayed down from my neck to my chest and abdomen.
“I love you,” she whispered, and I held onto the words like they were my salvation.
“I love you,” I said.
We continued kissing like that, on the cusp of something new. Just when I was about to pull away and suggest we finish the drive home, I heard a car door slam.
“Macey?” a deep voice asked.
My girlfriend stepped off the car and out of my arms.
Huh. I didn’t like that.
She squinted her eyes as she stared at the man who had pulled into the pump next to us. “Landon?”
That name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Old friend? Ex-boyfriend?
When the man in question, Landon, got closer to us, the light above us illuminated his features. Tall dude, about my height, around our age too. He had short dark hair that I couldn’t find a word to describe other than curly , and based on the muscles on him, he lifted a lot of heavy weights.
“It’s so great to see you again!” He pulled Macey into a tight hug as she gave her nervous laugh.
That laugh was worse than the ones she had around Jennifer in Aruba. This was DEFCON 1. Who the fuck was this guy?
Macey stepped back after the hug, an all-teeth smile frozen on her face. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to launch her back to the present with a squeeze of a hand on her shoulder.
“Landon,” she gritted through her teeth, “this is my boyfriend, Noah.”
The male pride in me roared. Take that, stupid lifter.
But Landon was unbothered, offering me a hand to shake. “Nice to meet you, man.”
Okay, ex-boyfriend was out of the realm of possibilities.
“So,” Macey stuttered, her usual confidence momentarily faltering. “What are you doing here?”
Landon blinked, his brown-as-soil eyes squinting in confusion. “Getting gas?”
Idiot .
Macey let out that nervous laugh again, high-pitched and rickety. “Obviously. But I thought you lived in some other state.”
“Oh!” Landon adjusted, and I took a moment to glance at his car. It was an SUV, like my rental, filled with boxes. “I did for a bit, yeah. I’m moving back to Chicago, though.”
“What?” Macey shrieked, her voice rising higher than intended before she caught herself and calmed down. “I mean, uh, why are you moving back to Chicago?”
“It was time,” he said, deflecting.
The words hung in the air between them for a second, begging for the addition of this is why…
It never came.
“Oh, right,” she said. “Funny how there are so many cities in the world, and yet you’re moving to Chicago.”
I didn’t need to be good at reading people to pick up on the annoyance in Macey’s tone and stance. Almost defensive. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why she felt the need to be like that.
Landon tensed, his laid-back vibe replaced by something more guarded. “Life is funny sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” Macey repeated dryly.
Okay. This was getting out of hand.
I decided to step in before things got worse. “It was great to meet you,” I said, my voice cutting through the moment. “But Macey and I are about to head out.”
Landon’s eyes, previously focused on the sour expression on Macey’s face, darted over to me, surprised. If it weren’t for Macey’s reaction, I might’ve thought he was a perfectly average, easygoing guy. Clearly, there was more to this than I had expected.
“No problem,” he said, forcing a smile. “It was nice to meet you.” His gaze shifted back to Macey. “Maybe I’ll see you back home. ”
Home?
Once he turned his back, Macey whispered, “We’ll see about that.”
As if the string of events couldn’t get any weirder, Macey nudged me out of the way to get to the driver’s seat. She signaled for me to go round to the passenger seat.
“I cannot believe this.” Macey seethed as she adjusted the seat to fit her shorter legs.
“Me neither,” I said. “Mostly because I don’t know what I’m supposed to not be believing.”
She took a deep breath and checked the mirrors before pulling out.
“Landon is a jerk,” she said, like that explained everything.
The hair on my arm pricked. Maybe I had misunderstood the situation earlier. “Did he do something to you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not to me.”
I glanced at the speedometer. “Holy shit, slow down.”
“Can’t.” She glanced at me apologetically. “We have to beat Landon to Chicago.”
The seriousness in her tone caught me off guard. I had a feeling that whatever came next was something we all couldn’t come back from. “Why?”
“Because I need to warn Kira that the man who broke her heart is on his way home.”
Kira and Landon’s story unravels in One Infinity Together, publishing in January 2026.