Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Noah
I open the door, and we both stand in the doorway staring at the small bed in the middle of the room. A floral comforter and two decorative cushions sit on top of the bed.
“We can find another motel,” I suggest.
“No, it’s fine.” She walks inside, while I bring the bags.
I tried to get two connecting rooms or at least a room with two beds, but all they had was one queen room.
“I’ll sleep on the floor, and you take the bed,” I offer.
“Noah, don’t be silly. We can share the bed.”
I clear my throat, “I, ugh, don’t want to make things uncomfortable for you. I don’t mind the floor. I’ve slept in worse places.’ I laugh uneasily, but when I watch her face fall with disappointment, I wish I could take my words back.
“I’m sorry, of course. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable either,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut, regret etched all over her face.
Fuck.
“No, shit, Tor. I’ll sleep with you, I mean, in the bed, on the bed.
Fuck.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath.
“Let me start that again.” I take a step towards her, and her eyes trail up my body, and I like the way it feels to have her eyes only on me.
There are a lot of things I’d like to admit to wanting to do in this room, on this bed, and none of them are appropriate or right, so I push them all down.
I already slipped up today, calling her darlin’.
“I am happy to share a bed with you, if you’re comfortable with it.”
I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, and truthfully, I don’t know how I’ll cope with sharing a bed with her. The night I stayed with her in the hospital and the night by Scotty’s grave don’t feel like they count, but this, this is different.
“I don’t mind at all,” she confirms, and I let out a sigh of relief.
“Good, okay, I’ll go get us some drinks from the vending machine. Are you hungry? They have a food truck across the parking lot?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m okay. I’ll take a shower and head to bed.”
“Okay,” I say, pressing my lips together, and turning on my heel, needing to escape the room and catch my breath. This weekend might be harder than I thought.
No, I tell myself. I can do this. I can repress any feelings I have. Easy.
The universe really wanted to test my restraint when I stepped back into the motel room to find Tori bent over, applying moisturizer to her bare legs, with only a long t-shirt covering her body.
I let out a quiet groan, which clearly wasn’t quiet at all, if the way Tori whipped her head around and looked like a deer caught in the headlights is anything to go by.
“I’m sorry, there isn’t much room in the bathroom.”
"No, no, you’re all good. I’m sorry I walked in.”
Yeah, good one, Noah.
“I can put some pants on. I assumed we’d have separate rooms, so I only brought a t-shirt to sleep in.”
“Fine with me,” I choke out, knowing how hard it will be to have her lying beside me looking like that, and I’m unable to be with her the way I want to be. “I’m going to take a shower,” I say as I place the water bottles I just bought on the nightstand.
I take a freezing shower to calm my raging hard on as memories of Tori in that t-shirt fill my head.
I have fought the urge to stare at her toned legs in those tiny shorts all day.
She looks good, so fucking good. It’s obvious she’s been taking better care of herself over the past few months.
She has a glow about her again, the same glow she had the first time I saw her working behind the bar on the base, and I fell headfirst, only to land with a painful thud when I realized she was Scotty’s girl.
Suddenly, that little voice creeps in, reminding me of all the reasons why I can’t act on my feelings.
She can’t ever be yours.
She’s your dead best friend’s girlfriend.
She’s your best friend’s sister.
She’s your friend.
I step out of the shower and dry off. The cold water did nothing to fix my issue, so I tug on my jeans and adjust my aching cock and throw on a clean t-shirt and head back out to the room where Tori is in bed, scrolling her phone.
“I tried to close the drapes, but they didn’t move,” she says with an awkward smile.
Fuck, this place really is a dump.
“There’s also a note to say the AC is out, but there’s a fan in the room.” She points to the world’s smallest fan that’s sitting next to an equally small TV on the dresser that’s blowing out less air than I use to blow out a birthday candle.
“Perfect,” I say sarcastically
“Why are you dressed?” she asks, eyeing me curiously. “Are you heading out?”
“Erm, no, I don’t have any pajamas. I usually sleep naked, and I presumed we’d have two rooms.”
Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline as if surprised by my statement, and she lowers her phone. “Oh… right.”
I chew the inside of my cheek the same way she does when she’s nervous, and I feel like some sort of wild animal on exhibition from the way she’s looking at me.
“You could just sleep in your briefs,” she suggests.
“I could. I did think about it, but again, I didn’t want to make things weird.”
“I mean, I’m in mine, it doesn’t have to be weird.” She says with a shrug as if it’s no big deal when the truth of it is, it’s a really big fucking deal. Fuck, I won’t survive this night. I think I’ll spontaneously combust while she sleeps beside me.
“Noah?” She says my name with a hint of what sounds like flirtation in her tone. My body heats, and suddenly it feels like there's not enough air in the room.
“Yeah?” I rasp, feeling like there is grit lodged in my throat.
“Stop stressing. Just be you, okay?”
“Okay.”
I reach for the hem of my shirt, pull it over my head, and toss it on the chair beside the dresser. Her eyes drift away from her phone and focus on my tattooed chest.
Next, I remove my jeans, leaving me in nothing but a pair of black Calvin Klein briefs, and again, her eyes stay lazer-focused on my body, and just like earlier, I like the way it feels to have her full attention.
She bites down on her bottom lip as if in a trance, and I smirk. Just be normal, she said. Yeah, right.
Look who’s eating their words now.
“Tori.” She doesn’t answer, so I say her name again, “Tori.”
“Yeah,” she says louder than needed, and pulls her focus away from my body to my face, and I can’t help but smirk. She smooths a hand down her hair that’s fallen over one shoulder, and I know she knows I’ve caught her staring.
“Do you want me to turn the TV on, give you something else to watch?” I ask in a teasing tone.
“No, no, I’m good.” She clears her throat.
I lift the comforter and slide in beside her. I’m a tall, broad guy, so when I lie down, and Tori reaches to turn off the lamp and settles in beside me, there is only an inch of space between us.
“Are you sure this is okay?" I ask, staring at the ceiling.
“Yes,” she says softly.
I place my hands above the comforter, needing to keep them where they can’t drift, and I hear her yawn in the darkness.
“Night, Tor.”
“Night, Noah.”
The room is cloaked in darkness, with only the light of the streetlight peeking through our half-closed drapes.
I can’t sleep. All I have done for what feels like hours is listen to the fan buzz and repeat all the reasons why Tori will never be mine. She’s had her back to me, and I’ve tried to listen out for her breathing to change to indicate that she’s asleep, but it never came.
She rolls over. “Noah?” she whispers.
“Yes,” I respond with my own whisper.
“Are you awake?”
“No,” I say, trying my best to hold on to a laugh.
She flicks my arm, and the laugh falls from my lips.
“Good. I can’t sleep either.” She shifts onto her back, so we are both staring at the ceiling.
“Why can’t you sleep?” I ask.
“Too much on my mind. And you?”
“Same thing,” I answer.
“Can I ask you something?” I give her a side eye, but her attention is still fixed on the ceiling. “What made you join the Marines?
I let out a breath and clench my jaw, thinking of all the reasons I signed up.
“Lots of different reasons. Jack and I were best friends in high school, and he talked about joining since the day I met him. I guess I wanted to belong somewhere and make a better life for me and my sister.”
Usually, this is where I end my story, but there’s something about this girl that tears down my defenses and makes it feel safe to speak my truth.
“My dad walked out on us when I was about six. Ria was only a toddler, so she doesn’t remember.”
“Oh, Noah, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. He was a bad guy. Used to knock my mom around and cheated on her a lot.
One night, I was in bed, and heard them arguing.
My mom had caught him with another woman again, and she confronted him.
He hit her so bad, one side of her face was unrecognizable.
He left after that and never came back.”
My chest tightens at the memory. I hate thinking about my dad. He doesn’t deserve the title of dad. Tori’s hand links with mine, and I am thankful for her comfort.
“After he left, my mom drank a lot. She was always out, leaving me and Ria alone. She had a different man every week. Most of them assholes who used her for a place to stay, food, money. Not that she had any.”
Tori squeezes my hand, and I continue. “A few of them beat her pretty bad. When I got older, I was able to fight them off. I was always taking her to the ER to get stitches. One night, when I was eighteen, I was looking after Ria, and I got a call to say Mom had been found in a bus stop, passed out, no purse. She didn’t remember what happened. I never told Ria.”
Tori gasps and inches a little closer towards me, but still not touching me. “Noah, I’m sorry. That must have been really tough.”
“I had Jack, he was a great support, but yeah, it was hard.”
She strokes my arm, and I lean into her comfort. No one has ever comforted me the way she does.
“After that, my mom was good. She got a job cleaning houses and stopped going out. I thought she was turning her life around, and it felt safe to leave Ria, so Jack and I enlisted, and I thought life was finally going well. But then I got a call from Ria, when I was close to finishing basic training.”
I shut my eyes, remembering the chill that ran through my body when she called me and uttered the words.
“My mom had a new boyfriend, and when my mom was out, the son of a bitch tried to rape my sister.”
Tori rolls on her side and pulls me to her. I rest my hand on her arm that is draped across my chest, where my heart is beating so hard it feels like it might burst through my chest.
“Ria was only in her mid-teens, so CPS took her. I tried to get custody of her, but the courts ruled in favor of my mom if she agreed to go to parenting classes and AA. I felt so helpless.”
“Noah, it’s not your fault,” Tori reassures.
“I should have been there; I should have never left her in that house with her,” I say on a shaky breath.
Tori cups my face, forcing me to turn my head to face her. “It is not your fault,” she repeats, and I try desperately to believe her words.
“I know, but I can’t help but feel like I failed them both.”
“You didn’t fail them. You’ve spent your whole life trying to save people, Noah, but who saved you?”
Her words sink in, and they feel heavy, and something I’m not ready to process because if I was being honest, I don’t think anyone has ever tried to save me, so I shake them off and bury them.
“I’ve failed a lot of people in my life: my mom, my sister…
Scotty, you.” I swallow the lump in my throat that’s so thick it almost chokes me.
My words tumble from my lips without warning.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Tor. I tried to save him.
If I could swap places with him, so it was him you were lying in this bed with instead of me, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It should have been me—”
Tori startles me by sitting up and leaning over me. “Noah Jones, don’t you ever, ever say that again. Do you hear me?”
I clench my jaw so tight I wait for a tooth to crack.
“What happened to Trent was no one’s fault.
Only the man who shot him is to blame. You didn’t fail anyone, and you deserve to be here.
” I sit up, resting my elbows on my thighs, my head falling to my hands.
This conversation took a turn, but in some twisted way, it felt good to say it.
She makes it feel safe enough to admit it all out loud.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drag up all your trauma, Noah.”
Tori’s beautiful face glows in the moonlight.
“You don’t have to be sorry about a thing, Tor. You make it feel safe enough to be honest. You are the only person I can open up to like this.”
I press my forehead to hers and just let myself breathe her in as she drags her hand up and down my bare back in comforting strokes, making my skin heat under her touch.
“I’m glad you are still here, Noah,” she whispers.
I tilt my head, closing my eyes, brushing my nose with hers, our lips almost meeting and hovering longer than needed, and we stay like that, hearts beating erratically, blood pumping, and that quiet ache of what could be if one of us were just brave enough to cross the line, lingering and growing louder.
In a moment of weakness, I press a soft kiss to her lips, and time stops.
She feels warm and familiar and tastes of everything I have been craving.
I keep it brief and fleeting, too scared to push for more, and then I slowly and reluctantly part from her and wait for the guilt to seep into my bones.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” I confess, not able to pull away and create that distance from her.
“Please don’t be sorry,” she replies. “I think we both needed that just then.” And she was right. I needed that connection for just a second, but holy shit has it left me wanting and needing more.
I lay back against the mattress, taking her with me, my arms wrapped around her, as I press a kiss to her temple. I’ll worry about the repercussions tomorrow, but for now, I’ll hold her for as long as she’ll let me.
“Night, Tor.”
“Night, Noah.”
And then I drift off with her securely in my arms and have the most peaceful sleep I have had in over a year.