39. Noah
“Noah.”
True’s soft arms wrapped around me when her eyes popped open and I was the first thing she saw.
“Morning, Red,” I whispered into her hair.
“Morning, Noah.” She sounded light. And happy. And okay . On top of that, her first instinct had been to hug me. That was a good sign.
She pulled back and her round cheeks were lifted with a smile.
God, I was so in love with this woman.
I cupped the side of her face, prompting her to turn her head and kiss my palm. “I would kiss you, but…morning breath.”
She laughed at her own words. A minute passed and confusion briefly flitted over her features until that sparkle in her eye returned.
“Hmm. I thought I fell asleep in Greyson’s room after writing.”
“You did. We’re in Greyson’s bed.”
True looked over her shoulder at Greyson’s empty spot and looked back at me with a wrinkle in her forehead. “What did I miss?”
“You had a nightmare…or something last night. Greyson came to get me when he couldn’t wake you up.”
More confusion made True’s face fall before she lifted herself up on her elbow and looked around the room. “Sorry. I don’t remember.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Red. Sometimes my sleep is fucked up too.”
She sat up against the headboard, pulling her knees to her chest. “That hasn’t happened since my sister first passed. My mom slept in my bed with me for a month straight when she noticed. But I never remembered the dreams when I woke up.”
I sat up too, meeting her gaze.
“What was I saying? Could you understand me?”
“Uh, yea. I think you were dreaming about your twin. You kept saying her name.”
True grimaced and I wanted to rewind time and go back to the hug we shared when she first woke up, but she was guarding herself. Knees to her chest. Arms folded on top of them. And her chin tucked into her neck. There was no way in.
“Well, thank you for being there.” A somber silence took over the room before True’s tone was bright again. “Wait. What time is it? Where’s Greyson?”
“It’s a little before 8. And Greyson already left.”
“What? Why?” It was impossible to miss the hurt in her voice.
Clearing my throat, I fumbled through my thoughts to try to make an excuse. “He?—”
“We were supposed to have breakfast together. I promised to wake up early so I could see him before he left and we were gonna…”
She stopped herself, shaking her head.
Pain pierced through me at the rejected look on her face. I knew the puzzle pieces were clicking in place in her head and leading her to one conclusion.
Greyson left because of her.
True let out a shaky breath, running her hands through her hair. “I’m gonna go get dressed at the cabin.”
“Wait, I’ll have breakfast with you, True. We can go to The Sleeping Owl. You can order whatever you want. Didn’t you tell me you liked their pancakes?”
True gave me a sad smile and all the warmth I felt earlier left me in a heartbeat.
“It’s okay, Noah. I’ll go to my grandma’s early. I’m gonna go to physical therapy with her today. I’ll just have breakfast at her house.”
Her voice was soft but firm. So I nodded and climbed out of Greyson’s bed behind her.
“Then I’ll drive you there. I think it’s gonna snow later today and you don’t need to be stuck down the mountain in your car if that happens.”
She looked like she wanted to protest, but nodded before disappearing in the bathroom while I made up the bed.
An hour later, I stopped just inside Greyson’s open office door at the resort and looked at the stack of boxes after I pulled the dolly from under them. “What’s all this? Do I need to put something together?” I asked before I ever looked at him.
Duchess was in the corner, playing with a toy she didn’t have yesterday.
Greyson cleared his throat and his footfalls closed in on me. I looked up and my fucking heart tripped at the sight of him.
Greyson was wearing jeans . To work. On a Wednesday.
He looked disheveled, unsettled, vulnerable .
“Hey,” he said, his voice quiet and heavy.
I’d seen Greyson thousands of times in hundreds of settings over the years, but the solemn mood clinging to him had unnamed emotions knotting in my chest.
If his jeans weren’t enough proof, stubble darkened his jaw, telling me he’d left the house in a rush. Greyson shaped up his goatee and shaved his beard every morning. But not today…
My eyes stayed fixed on his face too long. But then I moved my gaze to his mouth and mine ran dry.
What the hell was wrong with me? What had I come in here for again?
I looked at the boxes. And back at him. Then back at the boxes. Looking at the boxes was safer.
“Uh, what are these? Do I need to build something?” I cleared the catch in my throat, waiting for his reply.
“True ordered an office chair and sent it here because her address doesn’t come up on Amazon.”
Oh . Made sense.
“The other stuff is for Duchess. So we can take her home. I got two different litter boxes, a cat tree and a new bed.”
My poor heart was getting a workout because now it was back to stuttering in my chest. Eyes trained on Greyson, I didn’t fight my smile.
“Say that again. Duchess is coming home with us?”
My best friend ran a finger over his brow, rubbing aimlessly.
I stepped closer to him, invading his space so he had no choice but to look at me.
“Say you swear.”
“Noah—”
His warning faltered when his eyes dipped to my mouth and I was suddenly conscious of the way I licked them. He followed the path of my tongue over my lips and then stared in my eyes for longer than he ever had.
Maybe I imagined it, but his head dipped like he wanted to be closer to me, and that alone snapped me out of my stupor.
My excitement over Duchess was quickly snuffed out by the memories of my morning with True.
“Why’d you leave us this morning?”
One minute, I was awake and Greyson was standing at the foot of the bed. The next minute, I was waking up and the house was silent.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you left? What if I wasn’t there? You would’ve left her then too?”
Greyson scoffed like I’d lost my mind. “No. She had you. She didn’t need me. There was no reason to be there.”
If it wasn’t for the hurt in his voice, anger would have had a tighter hold on me. But I shook it away, trying to understand where he was coming from.
“What you mean, she didn’t need you?”
“Exactly what I said. I don’t know how to fucking be there for her. You knew how to comfort her and I just stood there.” He kissed his teeth and walked back to his desk. “I hate that feeling.”
“She was having a night terror. About her sister. She doesn’t even remember it. She didn’t know I was the one holding her. This has nothing to do with her needing you. She was scared and the trick I learned in high school worked.” In the early days of my insomnia diagnosis, weighted blankets had been my lifeline. The weight of them, feeling surrounded by something and secure under the pressure could be mimicked with body weight. That’s all I’d done for True last night and it worked.
Greyson stared up at me with his brows furrowed. “Her sister? That’s the name she was calling?”
“Yea. She passed last year. I thought you knew that.”
“No.” He gave a subtle shake of his head, disbelief clear on his face. “I didn’t know that.”
He looked like he was working through an existential crisis.
Sneaking a glance at Duchess, I smirked at her circling the boxes. She stalked them like she knew the contents were for her.
“I don’t even fucking know her.” Greyson’s tormented voice brought me back to the issue.
He was beating himself up. And as someone who frequented that past time, I wasn’t about to kick him while he was down.
“I love you, Grey.”
He looked at me, his brows raised like he was waiting for the but at the tip of my tongue.
“But you spend a lot of time observing people instead of actually getting to know them. You only know so much about me because I’ve been talking your head off for twenty years.”
He bit back his smile.
“True is new. If you knew everything about her overnight, it wouldn’t make sense. This shit takes time.”
“But you knew…”
“Because I talk a lot and she never tells me to shut up.” I laughed. “And I guess that makes her feel comfortable talking back.”
His mouth was closed but I could almost hear his mind working overtime.
“She ain’t exactly a closed book. She just gotta know you wanna know about her.”
“Yea…okay.”
“She said something about breakfast…?”
He threw his head back in shame. “Fuck. I forgot. I was—I’ll go back now.”
“She’s in town with her grandma now. I just dropped her off.”
More guilt crept onto Greyson’s face.
“At least send a text or something if you dip like that again. Her feelings were hurt and she didn’t say it but I could tell she was embarrassed that I knew.”
He didn’t say anything. He simply stared at a singular point on his computer screen, unblinking.
There was nothing else I needed to say right now. I wasn’t sure he would hear me anyway. So, I went to scoop up the cat, letting her nuzzle my chin before I called over my shoulder. “Aye, can you pick up True and Ms. Ruby from the doctor’s office off Main Street? I’m finna take Duchess home so she’ll be adjusted before it’s time for bed.”
I didn’t give Greyson time to respond before I was out in the hall, Duchess cradled to my chest and a million conflicted emotions running through me.
Had I almost kissed Greyson?
Nah. There was no way.
I was just excited. About the cat. That was it.
“Right, Duchess?”
The cat only purred at me and nestled into my arms.
Yea, that was it.