Chapter 4 #2
“Babe! You scared me,” Morgan said breathlessly. “And your stubble itches. You gotta shave.”
“I know, I know.” Charlie rubbed his chin, then turned to Avery to offer her a fist bump, which she accepted. “What’s up, Avery?”
Avery and Charlie were close the way you were close with your best friend’s boyfriend, in that the friendship went deeper than surface level small talk but rarely developed further outside of a group setting. Plus he hadn’t turned his back on Avery senior year. Probably because of Morgan.
“Not much,” Avery said, smiling. “Congrats again on the engagement! Super exciting. And great job on the ring.”
Charlie beamed. Avery knew how much he adored Morgan, purely and uncomplicatedly.
He probably loved her slightly more than she loved him, but in the way those old wives’ tales say it’s supposed to be, in that women always give more in a relationship and need to be with men who appreciate it.
If given the choice, Morgan would quit her job tomorrow to stay home and take care of Charlie, dedicating her whole life to nurturing their future family. Not all men were deserving of that.
“Thanks, yeah, I’m really happy,” he said. Then he moved to the side, revealing a man drenched in shadow, the warm glow from the round lamps perched above the tables just out of reach of his face. “Avery, you remember Noah, right?”
Avery stiffened. Noah?
Her heart stopped when he came into the light.
It was, unmistakably, him. The man who’d led her upstairs to Ronald’s bedroom. The reason her relationship with Ryan came to a screeching halt.
The reason everything in her life had changed.
Noah sat down in the only available spot in the booth, which happened to be right next to Avery.
She froze as he reached over her to grab the bottle of wine, then watched as he poured himself a glass.
Glug, glug, glug. She listened to the wine splash around.
Yes, her ears were working. That was wine being poured, liquid sloshing into the bowl toward the rim.
But her eyes had to be tricking her.
“Nice to see you again, Noah,” Morgan said with a smile.
Avery blinked a few times. Was she dreaming? Maybe she was still at home in bed and sleeping off her hangover. She had to be. After all, she’d never been capable of both showering and arriving somewhere early. Nothing about this current reality made sense.
Noah returned Morgan’s smile with a grin of his own. “You too, Morgan.”
Avery’s breath caught at the sound of his voice. A few hours ago, she wasn’t so sure that she’d be drinking tonight, but now she reached for the bottle of wine and poured herself a glass, filling it to the top. Because this wasn’t a dream. He was here.
Noah was Charlie’s best man.
“And this is Avery,” Charlie said as he draped his arm behind Morgan. “Morgan’s maid of honor. She went to school with us. Not sure if you guys hung out a ton.”
Noah gave Avery an almost imperceptible head nod. “Yeah, I think we met at a party once. What’s up?”
Avery narrowed her eyes. That was all the recognition she’d get from him? That they’d met ? Fine, she could play that game.
“Hey, yeah. Great to see you again,” she said, clasping her glass with trembling fingers.
Noah took a sip of his wine, and a drop of purple pooled on the corner of his lip. Avery’s stomach lurched as she watched him lick it away.
The waitress brought over the steak tartare and kale and artichoke dip that Morgan had ordered for the table, but neither of them were appetizing to Avery right now.
All she wanted was a long, comforting sleeve of Oreos and infinitely more bottles of wine all to herself.
She brought her glass to her lips, wondering how Noah and Charlie became this close.
Avery had seen Noah before Viraj’s party senior year, at one of Ryan and Charlie’s lacrosse games.
At that point Noah and Charlie were only teammates and acquaintances at best, and nowhere near best friends.
“I’m so glad you could be part of this, Noah,” Morgan said, helping herself to a piece of steak tartare. “You’ve been such a good friend to Charlie since the divorce.”
Noah unrolled his silverware. “I get it. Having divorced parents is tough. I handled mine all right, but my little brother was really upset.”
Avery took a swig of her drink. So Noah helped Charlie through his parents’ divorce, and that was why they were close now.
Avery supposed Charlie did take that divorce hard.
Morgan had gone with him to Massachusetts so they could move his mom out and get her settled in a new place, and he was distraught the whole weekend.
But had Noah really helped Charlie this much, to the point where Charlie made him the best man in his wedding?
Avery thought men bonded by playing Fortnite and grunting at each other during football games, not by talking about their fucking feelings.
“I remember your brother visited you a lot senior year,” Charlie recalled. He sounded very sympathetic, more than Noah deserved. “You missed so many pregame pasta dinners to hang with him.”
Noah nodded, making Avery hold her breath.
With every flick of Noah’s head, his cologne diffused into the air and tightened its grip around her throat.
She knew that scent. It was one of her clearest memories of that night senior year, which otherwise mostly came to her in blurred, intoxicated flashes.
She remembered the sour and spicy musk wafting off of him as they talked and laughed in the basement.
She remembered smelling it in his wake as she followed him up the stairs for fresh air, then later when it hit her in the face as he decimated her from behind.
His scent had engulfed her, locked them together in a cage from which she could not escape, despite her desperate attempts and drunken no s.
She buried her nose into her wine glass, its sweet fumes like a tonic.
“I know, dude,” Noah said. He bit into a piece of bread and chewed with his mouth open, munching violently, like a serial killer. “That sucked. But I wanted to comfort him whenever I could, you know?”
Avery was still inhaling her wine when Morgan glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.
This was not Avery’s best behavior. She was being too quiet, acting too strange, which was probably confusing to Morgan because Morgan had no idea who Noah was to Avery, the horrifying things he’d done to her.
Nobody knew. And Avery planned on keeping it that way.
Avery lifted her head but kept her wine glass underneath her nose for comfort. “That’s so nice of you,” she said to Noah, her voice as sturdy as a tree. “So, what do you do for work?”
Noah took a sip of his wine and looked at Avery over the rim of the glass, his green eyes flashing. Those eyes. Another detail from that night she would never forget. Her palms went slick with sweat.
“I actually founded a start-up,” he said. “Meow Monthly. Ever hear of it?”
“I haven’t.” Avery rubbed her palms on her jeans. His eyes were sickeningly green, like puke. “What is it?”
Noah set his glass down pointedly, as though he was preparing to give a speech.
“It’s a monthly subscription box for pet owners, specifically cats.
Every month, we send a package of treats, litter, toys, and other stuff to take care of your cat, so that you can just focus on your bond.
We’re about to expand to dogs and other pets, but I’ve always been a cat guy. Had to start with them.”
He grinned to himself like he’d nailed his pitch. What a loser. And cats? Really? Cats were creepy and mean. Which, actually, made complete sense for Noah.
“I was so impressed when Charlie told me about this!” Morgan said, annoyingly charmed. “It sounds like a cool company.”
“Thanks! I’m very proud of it. I started working on it our junior year. I got the idea during my Intro to Entrepreneurship class and just kept at it. We got a nice round of funding recently. And I’d love to get on Shark Tank at some point.”
“I’m sure you will, bro,” Charlie said. “You went to the esteemed Randall School of Management.” He mocked what was surely proudly printed on Woodford College brochures for prospective students.
Woodford’s lacrosse team was D2, but their undergraduate business school was ranked #2 in the country.
“If anyone knows anything about business, it’s you. ”
“We’ll see,” Noah said bashfully. But there was a current of self-importance under the surface, like he was relishing Charlie’s compliment because he knew it was right. Because he couldn’t imagine a situation where he didn’t win.
He flashed his eyes at Avery again. She really should’ve gouged them out of his face that night.
“Your company sounds cool,” she murmured, trying to sound normal as bile rose in her throat.
The image of his eyes, the last thing she saw before he flipped her over on her stomach and pinned her wrists behind her back so hard he left bruises, refused to leave her head.
“I mean, not for me. I don’t like animals.
” Avery never usually admitted that—she could feel people judging her for it, thinking she was even more of a bitch than she already was—but her visions were grabbing hold of her attention and refusing to let go.
“No?” Noah asked.
“Avery isn’t an animal person,” Charlie explained.
“Yeah, I keep sending her dog memes to change her mind, but it’s not working,” Morgan added. “I really want a golden retriever one day. They’re so cute.”
Avery willed herself to focus. “I got bit by a German shepherd when I was younger, and now all dogs freak me out. So, whatever.”
“And now she’s the kind of coldhearted asshole who didn’t shed a single tear during Marley and Me .” Morgan grinned lovingly at Avery. “But she’s my coldhearted asshole, so it’s okay.”