54. Noah
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
NOAH
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘NOBODY WANTS TO BE LONELY (WITH CHRISTINA AGUILERA)’ BY RICKY MARTIN
“You’re a berk,” Fox grumbles as he wrenches the keeper’s gloves from his wrists. It’s a smart and efficient way to stretch out his hammies, which were beginning to bother him quite a bit. It’s the flipside of being an athlete, your body starts to break down a lot faster and you’re supremely prone to injury.
It was one of the main reasons I got hooked on the pills. I was afraid the injuries would take away my ability to play. My main reason to just be. Now, though, I know better.
Yes, I’d have mourned the loss of being a cricketer. Wearing the Baggy Green and representing my country on the international stage. But, if I had let my family and friends in, I’d have made it through. Eventually. If I had listened to the damn therapist who kept giving me emotional tools to deal with the unexpected trauma and PTSD.
Watching Queenie struggle valiantly, alone, made me realize this. If nothing else. You should not have to deal with your problems alone if you did not have to.
Sharing misery is misery halved.
Go figure.
Ares chuckles roughly, bringing me back from my musings. “Look at him. He doesn’t care, man.”
I give him a mild look. Because I know he wants to rile me up. Ares is just itching for a fight. He has been since he found out Queenie left. I didn’t want to give him any more details till he prodded and pushed them out of me but…
“What do I not care about, man?” I ask politely.
“Queenie came home yesterday!” Fox practically throws the gloves at me. I catch them full on my chest. They slide to the floor, unattended. “And you didn’t tell us.”
“You refused the pies she wanted to get us!” Ares grits out. Fox growls at him. He returns the look belligerently. “What? I can miss her and miss the pies too. It’s not mutually exclusive, is it?”
I shake my head at their juvenile theatrics. “No one is stopping you from talking to her, you know. It is a free country.”
“We can’t do that,” Ares says.
“Why not?”
“Because you thick-headed berk,” Fox emphasizes. “She’d ask us about you, and we can’t tell her anything about you. It’s the Bro Code.”
“What? Bros before hos?” My lips twitch momentarily. Although my heart jumps anxiously at the idea of Queenie caring about me. Asking about me. How she’d looked, with the single tear glistening down her cheek. How she’d apologized to me for everything that happened between us.
I’d wanted to tell her, I’d not take anything back, Queenie. I’d let it all play out exactly like it did because you were there. With me. But I didn’t. I just let her walk away because it is what she needed.
“NO!” Ares throws a ball at me. I catch this one before it hits me. “Fuck, no.”
“We can’t tell her you love her, you’re in love with her, before you do .” Fox throws his hands up in exasperation.
I stop walking. Stop breathing. I eye my brothers, my best mates, warily. “How did you?—?”
“You’re not a mystery wrapped in a puzzle, mate.” Fox rubs a hand over his face. “It was plain as day she was incredibly special to you. But that day, the Fourth of July day, when Ares told me how you defended her from that arse Marty Van Joost, I knew you were in love.”
“I—” My mouth hangs open.
“I knew you were sunk the second Queenie showed up and shoved the ridiculous agreement on your face,” Ares says smugly. “She’s the Girl from the Café.”
“Diner,” I correct him automatically.
He waves a tattooed hand. “Semantics. Point is, why didn’t you tell her yesterday, when she obviously came to make up with you, that you love her forevermore?”
“It’s not that simple. She…her college…” I trail off half-heartedly.
“Those are details. Unimportant.” Fox waves away half my concerns away. “You can make compromises for her till she finishes studying. Then, she’ll be moving to Australia with you. Right?”
It sounds so simple, so easy when he says it. It sounds workable. A happy ever after within my reach.
“Unless she’s right and it was about control? Wanting her on your terms and not as she is?” Ares asks shrewdly.
I shake my head. Tired. Defensive. “I never had a choice about wanting her, you know.”
“Then, what are you waiting for, man?” Fox grumbles. “Stop being a berk and go get the girl.”
What if I’m not enough? I almost ask him. But the answer comes to me anyway. If I am not enough for her, I'll live with it. It won’t be the end of my world. I’ll heal from it. eventually. With the help of the other people for whom I am. With my brothers, my mates.
“I love you two berks,” I say softly.
Ares blinks. Fox wipes off an imaginary tear. “Drama king,” they chorus together.
I open the kit bag and reach for my phone. I have a voicemail from Queenie. I listen to it eagerly. And color floods my face, by the time I’m done.
My head spins from knowing my dad is here. Within touching distance. He came to see me. He left his job and came to see me.
And she loves me. Queenie loves me. She told me first. She truly is the bravest, most kickass woman I have ever known, bar none.
A grin breaks out on my face. The biggest, shit-eating grin.
Fox gets a text on his phone. He frowns. Ares gets a text too. He checks it, with Fox hovering over him.
“Check your texts,” Fox tells me grimly.
“Hey, I?—”
Ares snatches my phone. And does it himself. “Yep, Jace sent him the text first.”
I take my phone back and see the text for myself.
Queenie’s here at Ma’s. So’s this older guy, early fifties. Looks like a professor type. I don’t like his face. She might be in trouble.
“I have to go.” I read through it again, even as I heft my bat. “Queenie needs me.”
“She needs all of us,” Fox says firmly.
Ares throws Fox the bike keys. “We’ll ride triple-seater. We’ll reach there in four minutes.”
I feel a swell of pride and of love, consuming, abiding love at my family. Because that’s who these two boys are. My chosen family. And Queenie’s too. Now that I know she loves me.
Fox is right, everything else is details. I can work it out.
I’m Noah fucking Dumaine.
The thought stays firm and rooted as we race through the quiet night toward Ma’s Pantry on a roaring bike.
Queenie
At long last, I face my nemesis. The voice from my nightmares. The reason I truly believed I didn’t have a future, much less one of my choosing.
“Sit down, Professor.” I indicate a seat. “Have some pie. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Mischa gasp. And look in urgent distress at me.
I give her the tiniest shake of my head. Jace whispers something to Simon at the other end and then starts typing on his phone.
Washington takes his time settling on one of the stools at the bar.
Mischa doesn’t even look at him as she furiously cleans the milkshake machine. Her face conveys all her disdain and displeasure.
I love her more than I ever have in that moment.
I take a moment to look at Calvin. He’s plodding through the pie. But he’s here. Halfway across the world. Hoping to reconnect with his son. I am finally talking, really talking, to my parents who are in Rwanda, helping the Rwandans set up civil hospitals in a former war zone.
We are, all of us, whole people. A little battered, a little broken, but we are whole.
And no one, but no one, will ever make me feel less than that ever again.
I walk over to Professor Washington. Extract a sheaf of papers from my apron I’d stashed there for safekeeping.
“What is this?” He asks, with a smarmy grin. “Another paper for me to grade?”
“It’s actually a signed statement by Dolly Alderton detailing the incident on Halloween. She’s also sent a copy to the admissions office and the dean’s office,” I reply coolly. I tap the second paper. “That’s mine.”
A roar of a bike shatters the night. Someone is courting a speeding ticket .
I tap a third and a fourth. “And those are statements from a few other female students from last year and the year before. They outline the way you coerce and manipulate young woman, students under your charge and care, to perform sexual favors for you in exchange for grades. And if they didn’t agree, like Dolly didn’t, you attack them.”
The bell tinkles, signaling yet another customer. I don’t look away from this man who almost succeeded in destroying my self-belief before it could be fully formed.
“Some of them succumbed to you, then. Like Mira Haysneck. And some of them fought, like Romy Nevilla. Does any of this ring a bell?”
“No one’s going to believe you.” He snatches the papers and starts going through them feverishly. “This is bullshit. Slander!”
“I don’t need anyone to believe me anymore.” I smile at him. Benevolently. “I just want to be free of you, Washington.”
“You bitch—” His face contorts into an ugly mask. And he lunges for me.
I have my fist curled into a punch, ready for him.
But he’s dragged back across the stool and onto the floor by a strong, stalwart, dependable arm. He’s shoved on the floor and held there by a cricket bat to his throat.
“I’d stay there if I were you, mate,” Noah says pleasantly.