Chapter 44 Aspen #2
“Are you looking for Noel?” she asked before sniffing and wiping at her cheek. “I think...I think he’s in the living room, either sleeping on the floor or the couch. I’m not sure which.”
She seemed friendly. I couldn’t believe this girl—whom I didn’t know but hated more than everyone else on earth—would dare be friendly to me, as if she wasn’t crushing my soul into a thousand pieces. It took me a good five seconds to actually process what she’d just said.
Noel was sleeping in the living room. Not in here. Not with her.
The confusion must’ve painted my expression pretty obvious because she said, “You’re Aspen, right? I’ve heard about you. I’m Noel’s sister.”
“Caroline?” I breathed. Oh, Jesus. Oh, thank you, God. “I...oh! Well, I’ve heard about you, too.”
The relief left me dizzy and I had to reach for the doorframe and hold on to catch myself.
And once again, my own overwhelming emotions kept me clueless from a few oblivious details for far too many seconds, otherwise it might not have taken me so long to realize Noel’s sister was crying.
..and here. Why was she here, and where were the two brothers?
“Are you okay?” I asked, stepping forward, concern for her overriding everything else.
“Yeah.” She nodded and hugged herself, dropping the sheet to reveal she was wearing one of Noel’s Ellamore Viking shirts. “I...I...no. No, I’m not okay. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”
When she buried her face into her hands and dropped all pretenses of not bawling her eyes out, my heart broke for her.
I crawled onto the mattress and pulled her into my embrace.
As natural as breathing, she rested her head on my shoulder and accepted my solace.
The smell of Noel on the sheets comforted me as I comforted his sister.
“Is it the baby?” I finally asked, smoothing her hair out of her face.
Her body shuddered as she cuddled closer to me. “There is no baby.” The hollow echo in her voice told me that was exactly what the problem was. Instead of asking what had happened, I said, “How’d you get here?”
“Noel came and got me.”
I nodded and continued to comb my fingers through her hair. I have no idea where this nurturing side of me came from, but this girl was a part of Noel, and she was hurting. I had to fix her. “Where are your younger brothers?”
“They’re sleeping in Oren’s room.” Finally, she lifted her face and blinked at me. “Does anything hurt worse than getting your heart broken?”
“I...” The diplomatic answer caught in my throat and wouldn’t come. So I went with honesty. “No, not in my experience.”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but footsteps in the hall jerked both our attentions to the doorway.
“Caroline?” Noel’s hushed voice woke every fiber of life inside me, making my muscles tense with anticipation. “Are you okay? I heard voices—” He entered the room and took a full step before seeing me. Jerking to a stop, he stared. And stared some more before rasping, “Aspen?”
I didn’t know what to say. I suddenly felt lame and insecure. When the word, “Hi,” fell from my lips in a tiny, uncertain voice, I internally winced.
“Hi,” he breathed, glancing back and forth between Caroline and me. His voice was flat when he added, “You’re back.”
I nodded, worried it had been a mistake to come here like this. “I...I came to talk to you, but...” I motioned to Caroline. “I met your sister instead.”
He turned his attention to his sister, and she scurried off the bed. “I’ll just...” She hooked her thumb toward the door. “I’ll let you two talk.”
“No.” Noel held up a hand. “You stay. We can go. You need your rest.” Tipping his face to the side, he finally seemed to notice her wet eyes. “You okay?”
She nodded and tried to wipe the evidence off her face. “Yeah. Better. With a little help from Aspen.”
When she glanced at me, I sent her a supportive smile. She started back toward the bed, so I took that as my cue to climb off it. But as we traded places, she gave me one last impulsive hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered into my ear.
I nodded, gave her a farewell smile, and turned toward Noel.
He stared at me, his eyes swirling with emotion but his expression hard.
Then he spun away and stalked from the room.
I followed him, down the hall and to the front door.
He didn’t slow down or hold out his hand for me, and that hurt.
But I really couldn’t expect less, could I?
Once we were outside the apartment, the dim lights from the exterior halls showed how stiff and uncompromising his shoulders were.
He kept walking, so I kept following down the stairwell. Hurrying to keep up, I finally called, “You didn’t tell me Caroline had lost her baby in any of your messages.”
Jerking to a stop, he whirled around. We’d just reached the landing between floors, where the stairs turned. He grasped my arm and urged me toward the wall until cool brick met my spine.
Stepping in close enough for me to feel his heat and smell mint on his breath, he growled, “Well, you didn’t tell me you were leaving town.
You didn’t tell me Marci Bennett had blackmailed you.
And you sure as hell didn’t tell me you’d lost your fucking job.
..because of me. Christ, Aspen.” He cupped my face and pressed his forehead to mine. “You didn’t tell me shit.”
He was so mad he shook with it. I felt every tremor move through him so acutely I might as well have been shaking too.
“Damn it,” he muttered when I didn’t respond. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I closed my eyes. “Because I didn’t want you to do anything stupid.”
He snorted. “Too late.”
“Oh, God. Noel.” Shoving against him, I gasped. “I lied for you. I refused to tell them who you were, to protect you. Why would you...wait. What exactly did you do?”
Looming above me, he fisted his hand on his hips and scowled right back. “I told them it was me in that picture. What do you think I did?”
“No.” Denying it, I shook my head adamantly. Fear raced along my skin, prickling my scalp. But if Noel had gotten hurt from this, after everything I’d sacrificed to keep him safe, I...I didn’t know what I’d do. I’d probably lose all faith in the world. “Did they...did they kick you out?”
Shame entered his eyes. Bowing his head slightly, he glanced away and ran his hand over his hair. “No,” he admitted in a low voice.
Air hissed from my teeth. “Oh, thank God.”
“They wouldn’t let me leave,” he added on a frustrated sneer.
“Wouldn’t let you? What did you—please don’t tell me you tried. God, Noel. You need this scholarship.”
He stepped toward me. “You know what? I’m tired of everyone telling me what I need lately.
” Setting his fists against the wall at either side of my head, he leaned in until our faces were inches apart.
“What I need is you. No one gets me like you do. No one loves me like you do. You are everything. And when you went down because of me, a part of me died. I feel fucking broken because I couldn’t leave that damn place with you.
I tried. I tried so hard to get them to bring you back.
And when I threatened to leave, they threatened too.
And now, if I go, they’ll make this whole thing public and drag your name through the mud.
You’d never get to teach again, anywhere.
So, here I am, stuck, unable to do a single fucking thing, while you take all the heat for—”
“Shh.” I touched his face and stroked his cheek, offering him a wet smile. “It’s okay.”
“No.” He gritted his teeth, snarling at me, and he mashed his forehead more firmly to mine.
“It’s not fucking okay. What they did to you was not okay.
They made what we had lurid, and dirty, and wrong.
And it wasn’t. It just...wasn’t. I swear to God, you’re the only thing that’s ever been right in my life. ”
I leaned up onto my toes and smashed my mouth to his. He kissed me back savagely, grabbing my hair hard, and bruising my lips with his. I think he was trying to punish me, but it felt too good to be any kind of punishment. I ground back just as fiercely, needing to feel him and taste him and—
He ripped his mouth from mine and wrenched himself away, squeezing his lips together as if they’d betrayed him. Glaring, he said, “Don’t ever do that again. If we were caught, we were supposed to go down together.”
I shook my head. “I don’t recall ever making that deal.”
“Damn it.” He came in close again, sinking his hands into my hair and cupping my head in his palms. “I could do nothing, Aspen. Do you even understand what that did to me? My hands are still tied, and I can’t do anything for you, while you can just blithely sacrifice your entire life for me?
That’s not right. It’s not fair. Why didn’t you tell me what was going to happen? Some kind of warning—”
“I wanted to do this for you, Noel.” Laying my palm on his cheek, I let out a content sigh. It didn’t matter what kind of turmoil was going on around us, right here in his arms, I felt home.
“But why didn’t you tell me? And then after, why’d you leave without a word? Why didn’t you answer even one fucking text?”
“Contact with you after this might’ve alerted the university that it was your arm in the picture.
I didn’t want that. Plus I thought we could use a little time apart, to clear our heads and look at everything from a fresh perspective.
” When his eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth, I rushed to add, “And I was a coward. If I’d gotten in touch with you, I knew I would’ve been tempted to come back. ”
“But you did come back.”
My smile was tremulous. “I guess your power of temptation was stronger than I thought. I just can’t stay away.”
A sob ripped from his throat. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled us flush together. This kiss was softer but just as greedy. “Is this it, then?” he asked, nipping at my jaw. “There’s nothing keeping us apart, so we can finally be together? Openly and permanently?”
I bit my lip, and he felt my hesitation. Lifting his head, he gazed at me. “Shit,” he whispered. “I really don’t like that look in your eyes.”
“I was offered a job,” I told him, “to teach at my university back home. Eight hundred miles away.”
The breath rushed from his lungs as he stared. Then he dropped his hands from my face and slowly backed away. “So, you’re leaving. And I can’t follow. Jesus Christ.” Gripping his head, he spun away from me. “How many times do you plan on breaking my heart?”
“No more, I hope.” Hugging my waist, I took a deep breath and took the biggest leap of my life. “Because I turned the job down.”
He whirled back, his gaze zipping to me. “You what?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What? Are you crazy?” He came back, gripping my arms. “You can’t turn this down, Aspen. What if you can’t find a teaching job nearby?”
I shrugged. “Then I won’t teach. I’ll do something else.”
“But you love to teach.”
This time, I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
With a growl, he pressed even closer. “Do I have to throttle you, woman? You are not sacrificing anything else for me.”
I just smiled. “Well, I’m not leaving you either. I may love to teach, but I love you more. Noel Gamble, my home is wherever you are, so I’m staying here.”
He whimpered, and his hands on me began to tremble. “You should go.” His voice was strained, but he kept urging, “I know you want the job, I can tell. You should take it.”
“I do want it,” I admitted. “But I don’t care. Like I said, I want you more.”
Shaking his head, he just kept staring at me. “You say that now. But...in a few years, when you’re trapped here because of me, you’ll resent me and everything I kept you from. I need you to follow your dreams, Aspen.”
“I am following my dream, Noel. Trust me. All I’ve ever wanted is to be loved.”
“God help me.” He shuddered and I watched some of his resistance crack. “I do love you. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, but—”
“But that’s all I need,” I reassured him.
Touching his face lightly, I repeated, “Believe me, I can get a job anywhere. It doesn’t have to be at the university or even community college level.
I just like trying to fill people with the same appreciation of literature that I have.
I will find work wherever I am. But I won’t find another you. I don’t want to leave you.”
He folded. His shoulders fell and his body slumped into mine as his lips caught my temple. “I don’t want you to leave either.”
“Then it’s settled. We’re all staying.”
Noel kissed me again. “I love you. I love you so much. I don’t know how I could ever prove to you how much I love you.”
He’d already proven it. No one had ever loved me the way he did.
With every word and gesture, he showed me his feelings, and I relished each and every moment with him.
He’d taught me what it was to love and be loved.
He’d unleashed my inner child and helped me live in the moment.
But he’d also given me a future to look forward to.
It might be uncertain, but I couldn’t wait to start it. With him.
I knew he’d tell me about what had happened with his siblings while I was away, just as I’d tell him about my parents. We had a lot to discuss, but I had a feeling we’d have plenty of time to talk about all that.
Later.
For now, I was too excited to know we’d actually have a later. So, I kissed him back and relished the present.