“It won’t be the worst one I’ve had. I’ve done some truly terrible things for money.”
“Like?”
“Like get up at seven in the morning,” I said. He broke into his infectious laughter and, figuring I couldn’t ask for a better exit than that, I headed off toward my van. To distract myself, I ran through a mental list of what I still needed to do.
When I got home I had to pack a bag, avoid Shelby for the rest of the evening—because if she pushed me at all about what had happened tonight, I feared I might break and tell her everything—make arrangements to get a ride back up here tomorrow, where I would take care of Sunshine and two of my other clients, and then . . .
Then I was going to come over to Noah Douglas’s house and I was going to kiss him. A shudder of dread and excitement passed through me.
Everything would be just fine. Probably.
When I got home, it all proceeded according to plan. Shelby was out with Allan, so I was able to pack up in peace. By the time I got up the next morning, she was already gone for the day, so I left her a note reminding her about my new gig and to call me if she needed anything. This also allowed me far too much time to think about what was going to happen with Noah later.
I took an Uber up to Gladys’s house, and as Noah had predicted, it was ridiculously expensive. I was glad I had some extra money to help cover the expense.
Sunshine was excited to see me, and I wondered for a minute if Noah was up at his house or if he’d already left for the day. I got Sunshine fed and watered and took him out for a walk to retrieve my van. I decided to take him with me for the two grooming appointments I had scheduled for the day. I texted Gladys to ask if she was okay with me bringing him along, and she texted back a single word.
And that was it. So I was taking it as a yes.
After my first session, I stopped to grab something to eat and ended up sharing half of my hamburger with a very sad-eyed and beggy Sunshine. While I was considering running back inside to order a second one, my phone buzzed.
If it was Gladys telling me she’d meant, “Fine, keep my dog at home, I don’t want him driving around with you,” she was out of luck. And I was going to have to lie.
But it was a text from Noah. From his actual phone number and not a restricted one.
I smiled.
Why did that make my heart flutter?
I sent him a smiling emoji and then added him to my contacts. That little interaction made my soul lift and feel like nothing bad could happen to me. My next dog was a Great Dane, and I didn’t even care about all the splashing that soaked my entire outfit and the floor. It was fine. I felt happy and hopeful for the first time in a long time, and I was going to get to see Noah again.
Although I wondered how I could both wish for and dread something at the same time.
Sunshine and I went out for dinner, and as the hours passed, that mixture of anticipation and fear became a potent cocktail that almost made me cancel no less than half a dozen times.
But every time I got my phone out, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even if I told myself I didn’t want to see him again, I did.
I made some brownies, thinking that it would be a nice gesture to bring them over, since he’d fed me last night. But then they smelled so good, and while I knew chocolate was not going to mitigate what was about to happen, I figured it would put me in a better headspace to emotionally deal with everything.
And then I accidentally ate seven pieces.
So when seven thirty rolled around, I felt a little sick to my stomach, which I attributed to gorging myself on brownies. But I went into the guest bedroom and got dressed. I threw my hair up into a ponytail and put on jeans and a T-shirt. Dressing up for it felt like it would make it too much of a big deal. I was just going over to my new friend’s house to hang out.
And possibly smooch him.
I brushed and flossed my teeth really well. Really, really well. Like, I almost made my gums bleed. I also put some mints in my pocket, just in case.
I tried to psych myself up and hang on to that sliver of hope that this was going to work. I would conquer my fear of kissing and, as a side bonus, have a fantastic story to tell at parties someday. Even though no one was going to believe me.
I said goodbye to Sunshine and walked the short distance up to Noah’s house. When I got to his door, before I could even knock or ring the doorbell, Magnus was barking. I heard Noah call out, “Come in!”
Although it felt a little awkward to just walk into his house, I did it anyway, petting Magnus and saying hello to him. Once he’d been properly greeted, he trotted off.
It concerned me a bit that Noah didn’t keep his doors locked. Although maybe he’d specifically left it open just for me.
“Hello?” I called out. For one second I was worried that Noah was in his bedroom and expected me to join him, and I nearly bolted back out the door.
“I’m in the kitchen!” His mouth sounded muffled, like he was eating.
Sure enough, he had another bowl of cereal that he was eating over the sink. He’d apparently just gotten out of the shower again, his hair hanging down in wet strands. I was struck with a desire to push it off his face, but he beat me to it. I sighed. I loved when he did that.
“You just missed me clearing out my fridge. I saw on the news that romaine lettuce was recalled.”
I liked how he seemed calm and mellow. Like this huge thing wasn’t about to happen and we were just hanging out together. “Do you know what doesn’t get recalled?”
“Is it chocolate?” he asked.
“It’s chocolate.”
“Do you want anything?”
“No,” I said. “I’m good.” Not really, but I was trying hard to calm my heart rate down. “I’m not keeping you from some wild Hollywood party, am I?”
“That’s not really my scene,” he said after swallowing down a big gulp. “I like going to the theater, but that’s a little harder to do these days. I spend a lot of my time reading and watching movies. Cheesy as it may sound, it helps me hone my craft. And if there’s one thing I learned in the military, it’s the importance of doing things right.”
Yeah, and he was going to show me the right way to kiss. My knees buckled slightly, and I leaned against the wall for support. “Do you ever watch your own movies?”
“No. You know how when you see a video of yourself or hear a recording of your voice and it just sounds off or wrong? And it makes you cringe, because that’s not how you hear yourself in your own head?”
“Sure.”
“It’s like that for me, but for some reason it bothers me a thousand times worse than it seems to for other people. Plus, I see all my mistakes and all the different choices I should have made for a scene, and it drives me crazy. I basically just run them over and over again in my head. So I’ve learned not to watch my own work.”
I couldn’t help it. My face fell. I had totally wanted to watch the last movie in the Duel of the Fae trilogy with him and demand answers.
“What’s that look for?” he asked.
I should have known that he, of all people, would notice. “This means I can’t ask you what the writer and director of the third movie were thinking when they freaking killed Malec. He joined the good guys, risked his life to save Aliana, they admit their love, and then . . . he’s just dead? How is that a happy ending?” I was so caught up in my indignation that I accidentally added on, “You know, he doesn’t die in the books. Instead of having to live up to some masculine fantasy of being a noble martyr, he gets to pay for his misdeeds by actually physically atoning for them and making reparations to the people he’s hurt. And he gets to be with Aliana and get married and have little fairy babies. I guess it doesn’t matter now that the movie’s over, but I’ll never not be mad that they killed Malec Shadowfire. That ending was so bad it should be tried at The Hague.” It also infuriated me that the movie studio had severely underestimated Malec’s popularity and had walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars in continuing his story through animations, novels, or comic books.