“Doesn’t know what?”
“The first time we met, I told him . . .” My throat felt dry and I swallowed, hard. “I told him I didn’t know who he was. That I’d never heard of him.”
This got her back to her feet. “Are you serious?”
I nodded.
“You have to tell him.”
“I can’t. It would ruin everything.” I felt tears forming at the edges of my eyes, and I tried blinking them away.
She sat next to me. “I think we both know that the right thing to do here is for you to tell him.”
“Do we, though? Despite what you think, we’re not in a relationship. We haven’t made any kind of commitment to each other. We’re hanging out. I’ll hopefully get over my kissing thing, and then he’ll fly to someplace like France to film a movie and this will die a natural death. There’s no reason to upset everything right now. Not to mention, I’m not going to get you fired from this job. You’re the one that said it’s your last shot.”
“I’ll find another job.”
“Not like this one, you won’t. And we both know it.”
She let out a little groan. “Now I almost wish you hadn’t told me. Like, as your friend I’m so glad you felt like you could confide in me, but as a person in a professional relationship with Noah, I feel like an accomplice or something.”
“You’re not an accomplice. There’s no crime being committed here. I will tell him. After the work is done. I’ll deal with the fallout then.”
“Do you know how unreliable construction is? I’m hoping to be done in three months and that’s only if nothing goes wrong, and things always go wrong. Isn’t it better to tell him now than six months from now? And weren’t you just telling me how I shouldn’t be avoiding things? Neither should you!”
I blurted out, “I can’t lose him.” It was probably one of the most honest things I’d ever said, and it surprised me how deeply I felt those words. I’d constructed all these walls, some intentional, some not, and he hadn’t just broken them down. He’d flattened them with a steamroller and taken up residence in my heart. I really cared about him. He was the first man I’d ever felt this way about, and I just . . . I couldn’t lose him. I accepted that there was an ending coming for us. But not yet. I wasn’t ready to let go. “He’s this incredible person and so unlike what I imagined. I mean, he’s definitely all alpha and he would beat the crap out of somebody who tried to hurt me, but then he’d take me home and make me dinner and read me a sonnet he’d composed. He’s so strong and masculine, but he plays with my hair and makes me laugh and is so smart and worldly and adores his dog and I just . . . I need him.”
Something in my response saddened Shelby, and she said sympathetically, “Oh, sweetie.”
I brushed away the few tears that had managed to escape. “I’ll tell him. I will. After you’ve finished. When the time is right. Okay?”
“Okay. All I want is for you to be happy. You know how much I love you.” She hugged me tightly, and I ignored the burning lump in my throat that urged me to cry.
“I know. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” And I had to hope that it would be true.
I woke up the next morning to the sound of loud banging at the front door. Sunshine was whining outside my bedroom, apparently unhappy at there being a guest. I got up, grumbling the whole way.
When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Noah standing there. He was rocking on his heels, looking far too gleeful for this early in the morning. Okay, technically it was almost noon, but I hadn’t slept well.
He grinned. “What are you doing today? We should hang out. My new dog sitter, Joe, is at my house, and he’s agreed to keep an eye on Sunshine, too.”
“Um, okay.” My brain wasn’t working yet and he was all dazzling and bright and I was sure that I looked like a coffin had just thrown me up. “What did you have in mind?”
“I was hoping maybe you could teach me how to drive.”
I blinked slowly. “You don’t know how to drive?”
“My parents didn’t want me to drive, so I never got a license as a teenager. It wasn’t my job to drive in the army and then I was living in New York and didn’t need it there. But I read this script that I’m excited about. I’d be a getaway driver and they would have someone show me how to do stunt driving, but I figured I should probably learn the basics first.” He seemed to think I was reluctant. I was going to do it—I was just still sleepy. “Come on, I teach you something, you teach me something.”
“Kissing and driving are not the same thing. Plus, so far you haven’t really taught me anything.”
“Not yet.” His voice was low and appealing and cut through my tiredness better than a jolt of caffeine.
“Let me get me and Sunshine ready and I’ll come up to your house.”
“Okay. See you soon!”
As I closed the door, I realized that I hadn’t even considered the fact that he might be a morning person, and it was kind of annoying. Good thing he was superfluously handsome.
It didn’t take me long to do everything I needed to, and now it was my turn to knock on his door. When he answered, he leaned down to kiss me hello on the cheek, and my heart sighed a little at the way it felt. He introduced me to Joe, and Sunshine’s and Magnus’s tails were both wagging as they sniffed one another. Joe promised to take good care of the dogs, and I figured if Noah trusted him, then he was probably good at what he did. I wondered how much he charged and decided I should ask him when we got back. For comparative purposes.
Deciding it would be best to get Noah out of the hills and canyons and onto a flat surface, I headed for a church I knew of nearby, figuring the parking lot would be empty. On the way he told me about how he had spent his morning talking to an army friend he liked to keep tabs on because he had been chaptered out.
“Chaptered out?” I asked.
“Basically kicked out. He tried to hurt himself.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “That’s awful!”
“He’s doing really well now. The director of my charity helped him get a great job, and he met someone recently. And I don’t know that his heart was really in what he did back then, because he tried to overdose with cough drops and vitamin supplements. I’m still not sure how he expected to nourish himself to death.”
It was very cool that his charity was able to help one of his friends. Sometimes those benefits weren’t always tangible, and I thought it was neat that Noah got to see some of the fruits of his labors. “I’m so glad he’s doing better.” I paused. “It would be inappropriate for me to laugh, right?”
“Yes, and know that I would judge you for it,” he said, his tone light and teasing. “It’s one of the reasons I have my charity. It makes me feel like I can keep serving even if I’m not still in the army.” Then he told me more stories about his friends from his company until we got to the parking lot.
For some reason, I was hearing my mom’s voice in my head, reminding me of our age difference. Which is practically nonexistent, I said back. But then I realized that it wasn’t an age gap but an experience gap, with all the things he had seen and been through. He had done so much and accomplished so many things, and I . . . was scared of kissing and had started a dog-grooming business.