Her anger started to rise. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. I think he considered it along the same lines of being an alcoholic or a drug addict. My need for medication to remain on task was a weakness to him.”
“And your mother stood for that?”
“There was a lot of hidden context, Lib. We compartmentalized things. My mother and I had our relationship. My father and I were mending ours. We all kept things purposely separate, probably in case my progress crashed and burned. And it was a good thing too. It’s the only thing that kept my mother from turning her back on me after he died.”
Oh God. The person he’d killed was his father. But Josh had told them all last June that his dad had died from a heart attack. “What happened, Noah?” she asked softly.
“Like I said, he came to see me. Just dropped by.” Noah pulled his hand from hers and ran it through his hair. “But I’d set up a meeting that afternoon. In my dorm room.”
He stopped and she realized he needed encouragement. “You were buying drugs.”
“Yeah, Adderall. But they weren’t cheap. At that point I no longer took it every day. But I had finals, so I needed more. My source told me he’d sell me twenty pills on credit, and he’d give me a discount if I sold some myself. It wasn’t hard. I knew guys without ADD who’d buy it, so it was a no-brainer. But Dad was there when Vic showed up. And although none of what I just told you was even mentioned that afternoon, my father figured it out pretty fast, even if he didn’t have all the facts.”
“He thought you were a drug dealer.”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.
Libby thought she was going to be sick. Poor Noah had only wanted his father’s love and attention. But part of her was pissed at his dad, pissed that he’d allowed Noah to go to such desperate lengths to please him.
“I’d never seen him so angry,” Noah said so quietly that Libby had to strain to hear him. “His face turned red and his veins bulged and it didn’t take a genius to see he was about to stroke out.”
“What happened next?”
“He ripped the document to pieces, telling me what a bitter disappointment I was and how stupid he’d been to believe I could change. He told me no drug dealer would ever be part of his business and he was still considering whether he’d disown me as a son. Then he stomped out and I never spoke to him again.”
The muscles in Libby’s back knotted. The rest was obvious. “When did he die?”
“Three days later.”
Oh God. Only three days? No wonder he felt responsible. “And your mother? What did she say?”
“I don’t think she even knew. Like I said, we compartmentalized our relationships. But some nights I wonder if I should tell her I’m responsible for killing her husband. Would she forgive me? I know Josh never would.”
“You didn’t kill your father, Noah.”
He didn’t answer, but then what did she expect him to say? He’d lived with this guilt for well over a decade. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that her absolution would make it go away. “Is that all you’ve got, McMillan?” she asked. “Hell, my past is more riddled with shit than that.”
He spun to look at her then, the desperation in his eyes breaking her heart. Maybe he thought she could give him absolution for his wrongs, but she’d learned years ago that she couldn’t give anyone what they needed. She was incapable of it. But for the first time, she wanted to change. She wanted to have more with him. She wanted to share everything—past, present, and future.
But it was a huge risk. They were both fuck-ups. There was no disputing that. The chances were far greater that they would break up and when they did, it would all burn in an epic crash.
Libby was a survivor, but she knew she’d never survive a breakup with Noah.
Chapter Thirteen
For the first time since his father died, Noah felt like some of the crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The guilt was still there—he wasn’t sure that would ever go away—but it had eased a bit. Before today, he’d never considered telling anyone his deep dark secret. In fact, he’d planned to take it to his own grave, but somehow, he had found himself wanting to tell her. He suspected she was the only person who might truly understand.
Someone else might have wanted a different reaction from her—hugs and murmurs of semi-sincere sympathy—but Libby had given him exactly what he needed: she’d insisted his father’s death wasn’t his fault and she’d put his experience into perspective.
Her admission that she’d suffered hardships of her own wasn’t a surprise. Based on the stories she’d told him about her past, he knew she had a tendency to push men away, or more accurately, she would hold them at arm’s length and dump them when things bordered on serious. In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising she’d stayed with Mitch for so long. He was totally different from her usual type—good-looking, emotionally distant, somewhat narcissistic bad boys.
In a nutshell, guys like Noah.
But there had to be some reason she would consistently pick men who were destined to never last more than a few weeks, and he suspected it had something to do with her cougar mother and her absent father.
Noah only wished his admission had triggered Libby to open up. But it had the opposite effect: she clammed up for over an hour after that, only talking again when they stopped for her to pee while he got gas, about an hour outside of Hoover Dam. The glances she gave him let him know that she was wrestling her own demons. His confession had stirred them up.
She started to warm up as the dam got closer. “I want to park in that area where Salma Hayek is sitting when Matthew Perry finds her.”
“You’re not planning to sit on that ledge, are you?” he asked in alarm. “That’s a several-hundred-foot drop.”
She shrugged, wearing a faint grin. “Maybe.”
He wasn’t sure he could stand back and watch her do that, and he was once again surprised by his protective instincts. Noah McMillan was a self-centered man. He was fully aware of it. It had ruled his life for nearly fifteen years. If he let his instincts toward Libby take full rein, what would happen to him? Would he lose himself entirely? But given the life he’d lived, was that really a bad thing?
“They would have never worked out in real life,” she said.
He blinked, realizing he’d missed part of what she’d said. “Salma and Matt? Why? What Hollywood gossip do you know?”
“Not the actors, the couple in the movie. Isabel and Alex. They were just too different.”
His heart lightened. “So if too different is bad, then similar is good?”
“Yeah.” She looked confused. “Maybe.”
He let it drop because a sign for the dam appeared and Libby perked up and begged him for a coin.
“I want to throw it over the side when we reach the middle of the dam. Just like in the movie.”
Grinning, Noah dug out a quarter and handed it to her. He would have given her a twenty-dollar bill to toss out the window if he’d thought it would bring her out of her sullen mood.
But when they pulled into the entrance of the dam, Libby’s enthusiasm waned when she realized they couldn’t drive over the dam.