Page 53

Chapter

Thirty-Two

I twist the ring on my middle finger in tight, nervous circles until Noah opens the front door of his duplex.

Still damp from a shower, his hair hangs longer and darker around his face. He wears nothing but a pair of sweatpants, but I force myself to keep my eyes on his face—right where his brow is creased in concern.

After sending that text, I hadn’t looked at my phone again. I’d just hopped in the car and pressed on the gas.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I say.

“By all means, come in.”

I follow Noah down a long hallway, and my heart leaps suddenly into my throat.

Deeper in the house, the living room is crowded with boxes.

Dusty outlines where picture frames used to hang stamp each wall, and the only furniture that occupies the space is one lonely gray couch.

Noah passes through without stopping, and I follow in his wake, trying to ignore the pressure building in my chest.

Although there are no boxes, Noah’s room is somehow worse.

It looks like a hotel room, ascetically clean and completely bare of personality, with a dull blue bedspread and empty walls.

The only real signs that he lives here are the small closet full of clothes and his massive brick of a gaming laptop plugged into the outlet behind the desk.

Within twenty minutes he could pack up every part of himself and no one would know he’d ever been here at all.

Even my room at Liam’s, which I was meant to stay in for only a few months, has more personal touches.

Gingerly I sit on the edge of his bed. Noah’s desk chair creaks as he sinks into it and swivels to face me. He pulls one of my hands into both of his, tethering me.

I consider asking about the boxes, the empty room, the gutted house—and I will, before the night’s over. But it wasn’t my first intention, and it’s not what I’ll start with.

I didn’t come here to ask him questions or demand answers. I just came to tell him.

“I’m staying.”

It’s the first time I say it out loud, and I feel the rightness of it all the way down to my bones. It feels like staying up for days on end and finally allowing myself to sleep. It feels like crossing the finish line after a half-marathon.

“In Heller?”

I nod. “In Heller.”

Noah opens his mouth to speak again, but I touch my fingertips to the corner of his lips, settle my palm against his bearded cheek. “Just let me get this out”— while I’m still brave enough to say it —“and then I want to know. Okay?”

He leans into my hand and nods.

“After I finished the mural today, I called Paragon and declined their offer. I think they were…mystified, honestly, but they were kind about it. They asked whether I had a competing offer, or if my plans had changed, and—and that’s the thing.

I have no plan. I don’t have any plans, Noah.

” I let out a bewildered, wondering laugh.

“I have no idea what I’ll do. All I knew was to make the next right decision, and that’s what I did.

” I drop my hands back into my lap and set to fiddling with my ring again.

“I don’t want it anymore,” I say quietly.

If I’m honest with myself, that had been the hardest truth to come by.

My career in New York felt like something I was supposed to hold on to, because all I’d done for the past decade was dream of that damn city, and changing my mind felt more like a betrayal of myself than I was ready to accept.

For so long I’d convinced myself that I was avoiding New York because I just wasn’t ready to return yet, or I hadn’t healed enough, or I wasn’t good enough for it—when really, I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I wanted to let it go.

“What I do want,” I say slowly, “is what I have right now. What I don’t want is—” I steal the line directly from Loren. “I don’t want to miss you.”

Noah’s eyes widen in recognition, and he slides one hand along the outside of my thigh. “Sadie…”

“I wanted to hear it from you, Noah. All of the things you were saying as Loren were so beautiful and lovely, but they weren’t from you.

I couldn’t tell if you were trying to tell me something, or just staying in character, or…

” I exhale sharply. “Even now, I still don’t know.

But for everything to still be up in the air between us while Jaylie and Loren get their happy ending, I just—I think we deserve…

” It doesn’t feel right to say a happy ending, because what I really want with Noah is a happy beginning, isn’t it?

An adventure we agree to embark on together, without knowing where we’ll end up.

I stop playing with my ring and take his hands in each of mine. “You deserve to know where I stand,” I finish. “So, I’m staying, with or without you. But I hope it’s with you.”

Noah lets my words float in the air around us, lingering in the space between us. Once he’s sure I’ve said all I need to, his thumbs come to rest on my temples as he threads his fingers into my hair.

“Oh, Sadie.”

His kiss is gentle—just the barest brush of his lips against mine—before he draws back again. But whatever he’s about to say, I’m not ready to hear it yet.

Even now, I still want more.

I curl my fingers around his wrists and capture his mouth with mine again. I want to sink my teeth into his lower lip, to taste him, to tie him to this moment and this place—

But just like always, Noah meets my frantic, restless energy with steady, slow assurance.

Without pulling away, he rises from his chair.

The palm of one hand presses against the side of my neck as his fingers stretch to circle my jaw, and he tilts my face up toward his as the other hand folds around my shoulder and guides me back until I’m lying on his bed.

With one knee pressed to the inside of my thigh, he parts my legs and climbs on top of me.

Although he braces his elbows to either side of my head, the deliciously heavy weight of his hips pins me underneath him.

His kisses are deep and slow, but there’s an insistence in them that steals my breath.

Every time the tide seems to pull back, when I think we might take a moment to breathe, he surges forward again, his tongue tangling with mine as his arms wind around my ribs and pull me close.

In the back of my head, I get the sense again that he’s trying to communicate something to me, his lips moving against mine in a language he’s teaching me how to speak.

But I can’t yet tell whether the iron circle of his arms around me means I’m here, I’ve got you —or if it’s the last embrace before he finally lets me go.

I feel his smile before I see it. It’s tucked neatly into the corner of his mouth, right where my lips skim along his dimple.

I draw back and blink up at him. “What?”

He rests his head against my brow, his beard tickling my cheek. “I already told Dan last week,” he murmurs against my ear.

“Told him what?”

“That I’m not going back to Colorado. I want to stay, too.”

Lightness fills my chest. If it weren’t for Noah pressing me into the mattress, I might float right up to the ceiling. I draw back from him, just enough so that I can see his eyes—so that I can watch his expression soften. My voice comes out breathless. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were in New York,” he says gently. “You had a decision of your own to make, and I didn’t want to add any pressure to that.”

I swallow. “The boxes?”

“Are Dan’s. He’s leaving for Boulder in a few weeks.” He laughs as my eyes immediately narrow. “Well, most of them are Dan’s. Some are mine. I’ll spend a few weeks in the van, until I find a new place to stay.”

“What about Alchemist?”

I’ve never seen Noah’s eyes this bright. “It’s mine now.” His voice is a hushed, excited whisper. “While he’s in Colorado, I’m the manager. He’s left it all to me.”

I can’t help the way my mouth hangs open. “All of your late nights, the extra prep he’s had you doing—”

“Yes.”

So many words crowd my throat that I hardly know what to say.

But I grow still as Noah’s palms rise to cup my face again, anchoring me as only he can.

The lake blue of his eyes goes liquid as he trains his unblinking gaze on mine.

“Listen. Hear it from me, Sadie. This is not a fantasy, or a one-off adventure, or just a bard’s declaration.

This is real.” He presses his forehead to mine.

“I won’t go anywhere without you by my side.

I’m tired of running, and this is the only place I want to be.

Right now, this…” He sweeps his thumb in an arc across my cheek. “This feels like home.”

I press my fingers to the bare skin of his chest, feeling how his heart beats against my palms. The smile sneaks up on me, stretching wide until my cheeks ache with it. But I can’t make it go away.

“It grows on you, doesn’t it?” I murmur.

“What does?”

“This place. This town.”

“Not just the town, Sadie.”

Noah’s fingertips glide under the hem of my shirt as he presses his lips to my forehead.

“I can’t promise that I won’t want to leave again one day to explore, or to try something new.

If that time comes, I hope you’ll come, too.

But for tonight—” His arm snakes under my neck, cradling my head in the crook of his elbow.

His damp hair shrouds half of his face, his eyes half-lidded in the dark. “Will you stay with me?”

“I will,” I promise. “I’ll stay.”