Page 50 of The Love Bus

“I’m glad you came by,” he said, voice low. “I missed you at dinner.”

That simple sentence made my stomach flip. And when I looked at him, I forgot about the movie completely.

Because those eyes—those fathomless stormy eyes—were locked on mine.

And all I could think about was the way his hands had felt on my skin. The way I’d thought about him in the shower. The way I'd needed to touch myself just to take the edge off.

Friends, right?

“So…” I said, all but grasping for a safe topic. “How are your pets doing? Jumbo sticking to his diet? Pippa ever make it home?”

He smiled, indulgent. Like he knew exactly what I was doing. But that didn’t keep him from grabbing his phone, opening it to more pictures, and then handing it over for my inspection.

“Your pet sitter seems dedicated,” I commented as I scrolled through the images. Two goldfish—it was obvious which one was Plink and which was Jumbo—swimming side by side in a good-sized tank, Pippa stretched out in a sunny patch on the floor, the fish again diving after little flakes of food.

“Simon knows I require proof.” He swiped over to the most recent pictures, time-stamped earlier in the afternoon. “Pippa is still checking in regularly, but, unfortunately, Jumbo looks like he’s gained a few hundred milligrams. But so far, they’re all still alive.”

“They’re lucky to have you,” I laughed, but Noah was shaking his head.

“Maybe.” Like he didn’t quite believe it.

“Of course, they are.”

Noah didn’t argue with me.

And maybe I could blame it on the wine, but…I had questions. And for once, the two of us weren’t surrounded by a bunch of nosy nellies.

“I know…” I swallowed. “I know why I shouldn’t get involved with anyone right now,” I said, staring at the ice in my wine, watching the way it bobbed in the glass. “But…what’s holding you back?”

His eyes darkened. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said, voice low and rough, and somehow closer. “Hell, Luna. I’ve wanted to…from the first minute I saw you.”

I blinked. “Not on the plane.”

“Yes,” he said. “On the plane.”

My breath caught. Because I remembered the plane. I remembered sitting there in a wrinkled skirt, with my hair tied up in a lopsided knot, not a stitch of makeup on, and a crater the size of the Grand Canyon in my chest.

I’d been scared. Angry. Hollow. I hadn’t cared if I looked unapproachable. I wanted to look unapproachable. That was the point.

I’d felt—let’s be honest—unlovable.

Un-fixable.

“That’s impossible.”

But Noah was shaking his head, smiling down at his own cup of wine. Like this was a fond memory for him. “You looked like you’d just crawled out of bed to get there, and I kept thinking… God, she’s beautiful .”

“Beautiful,” I repeated the word. Shocked.

“You looked…real,” he added. “Like someone who wasn’t pretending. Someone who didn’t need the show.”

Which was ironic. Because I actually had—needed the show—literally.

I swallowed. “I was horrible.”

“Yeah,” he said, full-on grinning now. “Did you know the color of your eyes changes depending on the light? Right now, they’re more green than brown.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“I kept wondering if my fingers would get tangled in your hair,” he added.

I made a strangled sound. “They definitely would have. It was a mess. Like me.”

“Maybe.”

I stared at him, stunned. This wasn’t something I’d expected to hear. Not ever. Not from anyone—least of all him.

But we’d gotten sidetracked. Before he’d sent my heart pounding—not sure what was happening here—I’d asked him a question.

“But…” I picked absently at a loose thread on my skirt, unable to look at him all of a sudden. “Up at the waterfall. You said it was not ideal. And then you said it was something we should only do once.”

“Nope, you said once was enough. I just agreed, and I was being sarcastic.”

“Were you?” At this point, although I could remember every feeling, every sensation I’d felt when he kissed me, I couldn’t remember which of us had said what.

“Have you dated much since…?”

Noah’s gaze shifted to the movie that neither of us was watching. “My friends wanted me to get out. And I did, a little. At first. But it felt… I don’t know. Like I was just going through the motions.”

“What do you mean?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t…feel anything. You know how I told you I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to the ER?”

I nodded.

“There were a few really bad cases. Like—“ His eyes shuttered. “More than usual. Worse than usual. And…”

I got the feeling he hadn’t talked about this much. But maybe he needed to.

“It was like,” he added quietly, “something inside…broke. And ever since, I’ve just been going through the motions. With everything.”

It hadn’t seemed like he was just going through the motions when he’d helped Roger. Or when he’d helped me.

When he’d kissed me.

We were lying on our sides now, facing each other in silence. It seemed like he needed to marinate in his own words more than he needed to hear anything I might say.

And then… his foot brushed gently against my calf, skimming along my ankle in slow, absent strokes.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he murmured, “but what made you cry up there? After you fell in. You were laughing…and then you weren’t.”

At the waterfall.

I exhaled slowly. “I realized…I hadn’t felt that happy in a really long time.”

His foot stilled, and when I glanced up, he was already looking at me.

“When’s the last time you felt happy?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

His eyebrows knit together, but he didn’t answer. The lack of a response was enough on its own. I’d seen him smiling a couple of times on this trip, with his mother, with me, but we both knew I wasn’t asking about the trip.

He looked like a man who wanted to tell me something, but he wasn’t sure what.

Then his fingers twitched against his thigh. Just once. As if maybe he was going to reach for me.

But then?—

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Noah!”

The voice and the knocking sounded so near that I practically catapulted off the bed.

What in the actual fudge? That wasn’t the door, that was?—

Noah groaned, flopping onto his back. “Adjoining rooms,” he muttered, eyes shut, nostrils flared.

The knock came again, right over our heads, and then his mother’s barely muffled voice. “Noah, hon? Are you awake? I need you to look at this pill bottle. The label’s tiny and I can’t find my glasses ? —”

I was already on my feet and grabbing my sandals, heart pounding as I half-hopped-half-shuffled backward toward the door.

Holy guacamole! His mom had been right there!

The entire time! Nothing but a thin layer of drywall and plaster between us, her bed probably pressed up against the very same wall as Noah’s if the layout of my own room was anything to go by.

For about the hundredth time, I felt like a teenager again. This time, one who was in trouble.

Had she heard us talking?

I groaned at the thought. At least we hadn’t, like, done anything—but we’d definitely flirted and talked about some really personal stuff. Hopefully, she hadn’t heard too much.

Noah stood up like he was going to stop me, but then paused, caught between me and the voice calling from the wall.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, barely above a whisper, eyes filled with regret, maybe? Or frustration.

Or both.

“It’s okay. Really.” I offered the quickest wave in human history, then slipped out the door before…

Before I could ask him to kiss me again.

Before I completely forgot why this was supposed to be a bad idea.