Lori presses the nurse’s button on the remote at her side, and Noah jumps to his feet, concerned.
“Relax, honey.” She rolls her head his way. “I just need a small favor is all.”
“I can help you.” He frowns, turning it off, but she presses it again.
“Noah. Stop.” She smiles, looking over at the woman who slips into the room. “Cathy, you finally get to meet my son’s… Ari.”
I chuckle, and he looks at me, the annoyance slipping from his face. I wave at the woman. “Nice to meet you.”
“And you.” She grins, walking toward the end of Lori’s bed. “What can I get ya, sweets?”
“You know that new printer you told me about, in the lobby?” Lori asks. “Could you take a photo of these two for me? Maybe by the pumpkins you said are on the back patio, if they’re still there?”
The woman’s smile is kind as she nods. “Of course, I can.” She looks to us. “Follow me?”
Noah hesitates, but slowly pushes to his feet. “Meet me in the hall in just a minute?”
My brows pull together, but I nod. “Yeah, of course.”
As soon as they’re gone, Lori turns to me. “You don’t mind a photo, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“I just… I want to remember this, my son happy.” Her eyes cloud, but she blinks it away. “Most of the smiles I get are glossed with sadness. I worry every time he walks out the door. Not for me, for him. You know he was almost born on New Year’s Eve?”
“Really?”
“Mm-hm. I was at the hospital and everything, but he was being ornery. I thought he’d come a few days after that, but nope, he made me wait.”
“Until January twenty-ninth.”
“Yeah,” she coos, as if proud that I know.
I look to the door, quickly leaning in. “I’d like to do something for him, but I’ll need your help.”
I explain it to her briefly, and her eyes gloss over, her hand shaking as she reaches over to place it on my cheek.
“My, my, sweet girl.” Her voice is raspy. “I don’t even know what I can say to you to make you understand what you’ve done for me. What you continue to do for me.”
A slight blush washes over me. “So I can call you later?”
“Of course, you can.” She nods, gently nudging me along, so I rush out to meet Noah in the hallway.
His expression is torn, but he slips his hand in mine, and we follow Cathy out to the patio.
It’s a gorgeous stone courtyard, lined with large soft bulbs that glow a soft yellow. There are hay bales stacked in the farthest corner, pumpkins of all shapes and sizes strategically piled around them. Cathy ushers us over and pulls her phone out.
“Stand anywhere you like.” She smiles.
Noah looks to the holiday decor, and something flickers along his face, the reality of time maybe. So rather than link the moment or thought to a time of year that may weigh heavy later in life, I grab him by the hand and lead us toward the fountain in the center, large stone pots full of Peonies arranged like stairs on both the left and right side.
Noah’s gaze finds mine, and with that one look, the unspoken sorrow that swept over him disappears. He lowers onto the edge, and pulls me onto his lap, twisting the slightest bit, so my right shoulder is resting against his right pec. He kisses my cheek, before facing forward, and I allow my head to rest on his. His arms come around me and the woman lifts her phone.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
We smile and she snaps the photo, waving her phone in the air as she walks away.
Before I can stand, Noah glides his hand in my hair, drawing my lips to his. His kiss is so soft, so slow, that my throat threatens to close.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Warmth spreads through me, and we sit there a moment longer, simply staring at one another.
Together, we head back to his mom’s room and chat for a little longer, but the visit is cut short when she begins to jumble her words.
We say our goodbyes, and this time, the walk to the car is a bit of a somber one.
He’s quiet, too quiet, so once we’re on the road, a few minutes having past, I roll the window down, shocking him with cool air and his eyes snap my way briefly.
As I knew it would, a small smile finds his lips.
“Take me somewhere.”
He reaches over, tugging me into the middle seat, his hand burying itself between my jean-covered thighs. “Where do you want to go?”
“Somewhere you love. Somewhere you could go anytime and just being there makes you smile.”
Noah’s teasing eyes move my way, and I laugh.
“Come on, you have to have a place. Everyone does, right?”
“Will you show me yours?” he counters.
“I will.”
“I bet I already know where it is.”
“I bet you do too.”
He chuckles, and then he’s making a U-turn.
I swear I could have guessed where we’d end up had we played a guessing game, so I’m not even a little surprised when Noah parks, and we climb out, headed toward the hundred-yard stretch of green turf and white lines.
“Your high school?” I look over the large building to the left, a giant Eagle painted on the side.
“My high school.” He nods, and he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried. He sighs, allowing himself to look over every inch. From the field to the track around it, from the stairs to the announcers’ box at the top of the bleachers.
He steps out on the football field, tapping his toe along the four-yard line. “This is where Thomas Frolly caught the final pass I made on this field, and he ran it in for the winning touchdown.”
I clap, and he gives a teasing bow.
He runs as if running a route, stepping left, but juking right and leaping as if jumping over a defender. Where his feet land, he looks back to me, not quite at the fifty. “This is where I stood when they announced homecoming king. I lost.”
I laugh and Noah winks.
He jogs toward the gate, and I spin, slowly following.
He slaps a black and white metal sign, warning against smoking on campus.
“Here,” he calls me over, “is where I kissed the prom queen.”
“Lucky her.” I push up on my toes, meeting his mouth with mine. He grins but pulls back, a hint of caution blanketing his features.
He licks his lips. “Paige was the prom queen.”
“I knew it.” My words escape before I can stop them, and my eyes widen. “Sorry. I don’t mean, or I just meant, I assumed you two had history.”
“It wasn’t like that.” He shakes his head but thinks better of it. “Or it was, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t about her and me. Her dad had gotten sick around the time my mom did, and we sort of needed to find comfort somewhere, but that’s all it ever was. And never again after high school.”
Relief I didn’t know I needed hits me as he shares that last piece, and I think of Noah when he got that first call about his mom. How, after that, he went home to an empty house while his mom slept in a hospital bed. I know he had friends, but from what Lori had said, not friends like I had growing up. Not the kind you can run to anytime, for any reason.
Paige was there for him in a way that made him feel less alone because she understood his pain. A sense of thankfulness falls over me, just knowing he had one person he could call.
“You were lonely, and you had each other,” I whisper. “If I didn’t have my family and friends? I can’t even imagine, to be honest. I’m glad she was there for you.”
His shoulders seem to ease then. “She’s a good friend.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “She is.”
A moment later, Noah smirks, his arms locking around my waist.
“What?” I eye him, as a flirty, cockiness takes over.
“I had a feeling you were into me more than you realized way back then.”
“Oh yeah?” I narrow my gaze, fighting the pull of my lips.
“Mm-hm. You and Cam thought you were slick with that Prince Charming bit.” He chuckles, pecking my nose, but then his face softens, a tenderness falling over him.
“She thought she was genius.”
His pinkie comes up, and he brushes the hair from my face. “She could have said nothing, and I’d have still thought so.”
“Do tell, Mr. Riley.”
He’s quiet a moment, before speaking. “I could sense it, sense you, and your thoughts. I’ve had this gut-deep awareness of you since the day I met you, but every time I saw you, or was with you, I tried not to read too much into it.”
My throat grows thick, my question a low rasp. “Why?”
“Because I wasn’t sure you’d allow yourself time to figure it out.”
His words strike a chord deep within me, too many emotions to name trying to break through my chest all at once, and I seek out his lips, kissing him with more than my mouth.
With more than my mind.
With a part of me, I think might be his…
The kiss lasts minutes, maybe even longer, and when he pulls back, he hits me with a grin. “That worked.”
“What did?”
“You one-upped the prom queen.”
My head falls back on a laugh and Noah bends, swooping me into his arms, so I lock my arms around his neck.
“I better have one hundred upped the prom queen.”
Noah’s chuckle is low and soothing, as is the promise his eyes offer in that moment. “Baby, you beat out every woman everywhere, even in your sleep.”
My chest clenches, and I bury my face in his neck.
His arms tighten their hold, and he carries me back to the truck.
Noah
Watching her dance around in the seat beside me, smiling wide as she picks pieces of the bun off her burger, eating it like a bird as always, it’s as if everything clicks. Right here and now.
I love her.
I love everything about her.
I love the way her facial expressions transform with the words she sings, feeling all the emotions to every song. The way she dips her head and pinches her lips tight when she gets shy on me. I love that she is shy, even now, and I love how that, in a twist, she isn’t. She’s brazen and bold, when it’s just the two of us behind closed doors. She’s open and authentic, loves to share pieces of her life and asks about mine, not to keep conversation going, but because she truly wants to know.
I love the smile that curves her lips when she sees me. It’s the same one every time, big and bright, as if I show up to surprise her when she knew I was coming all along. I love how she is with my mom, patient and kind, but not in a way of pity, but pride. Like she knows what a good woman she is, like she understands all my mom means to me, and in turn, she means something to her too.
Ari draws thoughts out of me I never had before, about things I didn’t really know I wanted, but now feel desperate for. Deeper roots and a family.
The love of a lifetime.
I know she’s only starting out her journey here, and I graduate this year. I’m expected to go to draft, first round my coach says, being I’m ranked as both a receiver, my original position, and a quarterback, where I shined all through college. My life will be on the road, my schedule nearly full for the better part of the year, every year.
But what if it wasn’t?
What if I devoted my life to loving the girl beside me instead?
What if I found a way to do both?
Right then, buttery brown eyes shift to mine, catching mine on her, and her head falls against the headrest.
“Hey Noah?” She grins, licking the hint of salt on her lips.
My eyes follow the path of her tongue. “Yeah?”
Humor lines her voice as she says, “You might want to drive.”
My eyes jerk up, my head snapping forward, and sure enough, I miss the light, the green turning back to red before I can even take my foot off the brake.
I look her way again, and that smile appears, the soft, warm one she’s known to awards me with, her laughter light and airy, a glint of something else scripted in her eyes.
I squeeze her knee, needing to touch her, watching and loving the light pink that spreads across her silky skin. My heart beats faster, knowing something as simple as my hand on her skin earns this reaction from her.
“Come with me to the football gala.”
She smiles. “A gala? Sounds fancy.”
“It is. Black tie and ballgown. The whole bit.”
“When is it?”
“January.”
“January…” She trails off. “That’s two months from now.”
Slowly, I nod. “Yeah. It is. Tell me you’ll come, write it on that calendar of yours?”
Ari bites her lip, her voice low. “You already know the answer.”
I hope to God I do.
When the light turns green, again, I press the pedal, smiling to myself when a soft sigh slips from her.
I’m in love with her, and if I’m right, which I hope to hell I am, she’s on her way to loving me right back.
If she could, I’d need nothing else.
Just her.
