I’m surely about to throw out my back, but Noah doesn’t run to my aid.
“We could use this opportunity to talk.”
“Okay, talk,” I say, not bothering to look back at him. I’m too busy for idle chitchat. Sprucing up this attic will take me all night, and that’s if I work fast.
He sighs and lies back on the bed, lacing his fingers behind his head on the pillow. His attention is up on the ceiling as he begins, “So, shrink, it all started a few years ago when I took a job at Lindale Middle School.”
I set the box down and then freeze, curious as to where he’s going with this.
“The teacher in the classroom next door to mine? She’s a real piece of work.”
“She’s polite and generous and most certainly isn’t the problem,” I say, sounding prissy.
“She was abrasive from the start. Like I said, a real piece of work.”
“And what about you? Were you Prince Charming?”
“No,” he admits. “I don’t have it in me.”
Wrong.
So wrong.
Look at everything you’ve done today.
Instead of pointing that out, I keep my mouth shut.
“We were destined to hate each other from the get-go. I can’t remember what exactly set her against me, but does it even matter?”
I’m fully facing him now, invested. “I think it does. For historical accuracy. Future generations will want to know whose bullet started World War III.”
He chuckles and my heart balloons in my chest. He’s the person whose opinion I cherish most. A laugh from him is more valuable than gold.
“I remember once, early on, there was an all-staff meeting. I was new and wanted to be funny and liked. I probably made a bad joke about the overzealous person who took the time to organize the coffee station in the corner. It looked like someone had laid out the croissants with a ruler. They were in such a straight line. Turns out, it was the teacher next door. I think her feelings were hurt. Maybe it all went downhill from there.”
“She didn’t care about that.”
In truth, I don’t even remember that moment. That’s how much has transpired between Noah and me over the years. At this point it’s all a blur.
“But here’s the crazy thing, Doc. Can I call you Doc?”
“I prefer Doctor.”
“Somewhere along the way…in spite of the fighting and the antics and the bad blood…I started to develop real feelings for her.”
Chapter Seventeen
My stomach flips upside down.
I hold my breath, curious to see if he’ll continue. When he doesn’t, I have no choice but to play along.
I cross my arm over my chest, rest my elbow on my hand, and tap, tap, tap my chin—fully in character now. When I talk, I affect my best clinician voice. “These feelings…do they come and go?”
“No. In fact, they’ve only gotten progressively worse. Completely impossible to ignore. They’ve taken over my life here lately.”
I hum like this is deeply concerning. “Troublesome. Any other symptoms?”
“Butterflies. Sweaty hands. Flustered speech.”
“Sounds terminal.”
I step closer and hold out my hand to feel his forehead.
“Burning up.”
“Really?”
“’Fraid so. Cough for me.”
He does.
“Yes, just as I suspected. I give you one, two weeks max.”
We both descend into peals of laughter.
I start to step back, but he catches my hand, holds it like a delicate flower, inspects it on all sides. I stand perfectly frozen, letting him do it.
I’m a rare animal he’s never encountered before. He traces my fingers on that hand, every one of them, up, down, up again, until he reaches the bottom of my thumb and drags the pad of his pointer finger down to my pulse. It leaps and he feels it.
His gaze catches mine.
“Audrey, do you ever think—”
“No. I never think. Not if I can help it.”
He laughs and sits up, releasing my hand.
Exasperated, he tugs his own through his hair. It air-dried in the hours since we’ve been in the rain, and now it’s springy and soft. When he has children one day, I hope they get his hair.
He’s part agitated, part amused when he speaks again. “God. You’re…you’re…I don’t know! I’ve never met anyone like you. I was right on the beach, you know—you really are a coward. You’ll run from this forever, won’t you? If I don’t force this conversation, it’ll never happen.”
Now that he’s on the edge of the bed, we’re almost at eye level now, too close for comfort, but I don’t take a step back. He just called me a coward. I want to prove to him that I’m not.
“So the kiss…”
He sighs, relieved I’m bringing it up.
“The kiss was real. I kissed you because I wanted to. I’ve wanted to for years.”
Whoa.
How’s that for honesty?
“I know you feel the same. I don’t think this is one-sided.” His eyes grow wide with panic. “Jesus, tell me it’s not one-sided. I’ll die right now if it is.”
My brain is so set in its ways, pre-programmed to be at odds with Noah, that even when I’m confronted with irrefutable evidence proving his words to be true, I still have to ask, “You swear this isn’t some elaborate prank you’ve meticulously planned in which you convince me to fall in love with you and then subsequently break my heart and brag to everyone about it? That sort of thing?”
“Oddly enough, no, I’m not trying to reenact the plot of an early-2000s teen movie. I’m telling the truth.”
Wow.
This is wild.
Almost…too wild.
I narrow my eyes, trying to see through the bullshit.
“What exactly are you suggesting here, Noah?”
“A ceasefire.”
“Interesting. For how long?”
He fights back a smile. “Forever, Audrey.”
I think he can tell I’m still not convinced.
“Let me prove I mean what I say. Give me a week. No mean tricks. No dipping your hair in my inkwell. No poking you with a stick at recess. Next Saturday, you let me take you out on a date.”
“Why?”
He tosses his hands in the air and shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s what normal people do. I’m supposed to buy you food. We might kiss at the end of it.”