“I won’t,” he says. “I think I got it all out of my system.”
“Good,” I smile, pulling out of his arms and taking his hand. “Then let’s see if you can somehow get the answers out of Rivers that me and Tully have been failing to get.”
“Is that a challenge?” he questions.
“As much as I want to say yes, I can’t. I don’t want you to push the topic and make things worse for them.”
He rolls his eyes. “As if I would do that.”
“As if you wouldn’t.”
“Come on,” he tells “Let’s go get this over and done with so I can take you to bed.”
“Now, that’s a plan I can get on board with,” I laugh as he starts pulling me back towards the campfire.
Neither Tully or Rivers look up from their embrace, but as if sensing us near, Rivers nudges Tully, and I guess out of respect for Noah, she moves back to her seat. Noah walks right up to Rivers and holds out a hand before they do one of those weird bro back clap things. “Sorry ‘bout your face,” he tells him with a grumble.
“It’s fine,” Rivers murmurs before dropping back down into his seat.
Noah walks around and takes the seat he was sitting in earlier as Tully watches him like a hawk. I sit down beside him, wrapping myself back up in my blanket and hating the weird tension that sits with us. “Alright,” Noah sighs, looking up at Tully. “Start talking, and I want the long, drawn out version. Don’t skip any details. I want to know exactly what’s being going on behind my back.”
She cringes as Rivers looks horrified, probably preparing himself for another fist in his jaw. After all, if Tully describes the dick piercing, I think we’ll be packing up and heading straight to the hospital. “You don’t mean…every detail, do you?”
“Fuck, Tully,” Noah curses. “Everything except that.”
I watch her whole body relax as Rivers lets out a shaky breath. “Oh, good. I was worried you were turning into some twisted, creepy perve then,” Tully grins.
“Tullz,” Noah snaps. “Get the fuck on with it. When did all this bullshit start?”
She turns to Rivers and gives him an apologetic smile, knowing that some of the things she says will probably make things worse, but it’s now or never and this shit needs to be aired while it finally has a chance.
“It started the second you brought him home when we were eleven.”
“The fuck?” Noah grumbles as Rivers turns to her with a proud, shit eating grin. “For real?” Rivers questions as cocky as ever. “I didn’t know that.”
“How could you?” she laughs. “You were a stupid boy with the biggest fucking ego. You walked through the door and winked, and that was it. I was a goner.”
“Fuck, yeah, you were,” River says, showing us exactly what Tully meant with the ‘ego’ comment.
“Can we get back on track?” Noah prompts.
Tully shrugs. “I guess…I don’t really know what to tell you. Nothing really happened until a few weeks ago. Before that, it was nothing but the occasional flirting and chilling out, but you knew that.” She looks across at Rivers with a smile in her eyes though her words are meant for Noah. “He’s my constant. Always there. Protects me when you’re not around, and not to mention, he’s sexy as fuck. How could I not fall for him?” she continues. “I mean, we had a few weak moments that were generally brought on by alcohol, but nothing ever went further than making out.”
Noah whips his head around to Rivers. “You didn’t touch her until then?” he questions, clearly not giving a shit about the fact that they’ve been making out at parties, but I’m sure he would have known that already.
“Nope,” Rivers says proudly. “Didn’t touch her.”
“Right,” Noah murmurs slowly before turning back to Tully. “Go on.”
“What can I say?” she shrugs, glancing across at me, knowing I already know what’s coming next. “I’m not a patient girl. I got sick of waiting for him to come around, so I forced his hand. I told him exactly how I felt and didn’t go stingy on the details.”
Noah looks back at Rivers. “And you felt the same?”
Rivers eyes roam over Tully as she watches him before reaching out and trailing his fingers over her arm. “How could I not? She’s fucking beautiful.”
Noah scoffs under his breath. “And you call me a fucking pussy whipped cunt,” he murmurs, getting the side-eye from Rivers. “So, I’m assuming that’s when,” he scrunches his face up in disgust, “you know?”
“Yeah,” Tully cringes.
“Fast forward past that shit. I want to know how the hell you two ended up fighting day in and day out, and I want to know why the fuck you’ve looked broken every time you’ve looked at him over the past few weeks.”