A frown builds along my brow.
“Looks like he’s sleeping just fine.” Her eyes come up to mine, a low gleam within them. “I’ll go before I wake him.”
Nodding, I wave, but as soon as she’s gone, my eyes shift to Noah, to his hand, an inch from meeting my blanket-covered thigh.
I stare at it a moment, at his long fingers, and the slight bend of his knuckles. At the softness of his skin and the veins of his lower forearm as his sleeve pushes up the slightest bit.
I look to his face, to the long lashes lying against his cheek bones. His dark hair pokes out from beneath the hood, and there’s a light stubble on his jaw.
His chest rises and falls with deep full breaths.
I put the earbud back in my ear, and before I know it, morning comes with the seat beside me empty, and a tap on the door.
My eyes open, my smile instant.
“Chase.”
Noah
* * *
A little over an hour of my sitting on the curbside bench passes before Ari’s voice reaches me, snapping me from my thoughts, and the moment I turn my head, she appears, her eyes instantly finding mine as if I spoke her name.
“Noah.” The joy in her tone has my pulse jumping, and I can’t help the small smile that appears.
I want to grab her, hug her. I want to hold her.
Instead, I stay sitting, locking my hands together because I don’t trust myself not to reach out. “Juliet.”
Her eyes narrow a little, but then she laughs, and goddamn, it’s so fucking good to hear. She remembers the nickname I gave her that first day.
“You know.” She tips her head. “They talked to us about the danger of stalkers at orientation.”
My nerves spark; my words drawn out. “Did they now?”
“Mm-hm,” she teases. “And you sitting out here is borderline-stalker tendencies.”
I swallow. “What if I said I wasn’t here for you?”
“I’d call you a big fat liar.”
I chuckle, the ease of this conversation settling in a way I can’t explain, but a weight comes with it because while I was sitting here waiting to see her walk out, she should know why else I’d be here on a Sunday afternoon. She came with me so many times. I push the thought aside, and climb to my feet, her chin lifting, so she can keep her eyes on mine. “You’d be right.”
Her lips begin to curve, but she pulls them in, and then she looks behind her, and the warmth brewing in my chest dies on the spot.
Chase steps out with a smile, but the moment he spots me, it falls flat. He looks away a moment, but back the next. “Hey, man.”
Guilt, it’s written all over him, as it should be.
My brain refuses to allow me to respond, but then Cameron and Brady file out, and the roar of an engine revs behind me. Mason pulls up at the curbside.
He quickly jumps out, and the others put the bags into the back as he comes over, Ari still standing on the sidewalk a foot in front of me.
“I called you twice last night.” He glares at me.
My eyes slide to Ari’s, and she drops her chin, nibbling on her lip, and Mason’s eyes narrow, curious.
Everyone climbs into Mason’s Tahoe, but the two of them, and Ari looks to me, the circles beneath her eyes a little lighter today.
“We’re spending the rest of break at the beach house,” she tells me, and my chest tightens.
“Oh yeah?”
She nods.
Come on…
“Are you… do you have plans with your family?”
You are my family.
I shake my head, my pulse quickening, a mixture of emotions flowing through me.
“Oh.” She pauses.
Almost.
“It’s just the five of us staying and we have an extra room if you want to come,” she says, as if I haven’t been there. It kills me, but not as much as the hint of uncertainty in her tone.
In her eyes.
In the way she stands.
I want to wash it all away, to tell her she never has to wonder where I want to be, because the answer is, and always will be, wherever she is.
Right beside her.
But I can’t say that.
So I keep it simple. I keep it us.
“You know the answer to that.”
“Do I?” She laughs, but she has no idea why, and for once, it brings a smile to my face, because while she doesn’t remember, her mind makes the subconscious connection. “Maybe I want to hear it?”
At that, a small smirk builds.
Of course you do, baby.
“Yeah, Juliet,” I tell her. “I’d love to go.”
Her lips press together in a smile, and she gives a curt nod. “Then it looks like it’ll be a full house.”
It takes her a second, but she steps around me, slowly slipping into the front seat, where Mason’s got a couple pillows waiting for her.