Yeah, he knew her excuses. Her disease couldn’t be cured, and a few years ago she’d been put on the kidney transplant list. He wasn’t trying to downplay it, but it was ridiculous to think those things would stop a man from wanting her.
“If they ever find a match for me, I’ll have to go through the transplant process, and even then, at my age, I’ll probably need another one eventually. This will affect my entire life, and it’s not fair to put that on another person. I don’t even let my parents help me. There’s no way I’m asking a man to.”
“What if someone thought you were worth it?”
She huffed out a breath. “Stop trying to turn this around. We were talking about you, and why you don’t date.”
Noah fixed his eyes on the television. “I’m seeing how some things pan out.”
“Like what?”
Damn, he was such an idiot. “Just some things.”
He could practically hear her teeth grinding. “You drive me crazy,” she said. “For the person I know best in the world, sometimes I feel like there’s a whole part of you I’ve never seen.”
Her dark brown eyes locked on his, and he kept his expression carefully neutral. “Same.”
She watched him for a moment and then dropped her gaze. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet he barely heard her. “Would you rather be able to fly, or read minds?”
How many times had they started sentences to each other with those three words? Dozens, at least.
“Fly.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. People talk too much as it is. I’m not sure I want to know the things people don’t want to say out loud.”
“I talk a lot,” she said.
He grinned. “I know.”
She laughed. “Jerk.”
“What about you? Read minds or fly?”
“Read minds.” Her eyes met his again. “Especially yours.”
He was glad as hell that wasn’t possible. If she knew what he was thinking every time they were together, she’d probably run for the hills.
He shook his head as if she were crazy. “You don’t want to know what’s going on in here.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “It’s a lot of design details. Planning my next climbing trip. Some guilt and a lot of what-ifs.”
He wasn’t sure why he said that last part. It just sort of came out, and her expression turned downcast, and a little sad. She glanced at the console table behind them, to the frame he knew contained an image of him and his late brother. In the photo they were eight and ten, sitting on the edge of the tree house in the backyard of their childhood home. Even though Nathan had been two years older, Noah had always been big for his age, and they could have passed for twins, if it weren’t for the hair. When meeting new people it was always Noah’s ginger coloring that grabbed people’s eye first, but it had been Nathan’s outgoing personality that captured their attention.
Noah had liked it that way.
As if she sensed he didn’t want to pursue that topic, Mia surveyed the table and pointed at the two pieces left on his plate. “You gonna finish that?”
“Nah, I’m done.”
“I’ll take the rest to Claire.” She slid the wings into the container where she had three pieces remaining.
Claire, the third member of their childhood trio from the street where they’d all grown up, was the polar opposite of Mia. She’d joined the crew last—moving into a house across the street from Mia’s and Noah’s—and had brought a new level of excitement to the group. Where Mia and Noah had been pretty straitlaced, Claire added a layer of mischief that hadn’t faded as they’d gotten older.
“What’s she up to tonight?”
“Working. She won’t be home until late, but she likes a snack when she comes in.”
“What about the new girl?”