Adorable.
Melts my heart and I ask one more time, “Are you sure you don’t need me to help you?” My mother didn’t teach me to sit idly by while someone waits on me hand and foot, unless it’s at a restaurant, and even then, occasionally, I feel guilty.
“I owe you one,” he says simply.
“You owe me nothing.”
“After those articles came out—”
“Noah, that was not your fault. Those things they wrote about us were not your fault—or mine. You have to let it go.”
I have. Why can’t he?
“What is the point of staying upset about it?” I pop a piece of strawberry in my mouth and chew. “It will drive you nuts.”
He rests both hands on the counter, leaning forward. “Dwelling on things seems to be my thing.” He shrugs, standing up straight once the microwave dings. “I have a history of not…letting things slide. They…” He pauses again. “Weigh on me.”
I study him: his face, the determined set of his mouth, the frustrated slashes of his brows.
I want to tell him that worrying and letting things weigh you down does no good. Those two things do not change the outcome of any situation—they only stress you out. Instead, I pick up the pizza on the plate he’s set in front of me and bite down into the thick slice, chewing thoughtfully. Wipe my mouth with a napkin and chase it down with water.
Noah is only wearing boxers, a pair he threw on after strutting back inside the house naked and I can’t help my eyes from straying up and down his toned chest. Arms.
My mouth salivates and not from the salty pizza sauce, as I sit here in just the t-shirt I arrived in, and panties, of course, the chair cushion under my ass coarse against my smooth skin.
I shift in my seat, still eyeballing the prime young man in front of me who seems oblivious to my ogling.
I’ve noticed that about him—Noah is modest and seemingly unaffected by the fame and notoriety, and not just for show. He truly only seems to want to play baseball and doesn’t care about anything that goes along with it.
Like this massive house.
“Can I be weird for a minute?” I ask, setting down the remainder of my pizza. “Would you show me around the house?”
I love looking at houses online and on Instagram—decorating is my passion—and it appears someone very well paid came and designed Noah’s interior. It doesn’t fit his personality, but that is none of my business.
Still, when he agrees to show me around and I hop off the stool, I can’t help, but commenting, “This really does not fit you at all.”
Cold metals. Cold stone. Cold appliances.
“What does fit me?” He walks me to an office near the front of the house, carpet on the floors and framed posters on the walls, trophies and baseball paraphernalia. I spot my grandpa’s cards on a shelf, still in their plexiglass boxes.
“Definitely something cozier. I feel like…your mom should have had a hand in helping you out and not a professional.” I lift a heavy, silver paperweight from the desktop that had to have cost over five hundred dollars. “I love this office, Noah. Bet you spend most of your time here.”
“Yeah and in the loft. That’s upstairs.”
So, not the big room with stiff couches across the hall from here?
Figures.
I hate rooms like that—spaces that get no use because they’re fancy and for company. Why would a designer buy him ridiculously expensive sofas he is never going to use and are just for show?
Money.
Another user.
No wonder he is so jaded sometimes.
He walks me out of his office and we go up the winding staircase; a loft is at the top, with an overstuffed sofa and a beanbag chair. It looks like it’s meant for kids, but the imprint in the couch tells me this is where he spends his time.
I peer into a guest bathroom. A guest room. Another guest room. Another guest room. Another guest bathroom. There is a den with an air hockey table and I blurt out, “I just don’t understand all these random rooms? None of this makes sense.”
Noah shrugs and I clamp my mouth shut, not wanting to criticize.
“And this is my bedroom.”
I take a step inside.
Large windows at the back of the room. A sitting area, two chairs and an ottoman flanking a fireplace. Your usual bedside tables. Lamps.
Giant bed. “I would need a ladder to climb up on that thing,” I tease, walking over and pressing my ass against the mattress to demonstrate. It hits high on my waist.
Noah walks over, two hands grasping my hips as he hauls me up, setting me on the edge. “See? You can get up just fine.”
He kisses me.
I kiss him back.
He presses into my spread legs; I wrap those legs around him, tugging him in closer, loving the heat from his body, wanting it on top of me.