by Hart, Emma
I was expecting them to show up after they’d been on their run. I was going to get an earful anyway because of how nonchalant I was.
What was I supposed to do? Scream and shout? I’d already giggled after he’d introduced himself and I’d realized exactly who he was.
I was too shocked to do anything else, so I’d simply pulled the mask on and gotten on with it.
And wondered how soon was too soon to text him.
Was it too soon to text him now?
Oh, my God.
What was happening to me? I was turning into a fucking princess, wasn’t I? The handsome guy swooped in to save the day, and here I was, swooning.
No.
I was not swooning.
Reagan Wright did not swoon.
Ever.
I was not about to start over a tall, green-eyed, muscular, tattooed, firefighter.
Damn it.
Maybe a little.
Just enough to imagine him naked. It was a well-accepted fact that the quickest way to stop swooning was to get turned on.
At least it was in my world. Everyone else needed to get on board that train, because I’m telling you, it worked.
What would Noah look like naked?
I tapped my fingers against the side of my mug and stared out of the back window.
He had to have abs. Most guys didn’t have biceps out of a Men’s Health magazine unless they had the abs to go with it, which meant he also had the pecs and that tempting V that curved over a guy’s hips.
Did he have more tattoos? Or was it just his arm? Should I paint tattoos on there or was I just setting myself up for disappointment?
Wait.
I wouldn’t be disappointed. I was never going to see him naked.
Um, more naked.
Ahem.
No more tattoos. Just in case. I liked to be surprised now and then.
You know.
There was always the chance I’d wrangle him into bed. Or a bush. I really wasn’t that fussy.
Maybe not a bush. The branches could get scratchy. Not that I’d ever had sex in a bush.
I had some dignity.
Seriously. I did.
Two knocks at the front door pulled me out of my thoughts. As I’d suspected earlier, the cavalry had arrived, and it smelled like they came bearing food.
I looked at the bags. “Did you bring food?”
Halley nodded. “Grandma said that we were going to Hell if we didn’t.”
Ava put her bag on the counter. “Which she is an expert in, considering she’s wearing a black leather miniskirt to church.”
“Maybe she thinks God likes that.”
“Don’t.” Halley held up a hand. “Just… Abigail has lost control. I expect her to become an alcoholic any day now.”
“If she’s gone this long without succumbing, she’ll be fine.” I got up to help unpack but was quickly shooed back to sitting down. “I’m fine!”
I was sick of saying that now.
“Sit!” Ava demanded. “We’re gonna fix you some pancakes and you’re gonna tell us a little more about, well, that hot piece of ass who was in your room yesterday.”
“His name is Noah,” I said. Never mind that I’d just been undressing him inside my mind. “He sent me a picture of his cock and then saved my life.”
“That’s quite the apology.” Halley sniggered.
This was insufferable already. “Coincidence. It’s a coincidence.”
“Nothing in life is a coincidence.” Ava put a pot of strawberries on the counter and turned to look at me.
“Here we go,” I muttered, nursing my mug a little closer to me.
“I know you don’t believe in this stuff, but fate is a thing, Reagan. It exists. There are some things that happen that are against all reason and are completely inexplicable. I think you meeting Noah was one of those.”
Halley shook her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you buy that Kool-Aid.”
“There’s no other explanation for it,” Ava continued, completely oblivious to the fact Halley had a frying pan in her hand.
A frying pan she had no business holding.
“Ava,” I said.
“It was fate. Granted, your apartment burning down was a nasty side effect of that—”
She was kidding, right? She considered me being homeless as a ‘nasty side effect’ of fate? She needed help.
“—But it’ll all work out. He’s hot. He’s literally your dream guy.”
“Ava,” I said again as Halley set the frying pan on the stove.
“Sometimes the universe just has plans for us that we don’t understand, and that’s okay.”
“The universe needs to tell you to shut up!” I banged on the table. “Halley has a frying pan in her hand! I don’t want another fire!”
“Oh, crap!” Ava grabbed Halley and moved her away from the cooker before she plucked the pan from the hand of our kitchen-impaired friend. “You know you’re on strawberries duty. Reagan doesn’t need to go through any more trauma, thank you.”
Halley pulled a knife out of the block and raised her eyebrows. “You know what’s traumatic, Ava? You and your drivel about fate.”
I nodded along solemnly.
“Even though this is weird, and you may have a little hippy point…”
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
Back the fuck up.
“She does not have a point!” My voice was an octave too high. “Oh, my God, did you drink her Kool-Aid? What’s wrong with you? Are those morning jogs scrambling your brains?”
“It is weird, though.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder at me. “What are the odds?”
“I don’t know. I don’t do math.”
“I bet we could start a thread on Reddit and someone would figure it out,” Ava mused.
“We are not starting a thread on Reddit.” This was ridiculous. “It’s a coincidence. A really weird, slightly uncomfortable coincidence.”
“Does he think it’s weird?”
“I’d be alarmed if he didn’t.”
“So you’re still texting,” Halley stated.
I licked my lips. “I texted him complaining last night when you two told me to piss off.”
“Did he entertain your bullshit?”
“He did.”
They both turned and looked at me. With an eerie synchronicity, they both said, “Marry him.”
I blinked.
As if they hadn’t just gone otherworldly on me, they spun back around and got back to making pancakes.
They were weird.
Seriously.
Almost as weird as my situation with Noah.
“So, what are you going to do?” Halley asked, putting sliced strawberries into a small bowl.
I shrugged and looked down. I didn’t freaking know. It wasn’t every day one was put in this situation, was it? I doubted there was anything on Google about this, either.
It wasn’t really your run-of-the-mill situation.
“Why don’t you just go out with him?” Ava poured some pancake mix into the pan. “One date isn’t going to kill you.”
I wrinkled my nose up. “Because it’s…”
“She doesn’t know,” Halley sang, dropping more strawberries into the bowl with a flourish. A little too much flourish, if you asked me. “Reagan, who has her nose in everyone else’s relationship, doesn’t know what to do with her own.”
“It’s not a relationship.” I pushed my hair away from my face. “It’s two people who happened to meet each other in strange circumstances. That’s all.”
“Riiiight.” Ava flipped the pancake and eyed Halley. “Do we believe that?”
“We do not,” Halley confirmed. “But I bet—”
“No. You are not betting on me right now. Where’s the compassion? I’m homeless!” I wasn’t above a few dramatics. I think I’d earned the right to be dramatic in this situation and yes, I would use it to guilt the fuck out of everyone.
For the next few
days, at least.
It’d probably get old after that.
Although the look these two were giving me said they were already tired of it.
I wondered how much it was to buy two new friends…
Ava wiped her hands on a towel. “What are we betting?”
“Fifty bucks says Reagan sleeps with Noah at some point.”
They sucked.
“Why is it always fifty bucks? How many times do I have to tell you that I’m broke?” Ava complained. “I knew I shouldn’t have become friends with the rich kids in school.”
“Fine, twenty bucks.”
“That’s more like it.” Ava stuck out her hand. “I don’t think she will.”
“That’s right,” I said, pointing at Ava. “She’s got my back.”
She poured another pancake into the pan. “Uh… I’m only saying you won’t because she beat me to saying you will.”
“You bitches suck.”
***
NOAH: How’s Justin?
I wrinkled my face up. Apart from a shower, I’d spent all day in bed. Great-Aunt Bethel had about had a coronary when she’d come back from church and found me on the sofa watching TV.
I had a TV in my room. Never mind said TV was fifteen years old and couldn’t connect to the internet for Netflix—it was good enough, apparently.
ME: In the trash along with all my other teenage band posters. I can’t deal with eyes on me when I get changed.
I set my phone in my lap and picked up the remote to scroll channels. There was absolutely nothing on any of them, and I was honestly an inch away from texting my brother and asking him to bring me a real television.
I didn’t think Amazon Prime would get it here fast enough.
Also, I had no idea what made a good TV.
NOAH: I get that. The last time I stayed with my parents, it took me ten minutes to remove the teen-me posters from the room. They kept it as some kind of shrine.
ME: It’s weird. My brother’s room is the same. We all live in the same town. I’m not going to pop over and stay for the weekend.
NOAH: Yeah, I don’t have that excuse. My parents live in Maine.
ME: How the fuck did you end up here?
NOAH: Got on a raft off the Maine coast and drifted down like an explorer.
ME: You’re funny.
NOAH: That’s sarcastic, isn’t it?
ME: Hey, look at that. It CAN translate over text.
NOAH: LOL. I went to school in Charleston. Went home for a year and got pissed off with all the snow, so came back. Moved around a few times until I found somewhere I liked.
ME: Did you move to Creek Falls or nearby?
NOAH: Creek Falls. About six months ago. Which is when I started dating.
ME: I’d ask you how that’s going, but I already know it’s not very well.
NOAH: Ha!
NOAH: I work a lot. There’s always overtime available and I want to do work to my house, so I take it.
Was I… talking to someone who had their shit together? Holy hell.
ME: Wow. A guy who sends dick pics but actually has a career and a house.
NOAH: And sometimes makes bad decisions… Like sending a dick pic.
ME: We can’t all be perfect.
NOAH: Truth. Are you still on bed rest?
ME: Medically, no. Unofficially, yes.
NOAH: I’m sure she means well.
ME: She tried to wear latex pants to church today. She’s eighty. Eighty-year-old women who wear latex pants do not mean well.
NOAH: I guess it depends if you’re into eighty-year-old women who wear latex pants.
ME: If you tell me that you are…
NOAH: Will I break your heart?
ME: Totally shatter it. I may never recover from the pain.
NOAH: Tell me how you really feel.
ME: You really don’t want to hear that.
NOAH: Kinda do. It can’t be worse than me finding eight pairs of boxers under the cushion in my dog’s bed.
ME: …I don’t know what to say to that.
NOAH: There isn’t really anything anyone can say to it.
ME: True.
ME: Okay, fine.
ME: I’m fed up of being in bed. There’s nothing physically wrong with me. My mom is already insisting I speak to someone for my “mental” problems she’s sure I’m going to have. Nobody listens to me when I say I feel okay. I had to beg for thirty minutes earlier to take a shower. The purple walls in this bedroom are starting to give me a headache and if I don’t leave this house tomorrow, I’m going to have a meltdown.
NOAH: …I have an idea.
ME: What?
NOAH: What if I come over tomorrow? I saved your life, there’s no way they can deny me taking you for lunch.
ME: If you’re asking me on a date, you’re not being very clear.
NOAH: Reagan, you were just in a fire. I’m not asking you on a date. I’m simply trying to break you out of your prison for an hour or so.
ME: What makes you think my prison warden will agree?
NOAH: I saved your life. I’m hardly going to let you hurt yourself over a plate of fries and a strawberry milkshake.
ME: I suppose you can try.
NOAH: I’m pretty persuasive. Does your mom like flowers?
ME: She owns a florist business, so I’d say so.
NOAH: …I’ll think of something.
ME: Good luck with that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
REAGAN
The Great Escape
I had no idea how Noah thought he was going to charm my mother and great-aunt into letting me out of the house.
Monday morning was bright and warm—a fact I was only aware of thanks to the sun streaming through my window. It was a miracle I was allowed to use the toilet without Great-Aunt Bethel peeking through the crack in the door to watch me.
It was starting to get a little… unnerving.
Like, I wanted to call the police and report a stalker kind of unnerving.
I checked my reflection for the fiftieth time in the mirror. I wasn’t quite sure why I cared as much as I did. The last time he’d seen me, I’d looked like I’d, well, been in a fire.
Today, though, nobody would know by looking at me. My hair was no longer a dry, knotted mess thanks to a heavy slathering of an argan oil mask, and the black shadows that had been present under my eyes had been lightened thanks to plenty of sleep.
I glanced at my phone. I’d done it every ten seconds for the last few minutes. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d told Noah that I was about to get cabin fever. I needed to get out of this room and have some breathing space from my family.
I appreciated them. I honestly, really did, and I knew they were only doing what they thought was best for me, but hot damn, I needed some air.
And no, despite Great-Aunt Bethel’s quip that I should open a window, that wasn’t good enough.
A red truck rumbled into view, slowing as it approached the house. My stomach flipped as it stopped at the end of the driveway and the door opened and Noah jumped out. His black t-shirt clung tight to his muscular body, and his light denim shorts hinted at the muscle in his legs, too.
And probably his butt.
And I wasn’t gonna lie, I kinda hoped he’d turn around so I could get a shameless look at his ass.
As he knocked at the front door, I ran to my bedroom door and pulled it open so I could listen.
“Joanna? Who is it?” Great-Aunt Bethel called.
“I don’t know, Bethel,” Mom said in a tired voice. “I haven’t answered the door yet, have I?”
“Why are you taking so long? Anyone would think the door is halfway down the street.”
Yep.
Welcome to the madhouse, Noah. The straitjackets are in the closet to the left.
“Hello? Can I help you?” my mom said.
“Hi. Is Reagan here?”
There was a pause and then, “Yes.”
B
ut not just a yes. A long, drawn-out, suspicious yes.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Noah. She and I have a lunch date.”
This was charming my family? I think not.
“You do, do you?”
“What’s going on?” Aunt Bethel demanded. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“He says his name is Noah and he’s going for lunch with Reagan,” Mom replied.
“Reagan is on bedrest. Absolutely not.”
“Ma’am, I—”
All right. I had to put him out of his misery. He hadn’t started this well at all, and knowing Aunt Bethel’s track record, it wasn’t about to get better.
I got to the bottom of the stairs just as Aunt Bethel slammed the door shut in Noah’s face.
“Bethel!” Mom gasped.
“Oh, my God!” I cried, jumping down the last two steps. “Aunt Bethel! You can’t slam the door in people’s faces!” I darted past both of them and yanked the door open. “I’m so sorry.”
Noah’s lips twitched to one side. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Aunt Bethel.” I looked at her pointedly.
“What?” She jerked her chin up in defiance and crossed her arms over her chest, her bangles jingling against each other.
“Don’t you have something to say?” Honestly, teaching toddlers manners would be easier than convincing this old woman to use ones she already knew.
I assumed she knew them.
I hoped she knew them…
“Jesus,” Mom whispered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Do you know this man?”
“You say it like he’s a stranger from some back alley.”
“For all I know, he is.”
All right, I wasn’t exactly selling him either, was I? “Mom, this is Noah. Noah is the firefighter who carried me out of the apartment building.”
Her eyes went wide, and horror flashed across her face. She staggered backward, clutching her hands to her chest. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” she demanded of Noah.
Noah cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “Forgive me, ma’am, but that’s not usually how I introduce myself to people.”
“Oh, he’s a smartarse.” Aunt Bethel shoved in front of me and Mom and glared at him. “When did you meet?”