by Laura Kaye
Kate almost spewed lettuce across the table. “You wench. How long have you been sitting on this?”
Laughing, Kristina took a bite of salad, and then said, “I met the guy last night.” She recounted the story and described Ethan in vivid detail.
“Mmm. He sounds delish,” Kate said.
“Yeah, he is,” Kristina said.
Kate’s gaze narrowed. “So why don’t you seem more excited?”
“No, no. I am,” she said, knowing before Kate even said anything that she wasn’t going to believe her.
“Kris, I love ya and all, but I’ve seen you excited. And this ain’t it.”
Kristina’s shoulders fell as she debated exactly what to say.
“Oh, no. I smell Noah Cortez on this story,” Kate said, pointing at her with her fork.
“Yeah,” Kristina said. “Okay, here’s the short version of the story. Noah and I made out twice in the past week, both times accidentally, and then when Ethan asked me out, Noah flipped out. But that was after he insisted we go back to being just friends.” She busied herself with a big bite of salad.
“How do you make out accidentally?” Kate asked, gaze narrowed.
On a sigh, Kristina launched into the longer version with all the gory details.
“Do you want to be more than just friends?” Kate finally asked.
Kristina set down her slice of pizza. “I don’t know. On the one hand, I do, because no one has ever made me feel like Noah does. On the other hand, he’s my oldest friend, and all the weirdness this week proves that we could really hurt our friendship if we tried for more and it didn’t work out. That scares me. A lot. Not to mention that he’s pulled back every time.”
“But he’s also the one who initiated both times. Right?” Kate asked. Kristina nodded. “And he freaked out over your date. Clearly, he wants you. He just hasn’t decided that he can have you.”
“Maybe,” Kristina said.
“Tell me this. Did you accept the date to make him jealous?”
“No,” Kristina said immediately. “I did think of Noah when I was talking to Ethan, but only about the fact that since Noah wanted to remain friends, it wouldn’t hurt to go out with Ethan. It never occurred to me that Noah would react so badly, because he’d been the one putting on the brakes.”
They ate in silence for a long moment.
“Here’s the thing,” Kate finally said. “The reality is, you guys have already gone there whether you want to admit it or not. It’s gonna be hard to take the sexy times out of your relationship now that they’ve already been there. You know I was always skeptical that you two could be so platonic.”
Kristina sat back in her chair. “I know, but we were. Truly.”
“So what changed?”
“He did,” Kristina said without hesitation. “All his injuries, having to retire from the Corps. I get the feeling Noah’s hurting a lot more than he’s letting on. Given all that, maybe I’m the only one he feels like he can be himself around? I don’t know.”
“What about you?” Kate asked. “Have you changed, in regards to him?”
Kristina gave the question some thought, because she really hadn’t asked that of herself before now.
Finally, she said, “I didn’t think I had. But maybe…his pushing me away all these months, after being gone so long, made me want to be around him even more. And, physically, he’s also changed a lot over the past few years—and it made me look at him more as a man and not just my best friend.”
“You’ve changed too, you know,” Kate said. “Physically, I mean. When we first met in college, you always covered your body up with oversized clothes. Now you’re more confident. You wear things that flatter and show off your curves. Confidence is sexy. He’s probably reacting to that, too.”
Had she changed so much? Kristina hadn’t thought so, but she couldn’t deny that there was some truth to Kate’s observation. “I guess so,” she said. “I realized something else, too. I don’t think I’ve been giving the guys I date a fair shot—”
“You don’t. You compare them all to Noah.” Kate raised her glass and took a drink.
Kristina nearly swallowed her tongue. “What? How did you…why do you…”
“Oh, honey. I could’ve told you that years ago,” Kate said.
Kristina ate a big bite of pizza, giving her thoughts a moment to gel. How could it have been so blatant to Kate when Kristina had only just realized it for herself? “So, then, what should I do? Should I push Noah to try for more or stick with just friends?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Kate said, a sympathetic look on her face. “You gotta decide what would be harder to live with—not going for it and him eventually falling in love with someone else, or going for it and it changing things between you.”
“Yeah,” Kristina said, her stomach falling at the idea of either outcome. “The question is, how do I make that decision?” And did she have to make it before her date with Ethan?
A flash of bright light. And then the blast hit Noah in the chest, lifting his innards and slamming them back down again. Voices echoed somewhere beyond the piercing ringing in his ears. His chest hurt. His back. His head. Like he’d just gotten kicked by a horse, if a horse had a foot that could cover his whole body.
Noah tried to push himself up, but the world was spinning. His eyes were blurry, flashing, totally fucked up. That ringing made him want to puke.
“Fender!” he called, though his tongue was thick in his mouth. With sand. With blood. The guy had been right next to him. Where was he? “Fender!”
Noah gasped and opened his eyes. For a long moment, the scene in his head was interwoven with the reality of his dark room. And then he was all there. In the quiet stillness of his bedroom, safe in Virginia.
Quiet except for his rasping breath.
Wetness on his face. Noah wiped at his forehead, his eyes, his ears. In a panic, he went for the light. His gaze went right to his hands.
Clear moisture covered his palms. Sweat.
Not blood. It wasn’t blood.
Dull pain pulsed through Noah’s skull. As he pushed out of bed, the room spun around him. The pain clamped down harder, heavier. Noah groaned and weaved through his bedroom door and into the bathroom. He lost the rest of the vision he had in his left eye as wavy lines appeared behind his right.
Fuck, migraine.
He’d had just enough time to complete that thought before he was heaving his guts into the toilet.
Not that there was much to heave. He’d eaten almost nothing yesterday, but that didn’t stop his body from trying. When the nausea finally passed, he took some meds and dragged his ass back to bed, where he stayed for almost twenty-four hours until the pain finally released him from its prison.
Not that he ever truly got free.
When he could finally pull himself from bed, he was surprised to find it was early Tuesday morning. And he was equally surprised to find that he had no messages or missed calls from Kristina.
Fuck.
How are you? Not letting himself debate it, he let the text message fly her way.
In the kitchen, Noah stumbled through making the coffee, then half lay on the kitchen counter while he waited for it to brew. Slowly, the fragrant brown liquid filled the pot, and Noah grabbed a coffee cup from the cabinet. There was nothing special about the plain dark blue ceramic he’d picked out, except that it made him remember shopping with Kristina.
They’d had a good day together. Normal. Easy.
Then he’d gone and fucked it all up by getting jealous over her date.
And, holy hell, he’d been…disproportionately angry. The news of her date had just taken him by such surprise. And she’d looked so excited.
Like a fucking child, Noah had been pissed because he wasn’t the one to make her look that way.
And then she’d called the guy hot. It was like Noah was a bomb and someone had clipped the red wire. He’d been all but ready to explode.
Rig
ht up until she announced she was leaving.
By then, it was too late. His shit had ruined their evening. And she’d rebuffed every one of his admittedly stilted efforts to get them talking again.
Noah poured the coffee and took a nice long sip.
All his anger had achieved was to piss Kristina off and alienate her. Because she was still going out with Ethan the Dickhead Neighbor, wasn’t she?
He poured a bowl of cereal and sat heavily at the table. He hadn’t eaten since dinner on Sunday and, despite his generally poor appetite, he was fucking starving.
Beneath his keys and wallet, Noah spied the course catalog Kristina had given him before she’d left on Saturday night. He’d given it a long enough glance after he dropped her off to see that it was a listing of art therapy courses—music, dance, theater, studio art, music, writing, and more.
It had only taken an additional two seconds for his brain to say no fucking way.
Noah sighed. He’d tried the therapist. Tried keeping it all bottled up inside. He’d tried it his way and was falling the fuck apart. Maybe it was time to try something else?
Giving the flyer a second look, he flipped through the pages between bites of frosted flakes.
Buzz.
Relief flooded through Noah’s gut as he reached for his cell. Kristina. Finally. He thumbed on the screen.
Want to tell me about this hole in your shower? I’m standing here with a tile guy you scheduled…
Not Kristina. His father.
“Fuck,” Noah said. With the migraine, he’d totally forgotten about the appointment he’d made. He’d meant to get up and over to his parents’ place before they knew what was going on. “Fuck.”
I’m sorry, he typed back. I was trying to take care of it without bothering you. He sent those messages and stared at the screen.
If Noah didn’t explain that he’d forgotten because of the migraine, he’d just look like an inconsiderate asshole. If he did explain about the migraine, he’d have to admit he wasn’t doing well to his father.
Rock, meet hard place.
Be right over, he texted. Then the truth trumped his need to make everyone think he was fine, just fine, thank you very much. Had a shit migraine for the past two days and lost track of time. I’m sorry.
Noah inhaled the rest of his cereal and threw on some clothes, and then he stood in front of his bathroom counter which held so many pill bottles it looked like a pharmacy had vomited all over it.
One by one, he downed the battery of meds he had. For depression. For anxiety. For his equilibrium issues. When he’d choked them all down, he collected his keys and wallet and then, without thinking too much about why, he grabbed the listing of courses, too. Ten minutes later, he pulled into his parents’ driveway behind the contractor’s service truck.
He found his father standing at the island in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hand and the newspaper spread out in front of him.
“Good morning,” his dad said in what sounded like a neutral tone. But Noah knew that was really an invitation for him to come clean about the damage he’d done—and why he’d done it.
“I’m sorry,” Noah said, bracing his hands on the far side of the island.
Dad pressed his lips together and gave Noah a sad look. “I don’t care about the hole, Noah. I care about you. I saw the cuts on your hand and I let it go because it’s clear you don’t like being pushed to talk, but now that I know how it happened, I have to ask—”
“It was the fireworks.” Noah dropped his gaze to the cook-top stove in between them. “At the Memorial Day party.” He shrugged, searching for the words, and debating just how much to reveal. He didn’t need to bring his fuck-up with Kristina into it, that much was for sure. “They set off a full-on flashback. I didn’t know where I was. Actually, that’s not true. I was in Iraq, only, I wasn’t. Afterward, I lost it. I’m sorry.”
His Dad came around the counter to stand right next to Noah. “I didn’t even think of how the fireworks might affect you.”
Noah chuffed out a laugh that held no humor whatsoever. “Me either.”
His mind was so damn fucked, and the weight of it was just…too much to bear. He yearned for a release, just a way to lift a little of it from his shoulders, even if only for a short while.
“Talk to me, son.”
Pressure clamped down on Noah’s chest and a knot lodged in his throat. “I’m having flashbacks. Nightmares. Anxiety all the time.”
“What does your therapist say?”
Noah shook his head. “Talking makes it worse.”
His father’s shoulders fell. “You’re not going.” It wasn’t a question.
“Not for over a month,” Noah whispered.
Sighing, Dad put his arm around Noah’s shoulder. Every one of Noah’s muscles braced against the urge to curl into his father’s chest like he’d done when he was a little boy. “You need some way to let this out, Noah.”
The echo of his own thoughts—his own yearning—brought a sharp, unexpected sting to the backs of Noah’s eyes. Blinking fast, he nodded. “I know. Kristina gave me this.” He pulled the rolled-up blue pages from the back pocket of his jeans and spread them out on the counter in front of them. “I was thinking…maybe…if I tried something that didn’t make me talk…”
His dad leafed through the pages.
An embarrassed restlessness flooded through Noah as he waited for a reaction from one of the men he admired most in the world. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s probably stupid. I’m not an artist. And I don’t really see how painting a picture could help—”
“Give it a try. Kristina could be on to something here.” His dad looked up at him, his expression full of rock-solid support and encouragement. “Hell, give a couple a try until you find the right outlet. And stop beating yourself up.” The older man cupped Noah’s cheek in his big, calloused hand. “You’ve suffered a traumatic brain injury. The doctors said it’d be a while before you got to whatever your new normal is. Don’t make that any harder on yourself than it already is.”
A fast nod, and then Noah had to dash his fist against a little moisture at the corner of his eye. Damnit.
“Now, you good to hang while the tile guy finishes up? He didn’t think it would take long to patch, but I should head out to work.” His dad turned away to clean up his coffee and paper.
“Yeah, I’m good. And I’m covering the bill.”
“Yes, you are.” His dad winked as he gathered his things. “I’m always here for you, Noah.”
Noah nodded. “Thanks. For everything.”
“Yup. Lock up on your way out,” his dad called as he headed down the hall.
All alone, Noah checked on the tile guy’s progress and then settled at the island with the list of art therapy classes. He ruled the theater and writing classes out right off the bat. Both seemed too much like talking, one thing he knew for sure didn’t work for him. Same for singing and songwriting classes. Next, he ruled out all the dancing classes. He just couldn’t see himself taking a class called Soldiers Who Salsa. That mostly left various studio art classes, but since he knew next to nothing about art, he wasn’t sure how to judge what he might like.
Part of the description of a class called War Graffiti caught his eye.
According to a recent CBS 60 Minutes story, when Vietnam veterans came back, it took 8 to 10 years before they succumbed to homelessness. Now, within a year of separation from the Armed Forces, our warfighters are on the street, homeless. Though some of them are victims of our economy, these staggering statistics point to the increased occurrence of invisible wounds such as TBI and PTSD.
God, Noah didn’t want that to be him.
Did these classes really help people so much?
He read on, and came to a class called Masks of War. It was aimed at active-duty service-members and veterans suffering from PTSD, TBI, and other psychological health concerns. Over the course of four Saturday mornings, they’d make masks that illustrated hidden
feelings. That last part of the description made Noah grimace a little, but the masks sounded kinda cool. And it was only four classes. The instructor’s bio listed him as a vet, too. Those parts sounded decent.
What the hell.
He carried the flyer into his parents’ study and booted up the desktop computer. Before he gave himself the chance to second-guess it, he registered for the mask class.
When he was done, he found himself wanting to tell Kristina. He picked up his cell and found he had a text from her.
Okay. You?
Hmm. He knew Kristina-speak after all these years, and okay was not actually okay.
Which meant she was upset. And it was his fault.
Noah had to find a way to make things right between them. Pronto.
Chapter Ten
Kristina came out of school and stepped into the warm June sun. She felt restless and kinda down. And she didn’t have to think too hard to figure out why.
The fight with Noah. And the fact that he hadn’t bothered to call or text her until this morning.
The three days of silence had her repeatedly analyzing why she’d agreed to go out with Ethan. Maybe she had accepted to make Noah jealous? Maybe even unconsciously? Either way, she felt like crap about the silence that had been between them ever since.
Maybe she should pick up some dinner to take over to his place…
“Bye, Miss Moore,” two girls from her fourth period class called, giggling and whispering conspiratorially between themselves.
“Bye, girls. Have a good night,” she said, giving them a smile. Not even dinner and drinks with Kate on Sunday night had cheered her up. At least, not all the way. Because Kate’s question had been weighing on her mind, and she still didn’t have a good answer to it.
Kristina rounded the corner of the building and glanced toward the parking lot.
Noah.
Leaning against the driver’s door to her car. He hadn’t spotted her yet, so she took a minute to drink him in. He wore blue jeans and a plain black T-shirt and a pair of bad-ass black sunglasses. Together with his dark hair, he was tall, dark, and handsome personified.