In seconds, we are one. In minutes, she tips back her head and loses herself. When she comes down from her high, eyes hooded and face dreamy, I stand with her in my arms and walk from the living room to the hallway. She points at the door on the left, and I carry her in.
I have not forgotten the curves of Ember’s hips. The contours of her arched back. The soft skin at the base of her neck. The red hair brushing against her creamy skin.
I could try for a hundred years to forget this woman, and it would be futile.
The saying is true.
You never forget your first love.
21
Ember
“Mmmmmm.” Noah’s moan reverberates through my back. He tightens his arms around my waist and pulls me closer, though I’m not sure it’s possible.
“I’d love to wake up like this every day,” he says, his voice making the little hairs on the back of my neck stand upright.
He shouldn't say things like that. This was a break from reality, a dip into the past.
It was fun though. Unexpected. When he stared at me in the open front door last night, daring me to tell him to go, I felt the old enchantment, invoking me to enjoy him for the short time I could have him. Time hadn’t lessened the magnetic pull. The only thing time had done was turn us into a man and a woman.
Rolling over, I drink in his bedhead and squinty-eyes. Without thinking, I lift one hand and trace his profile with my fingertips, starting at his temple and going down to his hips. Across his ribs is something the dark of the night kept from me.
Gaping down at the inked skin, my mouth falls open. “You got a tattoo.” The three-inch-high Sutton name stares back at me.
He glances down at himself. “I did.”
“Were you afraid you’d forget your last name?” I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
Noah grabs my hand and twists, showing the inside of my forearm. “Did you mistake yourself for a bird?
I snatch my hand away, laughing. I happen to love my newest tattoo. “It’s a dove. A symbol of purity. And love.” My hand returns to his hip.
“You haven't been too pure recently.” He peers down at my hand, where it sits on his hipbone.
The sheet covers him from the waist down, and it would be so easy to let my hand disappear under it. Instead my fingers bump bump bump their way up his rippled torso.
“I take it you’re still playing soccer?” His abs are enviable. His thighs are muscled. From his scapula to the bottom swell of his backside, he is all cut muscle and sinew.
Noah moves his head to the side and studies me.
“What?” I ask.
“You haven't searched for me on the internet once, have you? Not in all the time we’ve been apart.” The hurt is evident when his eyes drift down to the sheet between us.
“No,” I say, though I don't think he needs my answer. I don’t want to tell him why I haven’t kept tabs on him. “You haven’t looked for me, either.”
“You don’t have any social media profiles,” he argues. Which is true.
He rolls onto his side, tucking his hand under his head to prop himself up. I sit up, and when I do, the sheet falls away from me. Noah stares unabashedly at my breasts.
“Enjoying the view?” I smirk.
“Immensely.” He reaches for me, his hand cupping my left breast. “You’ve always been comfortable in your own skin. I loved that about you.”
Loved…past tense.
It’s good he said that. It’s a needed reminder of what we’re doing here. This isn’t a rekindling. It’s a fun twelve hours between two people who desperately needed a release.
He traces the swell of my breast with the pad of his thumb. “I tried out for Atlanta’s team a few weeks ago.”
Happiness is my first emotion. Sadness is my second. I can’t help it.
“How did it go?”
“Good,” he says, letting go of my breast and grabbing my hand. His stomach grumbles and he laughs, a stream of warm breath fanning my skin.
“Do you want breakfast? I usually eat fruit or oatmeal. I’m vegan now.”
“I’m definitely not telling Brody that.” Noah laughs at the look I’m giving him. “Don’t ask,” he says, waving one hand. He sits up suddenly, grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing me down on the bed. Moving over me, he rubs the tip of his nose along my jaw.
“I’m hungry for something else right now.”
“Me too.” I bite my lip and raise my eyebrows. He grins down at me, and it’s like the sun wants to shine from my chest. I love who I am when I’m with him. Wild and free, the Ember from his high school memories. Suddenly, I’m not worried about the fall-out from our trek down memory lane.
I’m all in, for as long as it will last. We used to believe we created magic when we were together. If this isn’t magic between us right now, then I don’t know what is.
I didn’t account for Sky. Didn’t even think about the possibility of my sister being in the kitchen when we walked out.
“Holy shit,” she whispers, frozen in place on a square tile halfway between the fridge and the small butcher-block island.
“Umm…” I search for words but come up empty. “Oops.” I make a silly, bared-teeth face.
“Hey, Sky. How are you?” Noah strides past, brushing against me as he goes. My toes curl as if just his touch cues up their muscle memory.
“Uh, fine.” She shakes Noah’s hand and peers past him, wide gaze settling on me. “Four years ago called. It wants Northmount’s resident soccer asshole back.” She points to Noah as she speaks.
Noah doesn't get mad. Or hurt. Or embarrassed. He laughs, a big chortle, bowl-full-of-jelly laugh. “I see the Dane spirit hasn't taken a hit since I left.”
Sky glares at him and hurries to me, grabbing my arm and yanking me down the hall. “What the fuck, Ember?”
“I…” My hands tangle in my hair. “I don’t know. He’s here to watch Brody get married, and I just…just…gave in. It felt good, okay?”
Sky gives me a look.
“Not just the sex. Everything. He’s…Noah. He came back.” I softly breathe the words.
I can’t take the pity in Sky’s face, so I look away.
“Ember?” Noah calls from the kitchen. He knows better than to come down the hall and find me. Sky might tear his head off. “Do you want a bowl of fruit?” I hear the faint suction sound of the fridge being pulled open.
“I’m making bacon and eggs,” he yells, when I don’t answer right away.
Smiling, I leave the hall. Sky follows.
Noah’s back is to me, his gaze on the contents of my fridge. Placing my hand on the small of his back, I rise on tiptoe to set my chin on his shoulder. “You couldn't make that if you wanted to. Those food items cannot be found here.”
“I had to get you back out here somehow. I have to leave soon.” Noah pulls his phone from his jeans’ pocket and looks at it. “I need to be at the church soon.”
“Are you leaving, then?” Sky asks.
Leaning back to see around the open fridge door, I shoot her a glare.
She’s sitting stiffly at the table we keep in the corner of the kitchen, her legs crossed at the ankle and her hands folded on the tabletop.
“I’ll make you breakfast,” I offer, fisting my hands in his T-shirt and pulling, so he backs up. Stepping into the space he vacated, I pull cartons of fruit from the bottom drawer.
Noah’s doubtful eyes never stray from me the entire time I’m putting together breakfast.
“What’s that?” he asks hesitantly as I pour a little coconut oil on the fruit mixture.
“Grease.” I smirk.
“Haha.”
I hand him the bottle and grab the cinnamon from a cupboard.
“Coconut oil?” His face is a cross between fear and having smelled something foul.
“Don’t knock it. It’s full of health benefits.” I grab a spoon, toss it together, throw a handful of slivered almonds on top, and give it to Noah.
>
He doesn’t say another word about it. In fact, he inhales the whole concoction, and when I hand him mine after I’m done, he finishes that too.
Sky hasn’t said much in the last ten minutes, but she breaks the streak when she asks, “Is graduation over?”
Noah nods. “Last weekend.”
“Does that mean you’re back for good?”
I look away. We haven’t discussed this. The question has been lurking in the recesses of my mind since the second I saw him, but I can’t bring myself to ask. The answer, no matter what it is, carries a heavy weight.
“I’m supposed to head back to Stanford tomorrow. My roommate left yesterday for South America, and our apartment is empty. I tried out for Atlanta’s MLS team, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.”
I close my eyes and shut out the room. I might as well be eighteen again, waiting to hear if he will keep chasing the carrot being dangled in front of him. In this analogy, the carrot is a dream, and the person dangling the dream is Noah himself, the part of him that needs the glory of the sport to feel successful.
Under the table, Noah squeezes my knee. I meet his eyes and his gaze intensifies, unspoken words swirling around in a frenzy. What is it he’s trying to say?
I’m sorry.
I already miss you.
This may have been a mistake.
Let's do things right this time.
Noah drops my gaze, stands, and clears all three of our bowls. The back of my chair catches my slumping body as I realize those are all things I want to say, and maybe things I want him to say.
“I have to go. Hair appointment.” Sky runs her hand through the blond locks that hang almost to her belly button. She closes the distance between our faces, until her nose is six inches from mine. “Are you going to be okay?” she whispers.
I roll my eyes, an of course I’m going to be okay gesture. Except, she knows me well enough not to buy what I’m selling.
Before we can go any further into this conversation, before she can lecture me like big sisters do, I gently push her by the shoulders and tell her to go before she’s late.
“Get more than a trim,” I say, making scissoring motions with my fingers. “Do something crazy. Change up your style.”
She frowns at me, but I can tell she’s considering my words. “We’ll see.” She backs away from the table, glancing at the sink where Noah stands, rinsing the bowls. “Will I see you at class this afternoon?”
I look over at Noah. “I’m not sure,” I say quietly. “But you should go no matter what.” Yoga has provided Sky with a grounding feeling, and taught her how to breathe when she starts sensing that familiar tightness in her chest. At first she would only go with me, then, slowly, she began taking classes on her own.
For a moment she watches me, then mouths, Good luck. In a normal voice, she says “Bye, love you.”
“Love you too,” Noah says, smirking.
Sky shoots daggers at him before taking her purse from the counter and leaving the room.
I hoist myself onto the counter beside the sink where Noah is working. He dries his hands and stands between my legs. Gripping my waist, his thumbs graze the top of my stomach.
“Why does she hate me?”
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I cock my head to the side and smile. “It’s a sister thing. She’s being protective.”
“She thinks this is bad? You and me, again?”
I nod. “She saw how upset I was the first time, that’s all.”
“You don’t have the market cornered on heartbreak when it comes to us.”
My eyebrows rise. “No?”
Noah grunts, a sound of disbelief. “How could you even think that? Of course not.”
He rests his forehead against mine. His eyes flutter closed, and I allow mine to do so also.
“Nobody has ever matched you, Ember. Nobody. I tried to forget you, but at some point I realized it was useless, because every person I met had one big fucking flaw. They weren’t you. Eventually I stopped trying to move on and focused only on soccer.” His words wash over me, warm on my face and fiery in my heart. “Your first love isn’t supposed to be your last, right? I tell myself that every time I think of you, but my heart won’t be talked into getting over you.” He stops talking , dragging in a ragged breath with his intense gaze on mine.
My breath. My heart. Where did they go? I think they’re having a party, rejoicing at what Noah has just said.
It would be so easy to let his words carry me away, and oh my god I want to. I pull back and search his face, trying to understand why he’s saying all this to me. When I come up empty, I ask “Why now, Noah?”
“Why not?”
“You’ve only come home for a wedding. You’re not staying.”
“I could,” he says with earnest. “I could go back, pack up all the things from my apartment, and leave. Tripp’s already gone. I don’t have anything to go back to.” Light brightens his eyes as he speaks.
How many times have I replayed a reunion? How many times have I fallen asleep wondering what it would be like to see Noah again? My stomach tips, excitement flickering deep within me. Could we have a second chance?
“I like the sound of it all, Noah. But your try-outs… We’ve been through this once before. Someone can call you back at any minute.”
He flicks his hand as if batting away a minuscule but annoying gnat. “It’s been too long. I don’t expect a call.”
The glimmer in his eyes decreases by a small fraction. It’s his dream and it might be over, so he’s mourning it the way he did four years ago, when he thought he wasn’t going to play in college. I wonder if it’s even worse now, because he’s an adult. If it had happened before college, he could’ve focused on doing something else instead of continuing to make his whole life about the sport.
Noah’s pocket buzzes. He pulls out his phone, only to silence it.
He captures the side of my head in a cupped hand. “Come to the wedding. Be my date.” His voice is urgent. “I have to go, but I don’t want to be without you. Will you come?”
“Won’t it mess up Alyssa’s seating chart?” I don’t know much about weddings, but Sky watches a reality TV show about a wedding planner, and I’ve picked up a few terms from it.
“I don’t know if she has one of those, and I don’t fucking care.” To prove his point, Noah retrieves his phone and presses two buttons. He watches me while he waits for someone to pick up.
“Brody, tell Alyssa I have a date today after all.”
Brody’s deep voice streams out of Noah’s phone, and it’s loud. Noah presses the end button and grins. “Problem solved.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I am.”
“I like crazy.”
“I know.”
He presses a kiss to my mouth, and I respond, wrapping my legs tighter around his torso. After a minute of noisy kisses and wandering hands, Noah pulls away. He sucks in a deep breath. “I better go. Brody will kill me, resurrect my body, and kill me again if I’m late for his wedding.” He steps away and helps me off the counter.
I walk him out, and he tells me where to be and what time.
“You better not stand me up for a third time,” he warns, his face stern.
I laugh and cross my heart. “I won’t. I’ll be the one in…” My closet flies through my head. I have no idea what to wear. I live in yoga clothes. “I’ll be the one in anything but white.”
Noah leans in for a quick kiss. “Thanks for narrowing it down.”
“See you soon,” I call after him.
He throws me a wave and a smile before climbing into his car and driving away.
As soon as he’s gone, I call Dayton. “No need to come pick up scattered pieces of Ember off the ground,” I say when he answers. “At least not until tomorrow.”
“Why?” His tone is suspicious.
“I’m going to his brother’s wedding with him this afternoon.”
“Ember—”
“Don’t.”
“Stop acting like you knew what I was going to say.”
Cradling the phone between my ear and my shoulder, I pick up cartons of berries and stick them back into the fridge. “You were going to tell me how a one-time thing is only a one-time thing, but a two-time thing is never a two-time thing. Am I right?”
“Well—”
“And you were going to say that a two-time thing makes a way bigger mess than a one-time thing.”
“Yes, but—”
“You were also going to say—”
“Stop interrupting me!”
I pour a fresh cup of coffee, sit at the table, and blow across the top of it. “Sorry.”
“I was just going to tell you that I’m coming over to help you get ready. You are terrible at doing your own hair.” He waits for my response, but I don’t need to see his face to know how pleased he is with his insult.
I sip my coffee. “Don’t be a drag, Dayton. Just be a queen.”
“Stop quoting Her Majesty.”
“I take it you’re not referring to Queen Elizabeth.”
“Not unless she wears dresses made from meat.”
I bark a laugh. I love how Dayton can banter, but I don’t have time for it right now. If I don’t put an end to it, he’ll never stop.
“Are you coming over?”
“Does my momma put sugar in her tea?”
My eyes roll upward even as a smile overtakes my face. “I’ve never met your mother, but I’m guessing she likes her tea sweet.”
“Of course she does. She’s a proper Southerner.”
“I’m getting off the phone now.”
“Yankee.” He practically spits the word.
“Is that an insult?”
“What do you think?”
“Bye, Dayton.”
The line goes dead. Dayton likes to hang up first. He says it makes him feel powerful.
Twenty minutes later he walks into my house holding a garment bag and a bottle of pink champagne. I never drink during the day, but I’m relieved to see the bottle. I need some liquid courage.
Magic Minutes (The Time Series Book 2) Page 16