by Laura Howard
I flinched at her casual reference, though she was completely sincere. To make matters worse, Danielle came back to the table right in the middle of her question.
“Oh, Danielle, did you want anything other than the tea?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“I think I'm all set,” Danielle said, looking at Noah with a confused expression. It was only then that her casual attitude made sense. Noah might have told her about me, but he hadn't said anything about us. Up until this exact moment, she’d had no idea we were ever more than friends.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” Jill said as she placed our bill on the table. Her ashen face told me she'd figured out the enormous mess she'd just created for us, and it didn’t surprise me when she hurried away.
“What’s going on here?” Danielle asked, tilting her head to the side. “Why would the waitress think you were a couple?”
I reached for another napkin.
“Uh, Kate and I used to be together,” Noah said. He pulled the collar of his shirt out a little and rotated his neck.
“You forgot to mention that part,” Danielle said, her eyes flashing.
“We haven't really talked about our past relationships,” he said with a grim smile.
“Were you just going to introduce me to her without ever saying anything?”
“Technically, this meeting wasn't planned,” I butted in, hoping to give Noah a chance to gather his wits.
“So, when were you two together?” she asked, ignoring me.
“We got together during our senior year of high school,'” Noah said.
“We lived together until last summer.” We answered her at the same time, and I froze when I realized how different our replies were.
“Oh, God,” Danielle said, rubbing her temples. “Do you still love her?” she asked Noah.
“You know, I'm actually glad we met this way,” I broke in before Noah could even hope to answer. A sick feeling took root in my stomach. “You're upset because you care about him. That’s a good thing. Noah and I have a complicated history, but I'm not here to steal him away from you. Our relationship fell apart, but we’re still friends.”
“Not so fast. What did that waitress mean when she mentioned losing a baby? What was that all about?”
“Let's not go there,” I said, my chest already raw with emotion.
“Oh, I think we should go there,” she said, her expression steely. “Noah?”
“Kate's right. Let it go, Danielle.”
“You two are unbelievable,” she said with a sneer. “I deserve to know the truth.”
“I got Kate pregnant in high school. The baby was born too early and we lost her. End of story.”
His dismissive account of such a monumental event cut me open, and I just sat there bleeding before them.
“Is that really all there is to it? Or is this something you hold over his head,” she said to me. “Something you use to make him feel guilty?”
I stood, picking up my bag to leave. “What's it to you? I tried to be civil because I figured you were important to Noah. But you've gone too far. This was my loss. Mine alone. You will never bring it up again.”
When I walked out of the cafe, the cool spring air chilled the tears spilling down my cheeks. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see Noah looking at me with a concerned expression.
“You're comforting the wrong girl,” I said. “Yours is inside.”
I tugged free of him and walked back to my car.
Chapter 3
I sat on the living room floor of my parents’ house in the dark with my knees tucked under my chin, crying for everything I'd lost. My brother. My child. Noah.
The tears eventually dried and I just sat on the floor remembering. The smile on Noah's face as he watched the fluttering heartbeat on the first ultrasound. Jack calling me Mama Kate when my parents weren't around. A knock on the door brought me back to reality.
I pulled myself up off the floor, thinking Ben would be in for a surprise when he saw me. Not because of the tiny tank top and pajama bottoms I was wearing, but because my eyes were undoubtedly red and swollen. Under normal circumstances, I wasn’t exactly the emotional type.
When I opened the door, Noah was standing there. He pushed past me, up the split entry staircase and into the center of the living room.
When he turned around, he stared hard into my eyes. “It wasn't just your loss.”
“What?”
“The baby. She wasn't just your loss. So stop fucking erasing me from everything.”
“You came here to yell at me?” I said, even though I was actually the one doing the yelling.
“You know what I'm talking about. I'm sick and tired of your refusal to realize I suffered, too. That my heart broke right along with yours.”
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms as I glared at him. “Are you done?”
“No, those are my pajama bottoms.”
I whipped the pants off and threw them at him.
“There, happy?”
I realized I was standing in front of him wearing nothing more than a skimpy tank and undies.
“And…now I'm half-naked,” I said. After a second, I started to laugh, the insanity of the situation breaking through my sadness.
“Yes, you are.” He started laughing right along with me.
“Here, put these back on,” he said, passing the pants to me.
I snatched them and pulled them back on.
“You were sitting here all alone here in the dark,” he said, tucking a strand of my messy hair behind my ear.
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I said as I turned away from his touch.
“Where are your parents?”
“They're all at the lake,” I said.
“Mind if I turn on the light?” he asked.
“Do whatever you want. I'm going to go splash water on my face.” I ran upstairs and he followed me.
When I came out of the bathroom, Noah was walking around my bedroom. It was like a time capsule—my parents had left it untouched after I moved into my college dorm freshman year.
He paused for a moment at our Winter Ball picture sitting on my bookshelf. He ran his finger along the length of my white sequin dress.
He moved on to the little wooden box with the cross on top and rested his hand on the cover. Inside the box was a tiny pink hat and a lock of pale blonde hair.
“She would have been about four now,” he said.
The thought nearly brought me to my knees. “Things would have been so different,” I said, grabbing the doorjamb for support.
He turned around to face me. “They would have been amazing.”
I shrugged and averted my gaze, not able to look at him in that moment. “Maybe it’s better this way. It would have been too hard if we weren't together.”
“We would've stayed together.”
I couldn't play that game. I turned to walk back downstairs, flicking off the light switch as I passed it. “I think our story is best left in the past,” I said, my hand still on the wall.
“I disagree,” he said, reaching out to grab my wrist. He pulled me back into his arms and pressed his mouth to mine.
My lips and body remembered him, and they responded on cue, as if ecstatic to finally return home after a long journey. But my mind remembered everything, too. And everyone.
“Noah, we can't.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Danielle,” I said.
“I broke things off with her,” he said between kisses.
“But you wouldn't have...”
“Please,” he said. “I need this. I need you.”
I couldn't say anything else. I didn't want to.
Noah backed me up until the crease of my knees hit the little twin bed. With the light from the hallway as our only illumination, his face was all in shadows. It was like we were back in time, teenagers fooling around again in my childhood bedroom.
He kissed me hungrily, his hands ex
ploring my body. My breath quickened as his lips trailed down my jaw to my neck. I ran my hands up his back, following the smooth, deliciously familiar contours to his neck.
His fingers skimmed under the thin material of my tank top, lighting my skin on fire as he dragged the shirt up over my head in one smooth movement. Wanting so badly to feel his naked chest against mine,
I started unbuttoning his shirt, frustration making my fingers shake. He shrugged it off, then leaned down to trail his fingers down my ribcage and over my breasts, followed by his lips.
I threw my head back, arching to force more direct contact between my chest and his mouth. He gently pushed me down until I was lying on my back, bare and exposed. Yearning for him.
I grew impatient and wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him to me.
He knelt on the bed. “I still know your body so well. Let me show you.”
He pulled down my pajama bottoms, lifting me slightly to take them off. I undid the button of his khakis, using my hand to tug down one side of them and my foot to pull them off completely, boxers and all.
He lowered us back down and gently caressed my thigh as he pushed it aside, creating space for himself. As he settled between my legs, he kissed me.
I was open and ready, boiling in anticipation. He stopped kissing me for long enough to look into my eyes as he gently eased himself inside. The tightness hurt, which didn't go unnoticed.
“Kate...” he said softly. “When?”
“It's been...a while,” I said, trying to bring his lips back to mine. I sensed his excitement, but he kept it in check as he slowly moved inside me.
“Mmm...how long is a while?” I knew what he wanted to hear. The truth of exactly how much he still meant to me.
“You are a sick individual,” I said, barely able to speak.
“Did I ever mention how much your sarcasm turns me on?” he said as he began picking up the pace.
Someone else might have found that weird. “I missed you,” was all I was able to say. I buried my face in his neck, tasting his sweat on my tongue.
“I missed you too, baby,” he said, caressing my cheek and tilting my head back so I had to look at him. I shivered, knowing he needed me to look into his eyes and acknowledge what he was doing to me.
His words and the passion in his gaze sent me past the point of no return. I arched my back, gripping his arms with my last thread of control. My body trembled just as he shuddered deep inside of me.
When I woke up, I had to separate dream from reality. I'd been dreaming of a certain tingling sensation between my legs. But as the fog lifted from my brain, I realized the tingle wasn't just a particularly pleasant dream. It was a very real sensation from the very real man pressed behind me.
“I've had this dream before,” I said softly. “It leads to heartache.”
Maybe I was a pessimist. Maybe I just couldn't accept happiness. But I wasn’t an idiot.
I loved Noah. I knew he loved me. The trouble was the unresolved issues between us. We had been brought back into each other’s lives by a tragedy, not by choice. Tonight had been a mistake. An amazing mistake. But a mistake nonetheless.
“Could you feel this in your dream?” he asked, showing me just how awake he was.
“Put that thing away before you poke someone's eye out,” I said, closing my eyes and scooting forward.
He stroked the bare skin of my shoulder with his fingertip.
“Come on,” he said. “It's been seven months.”
“I doubt you've been a saint the whole time,” I said, secretly enjoying his touch.
“Pretty damn close.” He replaced his fingers with his lips, planting slow kisses from my shoulder down to my neck.
“Can you turn on the lamp?” I asked.
“Sex with the lights on. Nice.”
“You are way too confident.”
He flicked on the light. I grabbed a T-shirt from the floor and pulled it on before heading to the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking. And brushing my teeth.”
When I came back, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my clasped hands.
“Would you mind doing your thinking down here?” he said, pulling me onto my back and wrapping me in his arms.
"Are you really going to let me think?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"If it means you're going to start regretting what we just did, I won't," he said pushing my hair off my shoulder.
"We'll eventually need to figure out what this means," I said.
"You know what it means."
"But what if this just messes everything up again? We were trying to be friends again."
"Can't we be friends and lovers? I think we've done that before."
"That didn’t work out so well for us in the past," I said.
"So were you planning to just have your way with me a couple times, then leave me?" he asked, trying to be funny.
"We only did it once," I said.
"Are you going anywhere right now?" he asked, and I could practically hear his grin.
"You are an idiot."
"And you are gorgeous. Let's take this off." With a swift movement he pulled the shirt off.
"I'm not ready to have “the talk” right now. But we have to eventually."
"We'll talk about it in the morning. Okay?"
"So now can we go back to bed?" I asked, feeling tired.
"Happy to oblige."
He kissed me and ran his hands down my back. When he started moving against me, I realized something with a jolt and pushed him off.
"You are such an idiot," I said, sitting up.
"I enjoy your sarcasm, but calling me an idiot is not my idea of foreplay."
"You didn't use a condom. What's the matter with us?" I punched him lightly on the chest, as if to punctuate my point.
"You're not on the pill anymore?" he asked.
"Remember what I said about not having sex in months? Did you expect me to just stay on it? Do you always expect the girl to take care of it?"
"I've been very safe, for your information. It's just something about me and you.”
"Okay, this cannot happen again. I cannot get pregnant," I said, my head spinning. My life had already taken a major upheaval in the past week. How could I have been so foolish?
"Would it be so bad if it was with me?" he asked.
I looked down at him, mouth agape. "That’s not the problem, and you know it."
He chuckled.
"I'm glad I amuse you.”
"It's not that. I just remembered promising you it wouldn’t be the last time you carried my child."
"That's not funny."
"You're not going to get pregnant," he said.
"And you know this for a fact?" I said, raising my eyebrows.
"No, I'm just optimistic. Besides, I vowed it would be on purpose the next time. "
That made me pause. Noah had a knack for saying things that melted my heart at absolutely the worst times.
He sat up and placed little kisses on my shoulder as I counted the days of my cycle. I exhaled. "We're safe. I'm getting my period in three days."
“See?”
I ignored him, still lost in thought. “I need to get an IUD.”
He groaned and gripped my hips as he kissed the spot between my shoulders.
“Not for you,” I said before he could get the wrong idea. “I just don't want to ever feel like this again.
“I'm really sorry I didn't think about being safe,” Noah said, and when I glanced at him, his eyes shone back at me with complete sincerity.
“We're both guilty,” I said, reaching my hands up to rub my face.
“Hey, what's this?” he asked. His fingers lightly caressed my lower back, and I froze when I realized what he was talking about.
“It's nothing. I'm tired, I want to get some sleep,” I said, trying to turn so he could no longer see it.
“No, you got a tattoo. I want to see,” he said,
holding me firmly in place while he traced the letters on my back that spelled out “January.”
“It's just something symbolic for me, you probably wouldn't understand. It's no big deal.”
“No, I remember. The baby. I said we should name her January, because our first time was in January.”
He reached over and turned the lamp off. His face was serious now as he pulled me to him. I instinctively wrapped my arms around him as he proceeded to make me forget again.
“Is it morning yet?” I asked, opening my eyes and realizing it wasn't dark anymore.
“No, go back to sleep,” Noah said.
“Avoiding something?”
“No, I'm just enjoying this.”
“What?”
“You, in my arms.”
“Come on, let's get up,” I said, climbing out of bed. “I'll make you breakfast.”
He leaned back on his elbows. “Wow, sex and breakfast. You're a pretty good host, Kate.”
“Don't get used to it,” I said, walking over to the closet and pulling out the silk robe my grandmother had bought me a few years ago on her trip to China. I’d never worn it before, and this seemed as good a time as any.
Down in the kitchen, Noah sat on the counter watching me while I made eggs. He was only wearing his boxers, which was a constant source of distraction.
"So, when are we having this conversation?" I asked, turning an omelet.
"When my stomach is full. You really know how to kill the mood."
He was avoiding the talk.
"I'm not the bad guy here," I said, resigned that I would have to be the one to make him face the facts.
"Stop it. You're talking about it." There was real dread behind his words.
"Whatever."
The knock on the door startled both of us.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Noah asked.
“People have been coming over at all times, unannounced, since Jack died. You should go put some clothes on.”
“Are you embarrassed about what we did?” he said, giving me a teasing smile. But he got up and headed upstairs while I went to answer the door.
Ben stood in the doorway in sunglasses and a sleek moto jacket. He held up two coffees and a little white pastry bag.