Never Let Go

by C. M. Stunich

  “I am, but I'm sitting at the bottom of the driveway.”

  “Why?” she asks, sounding perplexed. I wonder if I'm being ridiculous here, reading too deeply into things. Maybe Noah has a new girlfriend? Maybe she's here and waiting to meet me? No. No. That wouldn't be like Noah at all. But then again, it's been a year since we saw each other in person. I've had a boyfriend this whole time, one that Noah's perfectly aware of. Why should I expect him to be single still? He's not going to wait around for me like he did for Never.

  “Noah's at the cabin.” I lick my lips and wait for her to say something, to ask me why I'm being such a weirdo, why I'm sitting at the bottom of the hill with the lights off and beads of sweat collecting on my forehead. She doesn't. She gets it which makes it just that much more difficult. If Never thought I was being silly, I might be able to convince myself that she was right.

  “It's going to be okay, Zella. He doesn't bite.” She pauses and I can hear the sound of a baby gurgling in the background. Little Noah. I can't wait to meet him. I've got to remember all the good things I have in my life. Even if the rest of my life has gone to shit, there are some things I can look forward to. Hey, maybe moving back here is a blessing, right? I can spend time with Little Noah and Autumn, make myself a fixture in their lives. “Zella, the other day, I spoke to Noah. He knows that we're never going to happen. He can see how much I love Ty.” She pauses, and I hear the jangle of bracelets on the other end of the line. “No. I am talking to my sister right now. Fuck off.” I find myself smiling despite the situation. “Listen Zella, I don't know what's going on between you and Noah, but he told me about … he told me that you guys slept together.” Crap. I swallow hard and try to force myself to apologize, even though I know that's silly. Never has Ty, and they're freaking perfect together, but I still feel like Noah belongs to her. “He told me what happened, and he also told me that he loves you.”

  “Yeah, well, he says things,” I choke out, but my head is spinning so fast that I feel like the world is tilting around me. “And you know him, he loves everyone.”

  “Zella,” Never begins, but I cut her off with an ear piercing shriek when somebody taps on the driver's side window. “Zella!” Never's screaming in panic now, setting her son off into a screech to match. “Zella!”

  “I'm okay,” I whisper back, my voice shaking as I spy a halo of blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. It's Noah, knocking on the glass with his knuckles, a bemused smile teasing his lips. “Noah just scared the crap out of me is all.” I unlock the door and shiver when a burst of cool air swirls in and teases my skin. Or maybe it's because I can suddenly smell him. This sweet mixture of cinnamon and butter. He's been baking. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  My heart starts to flutter like a caged bird, battering my rib cage in a desperate attempt to flee and throw herself at Noah Scott. I slide my eyes over to look at him, but keep my face forward. I raise my finger to ask him to give me a minute. He chuckles and the sound slides over and around me, wrapping me and cradling my body in warmth.

  Noah stands up and takes a step back, but I know he can still hear me.

  I try to make my voice as cheerful as possible.

  “God, don't send me a text like that if you don't want me to freak out,” I lie and hear Never sigh on the other end of the line. “I pulled over at the end of the driveway to call you back.”

  “Zella, don't be stupid. Talk to Noah. I know you love him, and he loves you right back. Don't let him slip away from you.” The soft sound of her voice makes my head hurt. She still loves him, too, I know she does. I hear Ty's voice in the background, comforting the baby, and I wonder what he thinks, how he feels about all of this.

  “I'm glad everyone's okay, and I will see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night, stay safe, be spontaneous.” Never hangs up the phone, leaving me in wooded silence and perfect darkness. With Noah. I can hear his breath, can still remember it on my neck when he slid his fingers across my waist and pulled my back against his chest. I find myself having a hard time swallowing.

  “I thought you were a couple hours out?” he asks me, not at all accusing, just curious. I keep facing forward, trying to gather my courage, my self-restraint. If I look at him, and he smiles at me just right, I'll collapse into a puddle of nothingness and float away. I blink a few times and turn to stare at him. He's so bright that even in the darkness, he shines. His blonde hair is razored and falls just below his brows, framing those perfectly blue eyes and the wonderful smoothness of his skin. My eyes find his mouth and my hands start to twitch in my lap. I want to reach up and cup his jaw, draw his lips to mine.

  Instead, I open my big, fat mouth and say, “I better call Tobias, so he knows I got here okay.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Noah says, sounding like a deflated balloon. I've just popped his bubble. Why did I have to do that? What the fuck is wrong with me? As I desperately attempt to draw my gaze away, I get caught on his chest, on the lines of muscles peeking at me through the shirt. Um. What the hell? What the fucking flipping screwing hell? Noah's posted some new photos of himself on Facebook, so I knew he'd gotten in really good shape, but it didn't prepare me for this. His pecs are practically begging for me to rip off his white T-shirt and drag his body down on top of mine. Unfortunately for both of us, he ruins the moment by speaking, bringing up his Achilles' heel before I even get a chance to. “Is everything okay with Never?”

  “Everything is fine with Never,” I snap, even though I don't mean to. Shit. I glance back at Noah and force a smile to my lips. I'm not trying to be a horrible person. I'm just … confused right now. “She sent me a text that I made the mistake of glancing at. Scared the crap out of me.” I hope he doesn't ask me what this supposed text said because I can't come up with anything. I wait for a moment, staring at the steering wheel and not at his face. I don't want to see what his expression is like right now.

  Another thirty seconds of silence passes when I realize he's waiting for me to call Tobias. Goddamn it.

  I look back over at Noah who's tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and is staring up at the sky. I could ask him for some privacy, but that would just sound bitchy and that's not the kind of girl I want to be. That's how I was with Tobias, but that's never how I was with Noah. I wet my lips with my tongue and feel the bite of cold winter air against them. I'd much rather it was Noah biting me there, thank you very much.

  “What are you doing down here?” I ask, fooling around with my phone and writing a text message to myself on the pretense of contacting Tobias. I hear a crunching of leaves as Noah adjusts himself, draping his upper body over the door of my car. He folds his arms along the top and leans his chin on them. I try not to mentally calculate the size of his biceps.

  “Never got away,” he says, and we both pause. I don't think either of us misses how that sounds. At least this time though, he's talking about his dog. “When I went outside to grab some firewood, she slipped away into the woods, and wouldn't come back.”

  “That dog is a menace,” I tell him, but in the most affectionate way possible. I actually like the mean little shepherd. She hardly ever bites me. The rest of the world? Well, they can go fuck themselves. I glance around the darkness but don't see any spots of white and orange zipping through the underbrush. “She'll come back.”

  “I know she will,” Noah says, voice soft and comfortingly familiar. “I just worry too much.” He stands up with a sigh and stretches his arms over his head. When his shirt rides up a little on his belly, I have to force myself to look away.

  “Okay,” I say, changing the subject, forcing that faux cheeriness back into my voice. “Text sent. Boyfriend alerted. We are good to go.” I toss the phone into the cup holder and cringe when it dings immediately, telling me with all due excitement that the text message I just sent myself has arrived. Hopefully, Noah will think it was Tobias. “Do you want a ride back up to the house?”

  Noah stays still for a moment, blue eyes focused on me. I refus
e to make eye contact however and eventually he looks away and glances over his shoulder at the house. It seems so far away from down here, even though I know it's only a five minute walk. It can get awfully lonely out there in the dark.

  “Sure,” he says, unfolding his arms and coming around to the passenger door. When he opens it and climbs in, burying his feet in fast food wrappers and other assorted bits of trash, I blush.

  “Sorry,” I mumble as we both close our doors and I start up the car again. “I was really busy this weekend and didn't get a chance to clean it out.” Really busy researching punishments on the Internet, finding myself more and more certain that nothing bad was going to happen. Like a sitting duck. I was just waiting on that water for Tobias to shoot me.

  “No big deal,” Noah says, and I like that because I can tell he actually means it. He doesn't care. It never bothered him that my room was messy or if I answered the door on a Saturday wearing nothing but a stained T-shirt and some sweats. He still smiled and told me that I was beautiful. I glance down at my oversized sweater with the snot stains on the sleeves and the pair of black jeans that are now stained with drops of mustard and covered in sesame seeds. Fucking fast food. I use my left hand to brush them off and vow to change as soon as we get up to the house.

  It only takes about ten seconds for Noah to turn around and realize that the entire backseat of my car is stuffed with boxes. The only reason there aren't any in the front is because I didn't want to look at them while I was driving, didn't want to be reminded of my failure with every bump in the rood, every glance at the passenger seat. Considering that the rest are jammed in there like sardines, I probably should've just dealt with it, but I didn't.

  The memories of Friday night come crashing over me, all the little things I could've done differently to avoid this situation in the first place. I should've never taken that jacket to the field, should never have started a fight with Tobias, should've ignore the words he growled out between his perfect lips.

  “What's with all the boxes?” Noah asks innocently. If he even has a guess about what happened, he doesn't let on. Hopefully he doesn't watch ESPN. I make myself smile and shrug nonchalantly.

  “I'm switching dorm rooms after winter break.” I give Noah a look as I pull up next to his car. It's the only one parked in the dim glow leaking out the living room windows. I try not to breathe a sigh of relief. Even if Noah did – does – have a girlfriend, he wouldn't bring her up here when he knew I was coming home. He's not that kind of guy. “It happened last minute. Some bullshit with Ciara. I didn't know where to put my stuff, so I packed it all up.” I shrug again and hope my voice wasn't too high pitched when I said that. Even to my own ears, I sound like a liar.

  “What'd Ciara do now?” he asks, and the friendly gossip in his voice makes me want to spill everything. I swallow the truth back down and cringe when it crashes into my empty stomach. I shut the car off, take off my seat belt and turn to face him. We're so close, and it's so dark. Intimate. Too intimate, that's what it is.

  I think of my ex-roomie and try to come up with something resembling the truth. It's damn near impossible to lie when I'm looking straight at Noah like this, watching him run his tongue over his lower lip, rake his fingers through his hair. I'm not the only one noticing how quickly the intensity level between us is amping up.

  “She's just a know-it-all bitch, and I didn't want to live with her anymore.” Those two things, at least, are one hundred percent true. When Noah reaches out and takes my hand in his, I jump in surprise and end up hitting my head on the roof of the car.

  “Crap, Zella, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.” Noah lets go of my hand and smiles at me. I force myself to smile back. I wonder if, in this quiet space of in-between, he can hear my heart thumping like a mad thing. “I'm just glad you're home.”

  I force myself to choke out a response. If I don't, he'll know how twisted up I am inside. If I show any vulnerability, he'll try to step in and be the white knight I've always wanted but could never have.

  “Me, too,” I whisper back as I open my door and get ready to head inside. “Me, too.”

  And that, at least, isn't a lie at all.

  8

  I dig a box of clothes out of the back, frustrated with myself for not at least attempting to put together anything resembling a suitcase, something with my toiletries and my blow-dryer and some fresh panties. I seriously can't find a single pair. I'm going to have to go commando. Around Noah Scott.

  “Oh my God,” I groan as I stumble in the front door with my box clutched in my hands. Noah offered to come out and help me unpack my stuff, but I refused so profusely that he just ended up smiling and excusing himself into the kitchen. “It smells so freaking good in here. What the hell are you making?”

  “Well, I started off with pork chops and homemade applesauce, but then I had so many of the apples left that I decided to bake a pie.” I hear clinking in the kitchen, the sound of an oven door. I roll my eyes as I start up the stairs and try not to smile too big. I shouldn't be smiling at all. I just lost everything. My life is falling apart. Somehow, being here with Noah makes it all not matter. I pause and take in a deep breath, reeling at the absolute decadence of the smells in this house. Cinnamon¸ butter, apples, pine trees, smoke from the fire. It's almost overwhelming.

  “You know you're like, one of three men your age that actually knows how to bake an apple pie.” I hear Noah's laughter drifting on the air like the sound of bells. Jesus effing Christ. I've been here all of five minutes and I can feel myself falling into familiar patterns, letting my guard down, missing Noah so bad it hurts. “Which room do you want me in?” I ask about two seconds before I realize how that sounds. There's a part of me that wishes he'd appear in the doorway to the kitchen with a wooden spoon in one hand and a condom in the other. “How about on your back in mine, baby?” I ignore the thought and wait for him to respond, examining the rows of doors overlooking the hallway. It wraps around the living room on three sides with nothing but a banister separating it from the rest of the house. Festive, open, decorated like a goddamn catalog. I wonder if Noah's mom had a Christmas party up here or something? The excessive amount of decorations makes me think that's a distinct possibility. As domestic as Noah is in the kitchen, I've never seen him turn a house into a Better Homes and Gardens spread before.

  “Whichever one you want,” he calls up as I stand there, shifting the box from hip to hip. My eyes travel along the doors, taking in the wreaths that are nailed to each one. They all have a different theme. The one on my left here is covered with tiny wooden reindeer cutouts. Straight ahead, demonic looking gingerbread men whose faces are going to haunt me in my sleep.

  I start moving, letting my feet guide me without conscious thought until I end up standing at the door next to Noah's bedroom. I know it's his because we've spent many a school break hanging out here by ourselves or with family, and this is where he always stays. Technically, all the rooms in the cabin are guest rooms, but this is the one he always chooses. I lay my forehead against the wood for a moment and wonder what might happen if I were to walk in there and put my stuff down, make myself at home. Would he pick another room? Would he join me?

  I'm so entranced by the thought of sleeping wrapped in his arms that I don't even notice him coming up the stairs behind me.

  “Is everything alright?” he asks, making me jump. I drop the box of clothes on the floor and glance over my shoulder. No. Everything is not alright. I'm an idiot who makes terrible decisions. I got kicked out of school for drugs that weren't even mine. I hate Tobias fucking Underwood.

  “Yeah, I was just … reminiscing.” I smile at him and lean down to scoop up the box. I'm sure he thinks I'm a weirdo for sitting here with my forehead pressed to his door, but at least he doesn't state the fact out loud, watching quietly as I disappear into the door next to it. This one's wreath is red and white, and thankfully bereft of demonic Christmas characters. I consider this is a good sign.

&n
bsp; I lock the door behind me, not because I don't trust Noah but simply because I don't trust myself, and strip off Tobias' sweater with a silent promise to burn it later.

  After emptying out the box onto the blue bedspread, I manage to wrangle up a loose black and red T-shirt that's meant to be worn off the shoulder, a white tank top to put underneath it, and a pair of skinny jeans. I have to forgo panties, but at least my bra is still salvageable.

  I dress as quick as I can, running my fingers through my hair and smiling at my reflection in the mirror. I look like shit. No doubt about that. Even though my eyes are no longer red rimmed and brimming with tears, my makeup is gone and my cheeks look slightly puffy. Considering I packed up my shit in the most haphazard way possible, it's going to be awhile before I ever find my eyeliner. I decide to splash some water on my face and call it a day. This is Noah freaking Scott we're talking about here. I've known him forever. He can deal with a mussy face and tangled hair.

  With one last glance in the mirror, I smile and head downstairs, determined to enjoy this night. Freaking out about my situation won't make it any better. I just want to have a merry fucking Christmas and then I can figure things out. Never can help me. Ty, too. They've been through shit and came out smelling like roses. This is nothing in the scheme of things. Nothing.

  I take a deep breath as I move into the kitchen and find Noah frying pork chops on the commercial cooktop to my left. He smiles when he sees me, and I damn near freak the fuck out when I see he's wearing an apron. I knew it.

  I cross my arms over my chest and find my eyes following the white strap around his neck. The delicate thinness of the apron only serves to emphasize how masculine his body is. I mean, it's not like it wasn't good before – it really, really was – but now it's … dare I say, perfect?