He grabbed my other hand and moved in close. “The future that I pictured growing up, the words I said, and the promises I made to myself are here. I’ll make you happy and when you’re happy and next to me for every year here on out, I’ll be happy. Your mom was on my side, she said for me not to disappoint her and I haven’t, but I will if I let you go again.”
“Noah—”
“You made me a promise that you’d be the only girl I’d spend my time with if I’d always take you on an adventure,” he spoke over me.
He was giving me the biggest swarm of butterflies in my stomach. “We were six and seven,” I said half-heartedly because, in the end, I held Noah above all others from the very beginning so I knew how little our age meant. In fact, Noah was the only boy—man I ever saw, even now. I couldn’t go to another man and think of him touching me without getting sick to my stomach with just the thought. That’s just the way it was and after being around a ton of opportunities in college, I realized that part me was never going to change. That part of me belonged to Noah before I even knew I gave it away as a kid. My heart and body. Probably even my very soul belonged to the man trying to fix what I broke.
“You have been my dream, my motivation since the moment you climbed up that rope.” He didn’t relent.
“Noah.”
“Don’t pretend,” he yelled before softening his expression once more.
“Don’t pretend about what?”
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know that I’ve been orbiting around you since we were kids.”
“I thought that was me with you,” I dared to whisper back.
“Don’t pretend that I wouldn’t try my damnedest to reach up and pluck the moon from the sky if you asked.”
The heat burning through me wasn’t pretending either. I swallowed and searched his face, gazed at his lips before I met his smoldering expression once more. He was trying to bury me with all these words, feelings, and gazes.
“I got another adventure, one I’ve been planning for a long time,” he revealed to me, and the fear slid into my veins as he pulled me to his chest, wrapped his arms around me, and swallowed me with his rugged beauty. “Marry me, Priss. Let’s make every day an adventure. Let’s go on walks. Let’s take naps. Let’s read and do whatever together like we always did before, and let’s do new things like vacations and road trips, anything you want. Let’s be happy.”
I had to get away from him. I shoved him away and turned around and started walking the way we came. “Grace!” he yelled, and my feet felt like lead they were so heavy. My heart was protesting but my mind was everywhere.
“We can leave here, we can go anywhere!” he kept yelling, but I didn’t dare look back to see if he was coming after me. “My home is where you are, nothing here means anything if you don’t stay. I’ll go where you go.”
I covered my eyes and mouth with my hands and tried to keep the tears at bay. Noah was more than likely in a lot of debt, yet I knew his words weren’t empty promises. He’d go wherever I told him to and that hurt most of all.
“Gus,” I called out with a voice jam-packed with emotion.
I turned around and saw Gus standing next to Noah, who was just standing there watching me in the same place I left him. Even Gus knew my heart. He looked like he wanted me to stop hurting everyone too. I turned around and walked anyway. I walked and walked until the hole in my heart grew. I made it to the edge of his driveway. I’d held onto this guilt for so long, would it be so easy to just let it go?
Noah, my feet really don’t want to leave this time. Too heavy, this burden was…
There was something beautifully tragic in the way someone fell to their knees, some held their arms up high, clawing to the surface to get back up, while others picked themselves up slowly, one leg at a time, and the ones that never got back up and drowned their hopes and dreams…Then there was Noah, who was only a kid when he centered his future around me.
And here I was walking away from him again.
So, I stopped and took a deep breath. Sometimes you had to drop all the pieces and let go of all the things that were keeping you from being happy.
I was running when I didn’t want to be. I left once because I thought I should suffer. I didn’t want to leave again. I didn’t want to be without him any longer. My peace. My comfort. My passion. My dreams. My happiness. He was all of them.
“Sorry, Mom,” I cried as I turned around. This ugly feeling I’ve held onto for so long. This unwanted guilt. I’m going to let it go and trust that you’d want me happy with Noah, instead of what my mind wants me to believe.
And just like that, in this smothering evening heat with no rain or clouds, I washed away all the things that held me down and I ran back to where I belonged.
Typical Noah, here I was running back with tears running down my cheeks, and he was running to me so we met halfway. More like collided in a mess of tears and locked away touches. His hands were unsure as they wrapped around me. He watched as the tears streamed down my cheeks. I grabbed his arms and pulled him into me but not without whispering, “It is that easy.” My lips slammed into his, and it was the most amazing sound—his soft, pleading groan when I did.
My feet were off the ground as he lifted me up while shoving his tongue down my throat. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough when it came to him. “I love you, Noah, I love you,” I breathed the words into his mouth as I continued to kiss him while he carried me away. “I love you, and I’m so sorry. I needed you the most when I pushed you away, but I didn’t think I deserved to be happy with you after—”
“Shh,” he mumbled across my lips. “I’m going to make you happy, Grace, I love you so damn much.” His arms shook as he carried me. I pushed against his chest so he’d place my feet back down and started tugging at his shirt. He threw it on the gravel driveway as we scooted our feet across the rocks and dirt to reach some unknown destination between kisses. He tore at my shirt and I helped, then he stopped and tugged down my shorts. I stepped out of them and jumped him while he caught me by the legs and I wrapped them around him. He carried me inside where he dropped me down on an air mattress in his living room that was empty.
I made the time between his kisses to say, “Your house is completely empty.”
He lifted his head and grinned. “It’s a work in progress.”
I laughed and brought his face down to kiss me. He made quick work of his jeans and my eyes took in his erection, the mushroom tip, and all its glory, and the need to have him inside me grew worse. He undid my bra and covered me in kisses as I moaned and dug my fingers into his hair. His beard brought on a new powerful sensation that I loved. “Noah, we have the rest of our lives for foreplay, I need you inside me now,” I moaned as he covered one of my nipples with his mouth.
He looked up at me. “I’m going to explode before I even get inside you,” he admitted with lust-driven eyes. “It’s been a long time.” I loved his honesty.
I took my hands to his cheeks and lifted his face to mine until our noses were inches apart. “I like you the most.” I slid my hands down until I was touching his. “I never had to be with someone else to know that I like your hands the most, it’s your touch that I love and crave. Even so, I could have tried a thousand different touches and I would have still only wanted yours.” I could be honest too.
“That was overkill, am I dreaming? You can’t really be underneath me right now saying words like that after leaving me for so long,” he whispered.
I kissed his forehead as he placed his lips against my chest. “I’m sorry.” He kissed me again.
“Are you on birth control?” he asked.
“I’m not,” I gasped as he slammed into me all at once.
The pain was exquisite because of what came with it. My body welcomed the rush of him inside me. “Good to know,” he groaned. “Feels like home.”
He kissed, caressed, and molded me as he moved into me. It was rushed and perfect, the feel of him above me as he bro
ught us to the peak. I could go back to who I was. The girl that wholeheartedly loved one boy, even when her friends told her it didn’t make sense to be with only one guy and think there wasn’t better out there.
Maybe I was completely ordinary and a simple small-town girl but to Noah, I was everything. And if being his everything was as far as I got in life, that was perfectly okay with me.
Then he brought us over our peak and I shattered beneath him as he pulled out and came on my stomach. He cleaned me off with his shirt before cradling me in his arms. I looked up from his chest with a smile. “Did we leave Gus outside?”
He chuckled and got back up from the air mattress. “I’ll go get him. You stay there naked.”
I grinned. “Can you get my shorts outside, my cell phone’s inside the pocket?”
He nodded and ran out the door buck-naked. I was glad he didn’t have neighbors. I shook my head and fell back against the mattress. I was going to be happy with Noah. I looked around the empty room with a contented smile. It was okay to picture my future with him right here. The only person that had control over my happiness was me.
Gus came running through the door followed by Noah. He started jumping onto the air mattress as I heard Noah running water in the kitchen. “Careful, Gus,” I told him as I helped him on the air mattress and covered myself with a sheet. Noah came back into the room with a bowl of water that he sat down on the floor for Gus.
Noah pulled his cell phone out of his pants’ pocket lying on the floor and handed me mine as he sat down next to me. He pulled open a text and showed it to me.
I’m rooting for you.
So don’t disappoint me.
It was the text Mom sent him the night she passed away. It hurt to think of the way she died and her death was a wound I’d never be able to heal, but I would slowly learn to live with it… Like right now, the text made me smile instead of burst into tears and guilt. She had been rooting for us from the very beginning, I had to believe that she’d want us happy instead of miserable. “I had to take a picture of the text so that I would have it on this phone… She gave me a tough time with you but it was because she wanted us both to succeed when we got older.”
“I saw that you still carved,” I told him. “I think she would have been happy to have known you kept to it.”
He smiled. “I have a shed at Dean’s where my saw and things are, I’ll have to build something here for when I get orders.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of work to do with building a shed and treehouse…”
“And not to mention time at the garage, the woodwork, and keeping you happy… I might be a busy man, but I’m going to always make time for you. Everything I do is so that I can give you a comfortable life.”
I pulled him down and kissed him. “I can’t believe I wasted away some of our years together.”
“We’ll have to make up for lost time,” he said as his hand trailed down between my legs.
______
I was sitting on the top step of the porch with a sheet draped over me as I watched the sunset. Noah stepped out of the house and placed a pot of ramen between us as he joined me. “It’s all I had to make,” he told me as he handed me a fork. “Did you call Dustin?” he asked, and I nodded. I let him know that I wasn’t coming back, but he had laughed and said he had expected this outcome, and maybe deep down, I did too.
“He offered to pack my stuff for me and bring it back, but I’d rather do it.”
“We can go get it this weekend,” he told me.
I smiled and took a huge bite. “I wish she was still here, Noah,” I found myself saying as I glanced back at the yard. “It hurts not having her to share my day with, like right now. I’m sure she would have loved this place for us. I could imagine her dragging Dad along because he would have still been giving you a hard time.” I smiled sadly and took another bite. “I want Dad to be happy… and I don’t think I’m going to ever have my relationship with him back.”
He flicked my nose. “He loves you… I can imagine I’d fall apart the same way if I had to lose you in such a way that he lost your mom.” He placed his hand over mine. “Some people cope better than others, you and your dad weren’t those that could.”
I gave him another tearful smile. “Why didn’t I let you comfort me sooner?” I mumbled and he kissed me softly because of it. “Such a waste of years and all that unwanted guilt would have been easier to let go of if I had just let you love me despite everything.”
“I loved you regardless, but I’m glad you’re here now. Just promise me one thing.”
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t shut me out the next time something bad happens, let me hold you and make it better. When you’re thinking of your mom and missing her, talk to me like you are now. Don’t shut me out like you did before. You might as well stab me with something because that’s what it feels like when you put distance between us.”
I placed my fork down and leaned into him with a smile. “I promise to let you take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.”
“Do you want a big wedding?” he asked.
“You have to ask first,” I whispered.
“I thought I did earlier.”
“Yeah, but I ran away.” I looked up and grinned at him. “But, my heart was seriously about to beat out of my chest when you did.”
He stood up, pulling me with me. I started blushing and laughing because I knew what he was about to do. He pulled me into his arms and dipped me. “Let’s go on an adventure, one that lasts forever.” I was laughing and he was smirking. “Marry me.”
“Of course, I’d take on any adventure as long as it was with you.”
He smothered me in kisses until I pushed his face away while we laughed. He lifted me back up and I grabbed my back when my cell phone started ringing in the house. “It’s mine,” I told him as we went inside. I picked it up off the bed and felt the same feeling of dread from that night Mom passed away. “It’s Dad,” I told him.
“Hello,” I answered.
“I was worried you weren’t planning on coming back home tonight,” he responded. He was right. I was planning on staying here with Noah. “Come home and bring Noah too.” Before I could say anything, he added, “That’s who you’re with, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, we’ll head over now.”
“Good. Bye, Grace.”
I hung up and looked to Noah. “He wants us to come over… I don’t know why.”
He grabbed my cheek and squeezed. “It doesn’t have to be anything bad just because he called, Grace… it could be something good.”
“You’re right.” I nodded, but was still afraid, nonetheless.
_____
Noah had driven us to Dad’s. It was almost an hour drive from his house. As we walked up the steps, he said, “Relax.”
“I would if I could,” I told him with a weak smile. “I just hate disappointing him.”
“You are not a disappointment.” He grabbed my hand and opened the door.
Dad poked his head out of the kitchen. “I, uh, ordered pizza if you guys would like some.”
“That actually sounds good, we ate ramen right before you called and it didn’t quite hit the spot or fill me up,” Noah said with ease. I smiled and relaxed next to him.
We followed Dad into the kitchen where he moved hastily around the kitchen and found some paper plates. Two pizza boxes were on the table and something about this made my heart hurt because it looked like Dad was trying… For a moment, I just stood there frozen as I watched him awkwardly get us out something to drink almost like he had rehearsed it. “I remember you liked Meat Lover’s, didn’t ya, Noah?” Dad asked him.
“Yeah, I do,” Noah replied.
He looked up from the table at me. “I got us bacon and banana peppers, our favorite.”
I found myself smiling. “That sounds so good right now,” I told him, and Noah was giving me a huge grin as if he was enjoying this for me.
We all s
at down and started digging into the pizza. “You’re still living over in Jewel County, aren’t ya?” Dad asked Noah.
He nodded. “Yeah, I am. I just recently bought me a place over there. I was renting a place before that,” he said, looking at me since it was the first time I heard about it too.
I smiled and he placed his hand on my knee as he ate as if to say that we had all the time in the world to catch up on the last few years.
“That’s great, Noah, it really is.” Dad looked down at his paper plate before adding, “You proved me wrong, Noah, and although it’s damn irritating to have to admit that, I’m glad you did.”
Noah and I looked at one another and grinned. “I’ve always known what I wanted, and I made sure I could get it,” he said while staring at me.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Dad agreed. “Grace.” I looked over at him and stopped smiling. “I didn’t realize how much I hurt you when we lost your mom and if I had known you were blaming yourself the same way I had been, I would have spoken up instead of sinking into this sadness that’s had a hold of me since your mom passed away.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? The same way? Why would you feel that way?”
He gave me a miserable smile. “That night at the hospital when you showed up with Noah and your mom was still in surgery and we didn’t know the shape she was in… I had been angry and scared, so I had said she had been coming to get you just to make you feel horrible for going to be with Noah when I had told you not to. She hadn’t been coming to get you.”
“What?” I mumbled. Noah looked just as startled as I felt.
Dad placed his fists against his head as he finally broke down, “She wanted take-out, you know how your mom was with take-out when she didn’t want to cook… She had asked me to go with her, but the only thing I wanted to do was argue with her because she had taken you to meet Noah. I was so angry, but she was completely calm and cheerful as I griped the entire time and when I refused to go with her to get us some food, she said she’d go herself. I kept telling her to call you and get you to come home, and I remember clearly what she said to me as she was walking out of the door that day, ‘Steven, you might as well get used to it because mark my words, that boy is going to be our son-in-law one day’.”
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