Treat You Better (The Family Stone Book 3)

by Brooke St. James

  "I'm just kidding," he said after a few seconds of silence. "I made it this weekend. I thought you knew where I got my inspiration, so I was just messing around with you. I started it Friday night when I got home."

  "Is it meant to look a little like that dress I wore?"

  "Do you think that's what it looks like?" he asked.

  I could still hear him smiling, and it was a wonderful sound. I could imagine what he looked like, wearing a teasing grin.

  "That's what it reminded me of," I said.

  "I had more response to that than anything I've posted in quite a while. I got ten emails about it within the first few minutes. I had to go ahead and put on there that it's been sold, so people would stop asking."

  "I wish I would have seen it sooner," I said. "I would have bought it."

  "You're not going to buy it. I'm giving it to you."

  "I thought you sold it," I said.

  "I told everyone it was sold."

  "You saved it?" I asked. "It's not sold? I thought the post said for information they should visit your website."

  "I just wrote that because it's what I always write."

  "So, you still have it?"

  "Yes. I'm looking at it right now."

  "I'm so excited about it," I said. "That shape is just so beautiful. I don't know how you got that done so fast."

  "I worked late Friday night," he said. "And I know the shape is beautiful. All I did was copy the original."

  "I can't believe you hung onto it for me. I saw that it was sold and then those other people making comments—I was starting to get so jealous." I said it as if I was joking, but I wasn't.

  "You wanna talk about jealous?" he asked. "I had to listen to your sister's big plans to set you up with that actor. As far as I knew, you were hanging out with him all weekend—making movies, singing songs, frolicking with your children, going on dates."

  I laughed. "Making movies? Frolicking?"

  "I don't know. I was jealous, that's all."

  "Vi was just saying all that to get a rise out of me. She wanted me to admit that I liked you."

  I closed my eyes, thinking of the way he reached for my hand under the table when Vi and I were having that conversation. My stomach flipped at the memory of it.

  "So did I," he said.

  "What'd you do?"

  "I wanted you to admit that you liked me."

  "Is that why you held my hand?"

  "Well, I mean, I guess. Partly to keep you from going on that date and partly because I just wanted to."

  "Vi would have never said all that if she would have known how I felt about… what I mean is that she had no idea we were holding… she just thought you were my teacher."

  I did not expect our conversation to be so candid or sincere, and I felt myself blushing. My face felt hot. I touched my cheek with the back of my hand, and then I grabbed a nearby piece of paper and began fanning myself with it. I wanted to say something to assure Noah that had no desire or intention to go on a date with Jake Young, but I felt like that was too serious.

  I had no idea how to date a guy.

  I was terrible at it.

  I didn't know the rules.

  I felt like I was always on the verge of saying things that would make me come across as being too eager. I had to keep holding things in.

  We talked for the next hour.

  Both of us struck a torturous balance of letting the other one know we were interested while not being too obvious. I wanted him to be obvious, though. I wanted him to go ahead and invite himself over. Then we would stay up all night talking and barely make it to school tomorrow.

  As it stood, we had a fun, friendly, maybe even slightly flirty conversation and we got off the phone when I had to go eat and feed Leo his dinner.

  I couldn't get over the fact that Noah made that necklace for me. I knew what a piece like this would sell for, and I had offered several times to pay him for it, but he wouldn't hear of it.

  A few hours later, after Leo was sound asleep, I sent Noah a text thanking him again. He texted me back, and then I ended up calling him so we could talk on the phone instead of having to type everything.

  We stayed up way too late.

  I had imagined him coming over and us doing that same thing face-to-face, but instead, our late-night conversation happened on the phone. Our exchange was sincere, honest, and funny.

  If I had been on a dating show and got to have this conversation with a potential suitor, I would have chosen him, sight unseen. Or maybe the conversation just flowed so easily because we both knew we were attracted to one another. That was something I would never really know.

  I did know I had a blast talking to Noah that night.

  I also happened to love how he looked.

  I remembered that fact in full-force the next morning when I got to school.

  He was already there, and I walked in to find him propped on the edge of Mr. Lee's desk like he so often was. More than half of the class was already there when I arrived, and quite a few of them were standing and sitting around Noah, vying for his attention.

  I had just come in the door, and I was assessing the situation when I felt and heard someone walk up behind me. I turned to find Carl standing there, peering into the room.

  "I thought I was early," Carl said in a surprised tone.

  "I thought I was early, too," I agreed.

  I had arrived fifteen minutes early in hopes that I would be able to see Noah before class started.

  "He posted a video this weekend that had some good response," Carl said. "I guess everybody wanted to talk to him about that."

  We stopped to talk to each other once we came into the classroom, but we kept our distance from the group on the other side. I glanced at Noah before I turned to respond to his father. He was in the middle of saying something to one of the students, and he didn't see me look at him.

  Carl was regarding me when I faced him again. He tilted his head at me, wearing a sweet, curious expression. "I guess maybe you know something about that necklace he made."

  "I saw it," Brendan said, walking past us on his way inside.

  Carl and I both looked at him, and he took a step or two toward us, putting the side of his hand up to his face as if shielding his mouth from Noah.

  "IMHO, it's the best thing he's done in a while. His technique's always been there, but there's a certain, mojo to this one."

  "I liked it, too," Carl said, nodding sweetly.

  Brendan nodded and took off.

  "I have no idea what that meant," he said.

  "Mojo? It's just a certain something, you know, like—"

  "No, I know about mojo. I'm talking about that first thing he said. He listed off a bunch of letters before he started talking."

  I had heard Brendan say letters out loud constantly since we had been going to school together, so even though I didn't remember which ones he specifically said, I had a good idea.

  "IMHO," I said. "That's probably what he said. It means in my humble opinion. Most of the time people write those letters, you know like LOL or BRB. But Brendan says them out loud."

  Carl took a second to think about that before shaking his head a little. "I'm not sure what any of that means," he said. "But, either way, Brendan was right. A little something extra was present in the design—not just the design, but in how Noah approached it. That's something probably only his dad could see. I saw the focus and determination in his movements as he was working on it. I'm not saying you had anything to do with that, Indie, but I know a little about where he got his inspiration, and for what it's worth, it made me happy to see him work like that."

  "I bet," I said, feeling otherwise speechless.

  I knew Noah had a hard time after Sadie passed away. We had shared enough of our stories with each other for me to have some insight on that. He remained a stellar craftsman, and he maintained his business because of it, but I knew that sometimes he found it difficult to create.

  Carl an
d I knew we weren't going to stand next to the door for the entire class, so we began to make our way toward our respective places, walking together. He turned to speak quietly to me. "And I heard you have a beautiful singing voice."

  "Oh, goodness, thank you," I said, basically whispering. "I wasn't expecting to see Noah at the show."

  "Well, I am glad he went. He told me the flower necklace was actually a dress, and I managed to get the whole story out of him."

  I blushed, wondering exactly how much of the "whole story" Noah had told his father. I thought of us sitting in my car, and I was relatively sure Noah hadn't included that in the version he told—at least I hoped he hadn't.

  "Wait, you think it looked like a flower?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I did. But he told me he had seen you sing, and then I clearly saw how it could be a dress."

  Carl hadn't been at the gig. He hadn't seen my dress, and he had no frame of reference.

  "Do you think it looks like your dress?" he asked.

  "I can see where you'd see a flower, but yeah, I do. I definitely see a dress, too."

  It was a dress.

  It was, without a doubt, a dress.

  It was my dress.

  "Well, people really liked it," Carl said. "He could have sold a hundred of them. I always tell him he should do more than one of his pieces, but he likes to operate in the one-of-a-kind realm. I just don't think like that after working thirty years for a major company."

  Carl and I had been speaking quietly to each other while the others in the room carried on a conversation with Noah. I was smiling at Carl's last comment and as I took a glance at his son.

  Good grief.

  My heart felt like it might jump right out of my chest.

  Noah was looking straight at me.

  It seemed like he'd been waiting for me to glance at him because the corner of his mouth turned upward when I did. He somehow always surprised me with how perfectly casual and handsome he appeared.

  His grin widened just a little when our eyes locked, and I had to concentrate on standing upright. He was wearing stylish khakis with leather sandals and a button-down shirt that was casually unbuttoned in all the right places.

  He continued to steal glances at me, regarding me with a conspiratorial smile. His expression was full of mischief, and it made me think he was thinking about everything that happened between us. My chest felt alive with a buzzing sensation like something had filled me up to overflowing. Happiness, perhaps? Excitement? It was a feeling that caused me to smile uncontrollably, and I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from letting a big, goofy grin spread across my face.

  Chapter 14

  I couldn't help but think about how much my relationship with Noah had changed since the last time we were in this school environment. It had been only three days since I last saw him in the classroom, but so much had happened between us during that time that I wasn't sure how to respond to him or even look at him now that we were there again.

  Just about everyone got to class early that day—even Mary Jane was early. Some students gathered around Noah and Carl, but I stayed back, watching the action and talking to my friends.

  Before I knew it, Noah was telling us to find our seats so he could start class. "I hope you all had a good weekend," he said in an effort get everyone's attention.

  "I had a great weekend, how was yours?" Willow yelled as she walked from the front of the room to her desk.

  "Mine was wonderful, Willow, thank you."

  Noah clasped his hands in front of him, looking around and smiling like he was ready to blow past Willows interruption and continue with what he wanted to say.

  "So, I know some of you saw the necklace I posted this weekend. I've been up here answering questions about it. Anyway, before we get started, I wanted to say something. Callie asked an interesting question just now, and I told her that I would answer it in front of the class. I wanted to use it as a teaching moment." He glanced at Callie. "Would you like to tell them what you asked, or do you want me to say it?"

  "You can tell them," Callie said.

  "She asked me, 'how did you make the time to finish that necklace in one weekend?' And the answer is this… I do not make time. I don't find time, either. Time is something I've thought about a lot in my life. It is what it is. You cannot make it or find it. There are sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day, and so on and so forth. These are facts that never change. I simply don't have the ability to fabricate more time. All I can do is control how I spend what I have. So, with the awareness that I have a limited amount of it, I have always been particular with how I choose to use my time. Benjamin Franklin once said, 'Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff that life is made of.' I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want you to consider time a commodity in your endeavors—whether it's jewelry or if you choose to do other things. Just try to move forward, push forward as much as you can. Work hard. Make progress. I'm not sure if I can even say this in a classroom setting, but you should pray for wisdom in how you spend your time. Just ask that you're able to make the most of what you're given."

  "It helps if you're outrageously talented like you are," Willow said.

  Noah smiled patiently at her. "You wouldn't know anything about my talent, it wouldn't even exist, if I hadn't used time to develop it—to nurture it. I try to be a good steward with my things, and also with my time. It's something I really recommend you think about as you move forward. I'm not saying it's bad to space out on your phone for a little while, or watch a movie, or play a video game, or take a nap. Just be aware of the fact that time is precious and it never stops moving."

  "Amen to that," Carl said from next to his son. "I know none of you want to hear this, but you're going to wake up one morning and be my age. It happens in the blink of an eye."

  "I already am your age," Jeanie said, causing several people to laugh. "And I agree, you're right. It happens fast. Seems like yesterday my kids were little, and there were no cell phones."

  Carl nodded and reached out to pat his son's back. "Noah's telling you the truth when he says he tries to spend his time wisely. He's disciplined. Even as a teenager, I would never catch him staring at the television all day or talking on the phone for hours. He surfed, he learned music, he was constantly being productive." Carl put his palms out in a gesture of surrender. "Now, I'm not saying everyone has to be as disciplined as Noah, but he is onto something. Time is precious, and we can't get it back."

  I felt inspired. I tried to remember that Benjamin Franklin quote Noah mentioned. I had never heard it before, but I liked it. I was considering everything they were saying, but I couldn't deny that my ears perked-up when Carl mentioned the part about talking on the phone for hours. He had definitely said that Noah never did it, which was wonderfully, gloriously untrue. Just hours ago, my ear had ached and burned from holding my phone to it for so long. I wasn't sure if I had ever in my life talked to someone on the phone that long—it must have been five hours. Noah had glanced at me when his father said those words, and in order to keep from letting out a nervous laugh, I had to look away.

  The subject quickly changed, and we focused on jewelry. We worked with Noah and Carl all morning. I talked to Noah some during class, but I was outrageously nervous, and I was trying to be so smooth about it in front of everyone that I was almost positive that I came across as distant. I really hoped I didn't seem disinterested. I was just so smitten that I felt like I had to overcompensate so I wouldn't be obvious.

  It was now afternoon, I hadn't seen Noah for over an hour. There had been a sign on the classroom when we got back from lunch saying that we should report to room 104, and when we got there, we found one of our other instructors. We were told we would be spending the remainder of the afternoon in there so that we could use a special piece of equipment.

  I was disappointed, and I felt frustrated with myself for not making the most of the time I had in his p
resence that morning. After that whole long talk about time, I had gone and wasted it. I planned on texting him later in the afternoon once I finished school.

  I assumed Noah had gone home for the day, so you can imagine my surprise when I glanced into the president's office and saw him sitting there, talking to a few other people. Noah must have seen me when my shadow crossed the window because he glanced my way immediately. I was embarrassed about being caught glancing in, and I instinctually hid, but not before I caught sight of Noah raising his finger as if to tell me to wait. Others saw him do it as well because they turned to see who he was talking to.

  I ducked before anyone could catch sight of me. I felt like a kid who had just rang on someone's doorbell and was about to run. I felt petrified with fear and it took a second or two for me to get my legs to work. The office had a lot of windows on the other side, so I ran back the way I came, not stopping until I reached a little nook in the right side of the hallway where there were water fountains. I peeked around the edge of it, looking toward the office and wondering if Noah was going to come out.

  I stared at the door for several long, breathless seconds, and then I watched with wide eyes as it slowly opened. I ducked further behind the wall just in case it was someone besides Noah, but it wasn't. It was him. He came out of the room alone, looking my way the instant the door closed behind him. I was only about ten feet away, so I knew he caught sight of me, but I stuck my fingers around the corner and wiggled them, waving at him just in case.

  I saw him smile and take a step toward me, and I sank back into the nook, breathlessly waiting for him. I was expecting it, but it still startled me when Noah came around the corner, appearing in front of me. He leveled me with a narrow-eyed smirk as if asking what I was doing there.

  "Hey," I said, mostly whispering. "I thought you already went home." I was leaning against one wall, and Noah came into the nook and leaned against the opposite wall, facing me.

  "Nope. Dad left, but Dan asked me to stay. He's giving a perspective student a tour, and he asked if I would meet her and talk to her and her family. She's interested in the bachelor program."