He didn’t kiss her, but his hand moved to her face and he moved a strand of hair away from her face. He smiled at her as she giggled.
I couldn’t watch it anymore. I couldn’t even look at her, at them. I couldn’t get annoyed at the fact that he was flirting with someone, but I knew there was no reason for me to be upset. We weren’t together, and his interest in me had felt authentic, but that was all that it was.
It wasn’t as if we were in a relationship of any kind. We were friends, and barely friends at that. I was walking toward the elevator, my hands fists at my side, when I heard him coming over to me. It was annoying that I could even hear the way he walked, and it would instantly remind me of the way he smelled, and the way he…
No. I told myself not to think about it.
I told myself that I wasn’t going to think about him like that anymore.
“Terry,” he said.
I didn’t turn back.
“Terry!” he said, a little more insistently that time.
I craned my neck back and flashed him an insincere smile. “Yes?” I asked, as sweetly as I could.
“I didn’t see you come in,” he said.
I nodded, looking forward at the elevator door. “I noticed,” I said.
“Terry—”
I held up a hand. “You don’t owe me any explanations,” I said. “You never have and you still don’t.”
“I would like to explain.”
I looked at him, my eyes wide. “What, exactly, would you like to explain?”
“She’s—”
“Your lawyer,” I said. “I know.”
The elevator beeped as the doors opened.
It was full of people and we were going to have to stop talking, which was exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to talk to him. I stepped inside and he followed, his hands in his pockets. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was anxious to talk. Still, it wasn’t the appropriate time, and we both knew that. I wanted to stay in the elevator for as long as possible and I didn’t want to have to talk to him at all.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and waited until people started to file out of the elevator. When we got to the seventh floor, I stepped out of the elevator onto the hallway, and Noah stopped me.
“Wait,” he said.
I turned around. “What?” I said, licking my teeth.
He sighed, dropping his shoulders. “I thought you weren’t interested,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You’re not being fair right now.”
“I’m not—” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t care.”
“Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
I dropped my voice to a whisper as I got closer to him. The elevator doors closed as it was called by someone downstairs. “Yes,” I said, baring my teeth at him and taking a step back until I was flat against the reflective wall. “And I get it, okay? You decide what to do. And I told you I don’t do casual.”
He shook his head. “You are impossible,” he said. “I normally only do casual, but you made me believe there was a chance of something with you, but still, you wouldn’t—”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I told you, after the lawsuit.”
“Right,” he said. “And in the meantime, I’m just supposed to what? Wait for you?”
“I didn’t say that,” I replied, waving my hands in front of my face. “I just don’t know why you have to go and screw the freaking lawyer. And anyway, isn’t she married?”
“She’s divorced,” he said. I thought I could see a smile on his face, but he still seemed aggravated. “And look, she’s my friend, okay? I knew her from before and that’s the reason I ended up coming here. She’s—”
“I don’t care what she is,” I said. “And I don’t get to make any choices for you, okay? You’re right. You and me? We’re not right for each other.”
“So,” he said. “Friends?”
I nodded, looking at my reflection in the elevator doors as they opened again.
Mrs. Nyback stepped in, her tall stiletto heels clacking against the floor as she moved toward us.
“Miss Mara, Mr. Valentine,” she said, her gaze darting between us. “It’s good to see you.”
I licked my lips. “And you, Mrs. Nyback,” I said, then looked down at her feet. “I like your shoes. I’ve never been able to wear heels.”
She laughed. “Well, you probably can’t be wearing heels while you’re running around, trying to save people’s lives,” she said.
I smiled, despite myself. I did like Mrs. Nyback, and it wasn’t her fault that Noah was being a douche. And maybe he wasn’t even being a douche, maybe he was right, I didn’t have the right to tell him what to do.
And as long as the lawsuit was still pending, I couldn’t really get to know him. Not like that.
No matter how much either one of us wanted to.
I told myself that it was for the best.
And when the doors opened again, I told myself that I needed to forget all about it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
2019
NOAH
I didn’t have anything to feel bad about, I told myself.
Terry was just a friend. She was nothing more than a friend, someone I was going through something weird and terrible with, and it was probably never going to go further than that. I didn’t need it to, and Terry didn’t get to be entitled to my time, or to who I was flirting with.
That was what I told myself, and it made sense rationally, but my heart fluttered every time I thought about it. She had been so upset, and I had felt so glad that she was. I hadn’t flirted with Sarah because I thought I was going to get in her pants or anything. We’d hooked up a couple of times in college, and it was easy to fall in the same pattern outside the office, when the rest of her colleagues weren’t watching.
Still.
I felt guilty.
And I wondered if that meant she wasn’t going to come over on Sunday. I didn’t want to ask if our plans were still on or not, because I was afraid she was going to say that they weren’t.
Plus, it wasn’t like it was a date. She was just going to come cook with me and the rest of my team, probably a terrible idea when I really thought about it.
Choppy was staring at me. He snapped his fingers in front of my face and I shook my head. “Rude,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I want you to get your head in the game,” he replied. “You’ve been super out of it all day, even when we were practicing, and now you’re usually…”
“What?” I asked.
“The best,” Ezra said. He was shopping carrots or something, his back turned to us. “And you’re not being the best. You’re really distracted.”
“It’s a girl, isn’t it?” Simon asked. He was making the marinade for the chicken on the island countertop.
“No,” I said. “It’s not a girl.”
“How hot is she?” Simon asked, turning his attention away from me and toward Choppy.
Choppy shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “He won’t introduce her to me.”
“How could I introduce her to you guys, when you’re always such gentlemen?”
I was met with jeers and boos. “We introduce you to our girlfriends,” Ezra said. “It seems fair.”
I sighed. I turned around to look at all of them. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend, remember?”
“Then why are you all starry eyed about her?” Choppy asked. “I’ve never seen you have it this bad… well, ever.”
I could feel my grip tightening around the ledge of the counters. I was getting upset, though I wasn’t sure why. “She’s a friend. Until the lawsuit is over, she’s nothing more than a friend. And even then, I have no idea if it’s going to develop into anything else.”
Ezra shook his head. He was the most experienced of the group, in rowing, but also in everything else. I valued his opinion, but it felt like when it came to the lawsuit and when it came to T
erry herself, I had to deal with it myself. Normally, my team was like my family. I told them almost everything. But the lawsuit was stressful, and I knew it was stressing them out too.
Our reputation as athletes needed to be untarnished. Whatever we accomplished; it would always be put under a microscope. We had to be good at what we did, but we would never be able to walk away from scrutiny. Coach Hamilton had made that clear. I wasn’t in trouble, not yet, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be.
And the moment I was in trouble, the rest of my team was in trouble.
I was aware of that. They were aware of it. But there was nothing any one of us could do about it.
I sighed again. I was about to launch into a lengthy explanation of everything that was happening with Terry, why I didn’t think she was coming over, but the doorbell rang. My eyes widened as my heart began to do flips in my chest. I didn’t want to be this excited about seeing her, but she had the address, she knew the time, and even though she hadn’t confirmed, I felt like there was a chance for her to pop in.
They all spoke over each other as they asked me if that was her. I ignored them, walking towards the door with my breath caught in my throat.
I opened the door, and I noticed I was still holding my breath. I looked up, and instantly brief the side of relief when I saw that it was her.
She was there.
She had made it, after all.
And she looked stunning, wearing a long black top over black leggings, the only pop of color a blue necklace that matched her earrings. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, and I could see her eyes, which were bright and beautiful, and I couldn’t look away from them for a little while.
Not until she cleared her throat. “I wasn’t sure if this was the right place,” she said. “I was worried I was knocking on the wrong door, but then I heard people laughing, and I thought…”
“Come in,” I said, moving aside for her. All of the boys stopped talking. She walked in, and I saw that her cheeks had reddened slightly.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said. “I brought, uh, wine, but I can come back—”
“No, no!” Choppy said. “Come on in! There’s plenty of food, and we always welcome people with wine into our lives.”
“Just don’t tell Coach Hamilton,” Ezra said. “He’ll kick all of us off the team.”
“And then he’ll start a new team,” Simon said, laughing. “With better people, and it’s going to be a nightmare. We’ll never be able to get back in.”
“Right,” I said as I walked her to the living room.
She laughed. “Well, it’s only one small bottle of wine, I don’t even know if there will be enough for a glass of wine each,” she said. “I didn’t realize this was going to be a party.”
“It’s always a party when Noah is around,” Choppy said. “Isn’t that right, boys?”
“Ignore them, please,” I said as Terry and I both sat down on the sofa. “They are fine, but only when they are quiet.”
“You’re only fine when you’re quiet!” Simon said. “Don’t kid yourself, Noah, you’re only pretty to look at.”
“You shut up,” I said. “All of you shut up. Let’s go for a walk, Terry. Get away from these jerks.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t say no to a walk,” she replied.
“Good,” I said.
“Don’t go far,” Choppy said. “Food will be done soon, and you don’t want it to get cold.”
“We’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “Come on, let’s go before they suck us in.”
“You’re being rude, Noah—”
I didn’t listen to anything else as we walked toward the door, her slightly ahead of me, her neck craned back to meet my gaze. “They’re a handful.”
“You don’t even know,” I said as she opened the door. We walked outside of my apartment and I breathed a sigh of relief.
As soon as we had walked a few paces away, I turned to look at her. “I didn’t think you’d come over,” I said.
“I thought I wasn’t going to,” she said after a little bit. “But… well, it turns out the idea of having cooked meals all week is a little more appealing than my anger. Which, you were right.”
“About what?” I asked. I wanted to keep looking at her, at the way she smiled, at the way her eyes sparkled. I wanted to touch her, put my hand on the small of her back, but I wasn’t going to do that.
That was too risky. It didn’t matter what I wanted to do. I needed to be careful. We both did.
“There was no reason for me to be jealous,” she said. “I was being unreasonable.”
“I didn’t—”
“No, you were right,” she said, hugging herself. “I’ve been thinking about it. I can’t place demands on you like that. It’s not fair.”
“It’s okay,” I said, looking her up and down. “I know it’s complicated.”
“It is,” she replied. “But still. I didn’t have a right to do that.”
I smiled at her. “Don’t worry. We’re friends. We’re looking out for each other.”
She nodded. “Sure,” she said. “We are.”
“Well, there you go,” I said.
She swallowed before she looked up at me. “There is something I wanted to talk to you about.”
We stopped walking as she continued to stare at me.
“What is it?”
“I think we need to settle,” she said. “In fact, I’m almost certain we do.”
I shook my head. “You said you didn’t have any money to settle. Plus, it’s so unfair.”
“It is unfair,” she replied. “But it’s the only way to help him, and he clearly needs the help.”
I shook my head once more, crossing my arms over my chest. “No,” I said. “That can’t be right. Look, we don’t know… we don’t exactly know what he’s going through, but I agree that we need to help him. I just don’t think we’re going to be able to help him by doing something he doesn’t even want in the first place.”
“You think it’ll get his parents off his back?”
“Sure, but how does that help us? And almost more importantly, how does that help him?” I asked. We hadn’t moved at all; we were still staring at each other. The sun was shining on us, and it was getting a little too hot to stand still.
She sighed, closing her eyes. “Right,” she said. “All I want to do is help him.”
“There is one more thing we can do,” I said. “But there’s no guarantee it will give us any results. And we might get in trouble with the lawyers.”
“I’m sure you can talk your way back to Mrs. Nyback’s good graces,” she said.
“You’re funny,” I said, though I hadn’t been particularly amused. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Sure,” she replied. “I want to hear it.”
“Here it is. We report it.”
“Report…”
“He’s clearly being abused,” I said. “Or something similar to it. If we report it to CPS, they might stop the lawsuit, they might stop everything.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What, exactly, are we reporting to CPS?”
“The fact that they are taking financial advantage of him. They are trying to benefit from his distress.”
“Sure, but as far as we know, he’s not actively being abused,” she said. “And you know what the lawyers said. It’s very unlikely he’s going to be removed from their custody.”
“But we don’t need that. We just need the lawsuit to stop.”
“How—we don’t even know where he lives,” she said.
“So we need to figure out how to get in touch,” I replied. “We need to figure out where he is so we can talk to him.”
“The lawyers said not to do that,” she said.
“I know, but honestly, I don’t care about the lawyers at this point,” I replied. “Terry, this is about doing the right thing, okay?”
“This is… asking for trouble,” she said.
>
“Sometimes, trouble is the right thing,” I said.
She looked at me, her gaze meeting mine, before she bit her lips. “Yes,” she said. “I think you’re right.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
2019
TERRY
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Noah said.
His laptop was sitting on his lap, and his legs were crossed. We were hanging out at his apartment. It wasn’t too late, but it was getting dark outside, and we had already eaten.
If he hadn’t hatched this plan, I would have probably already gone home. But he had hatched a plan and I intended to see it through.
“No,” I said. “It’s probably not. Let’s do it anyway.”
He looked up at me. I was sitting across from him on the bed, looking down at my phone. I could see the kid’s social media profile on my screen, but I wasn’t the one who had decided to send a message.
It was him, and he was hesitating.
“Terry, I don’t—”
I reached over and placed my hand on his knee. “This is the right thing, Noah,” I said. “You are right. We need to get in touch with the kid.”
His eyes widened. “And what if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we settle,” I said. “We find a way, and we get him out somehow.”
“That seems…”
“What?” I asked when he trailed off.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Really hard.”
“Yes. That doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”
He swallowed. “Maybe,” he said. He looked down at his keyboard and began clattering away at the keys. He was a loud typist, which was somehow endearing, though I couldn’t figure out how or why. He looked up at me and sighed deeply. I saw his chest rising up and down before he spoke again. “It’s done.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Is it?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s done. It’s in his inbox. Now we just have to hope that he sees it soon because…”
The sound of a notification came through his laptop’s speakers. I scrambled over to where he was. “Is that him?”
“Yes,” he replied. “He saw the message. He’s typing something, all he said so far is hello.”
In Too Deep (Heart Lines) Page 7