Page 41 of Before We Fell

They knew each other? It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Everyone at least knew of Noah, but something cold passed from Noah as he nodded when Shawn said hello to him.

“Great.” He gritted out the one-word response sounding like he was anything but great.

This man. He was so damn mercurial.

“Miss Frazier, Uncle Noah bought me a new dress and he did my hair!” She tugged on two braids, still imperfect but so much better than they were weeks ago.

I reached out and pinched the end of one. “They’re beautiful, Riley. And so is your dress.” Her bright blue eyes sparkled, and my heart fluttered. This was the happiest, and loudest, I’d ever seen her. I dragged my gaze to Noah and plastered on a smile.

Hard to be genuine when he was standing there glaring at me like he’d done the day I stomped into his yard and shouted at him.

“You’ve improved.”

He acted like he didn’t hear me whatsoever.

“We should find our table. Riley saw you and took off running before I could stop her.” His gaze slid to Shawn, and he nodded once. “We didn’t mean to interrupt you. Come on, Riley.” He held out his hand and she grasped it. The moment his glare softened, my heart leaped.

Wow. They seemed so different than they had just mere weeks ago, I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my face as they said their goodbyes and walked away.

“You know Noah?” Shawn’s question startled me, and I yanked my eyes off their retreating forms.

“Um. Yeah, Riley’s in my class.” For whatever reason, I didn’t want to tell him about Noah being my neighbor. Why? I didn’t want to investigate that either. Instead, I had a creeping sensation at the back of my neck as Shawn’s eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “How do you know him?”

His nose wrinkled and if I wasn’t mistaken, he tightened his grip on his fork and knife. “His parents came into the station, after…”

“Amanda.”

“Yeah. Wanted to see if we could help them. We couldn’t, not really, but I did request the evidence from St. Louis PD.”

He glanced back at Noah, eyes turned down. It was like watching pain appear all over his face that he hadn’t been able to help someone from the town he so badly wanted to protect.

“I’m sorry,” I said. It wasn’t eloquent. It wasn’t even the right thing to say. But then again, what was?

He nodded once, gaze flickering once again to Noah and then back to me, but this time it was different, and I shifted uneasily in my seat.

“So, tell me about the football league you play on. I heard Andrew the other night saying something about it?”

I’d ask him anything to divert his attention from me. Or how I knew Noah.

And why that was a problem or an issue, was one I wouldn’t look too far into either.

Fourteen

Lauren

“Thank you again for dinner,”I said to Shawn. He was pulling into my driveway, but neither of us had spoken much in the car.

Weird how we could interact so easily at dinner, but after Noah and Riley walked away from us, the conversation had become stifled. There was no more talk about dreams, or admiring each other. Or even sweet teasing jokes about how much I sucked at darts.

A date on Friday hadn’t been brought up again, neither had a golf lesson.

Conversation had been surface level.

And God…I’d even brought up the weather.

Pathetic.

I could have blamed my lack of dating life or recent experience, but that wasn’t it.

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