Page 100 of Resisting You
Birdie wriggled in my arms, squirming as I put him down and he launched himself across the room towards Noah, wiggling and wagging his tail happily, proudly, like he himself had played a big part in this gesture.
“Hey,” Noah said.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t, not without crying.
“This isn’t going to be your real office, obviously” he said, his hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets. “It’s not even a real building. But I thought… it could be a start. A placeholder. Until we find you the right one here in Maple Grove. Or any other small town that might appeal to you.”
I stepped farther into the room, my fingers grazing the arm of the nearest chair. It was real. All of it.
“I didn’t know how to ask you to stay,” he went on. “So I figured I’d show you why you should.”
My eyes burned.
Noah smiled, but it was tentative. “I want a quiet life with you. A real life. Not just for a weekend or a few months or a year. I’ll give up New York. I’ll quit acting. I’ll live in a treehouse and walk Birdie around the lake every morning if that’s what it takes. As long as I haveyou. I’ll follow you anywhere, Rosa Alvarez.”
I shook my head slowly. “There’s one really big problem,” I said, pulling a Sharpie out of my purse. I walked over to the sign he had printed out and scribbled on top of it, fixing it. “It’s Dr. Rosa Alvarez Tripp, PsyD.” I put the cap back on the marker and turned just in time to catch the way his relieved grin spread along his face.
I looked at him—and my heart cracked. This was all almost perfect.Almost.
Because I loved him.
But this wasn’t the answer either.
“But Noah,” I whispered, “I can’t let you do this.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean? You don’t want to stay in Maple Grove?”
“I do,” I said quickly. “God, I do. I’ve never wanted anything more.” I stepped closer. “But I don’t want you to give up what you love for me.”
“I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I know,” I said softly. “That’s what scares me.”
He looked confused. Hurt. But he didn’t interrupt.
“My mother gave up acting when she married my father,” I said. “She said she chose stability. Safety. A life that mattered. But I never saw her light up the way she did when I would watch videos of her on stage and in interviews from when she was an actor. And sometimes, I think she resented him for being the one who still got to chase his dreams while she gave up hers to be the senator’s wife.”
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes. “I can’t do that to you. I love you too much to let you disappear. To let you give up your dreams.”
Noah stepped forward, closing the gap between us. “Then what do we do? Where does this leave us?”
I reached for his hand. “We compromise. We dream together. You act when it matters. I practice psychology in a way that fills me up. Maybe we split time between Maple Grove and New York. Or Maple Grove and California. Maybe we build a life that doesn’t look like either of us imagined, but one that’s ours.”
Birdie barked from between our feet and I smiled down at him. “Yes, that includes you, little man.”
Noah’s thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, slow and steady like he was grounding both of us.
“And you’d be okay with that? Being married to an actor? Dealing with paparazzi and gossip and?—”
I didn’t let him finish. “I’m not married to just an actor. I’m married toyou,” I said, voice quiet but sure. “That’s the difference.”
He blinked, caught off guard by how certain I sounded. So was I, honestly.
I took a breath. “Before, all I could see was the chaos—the headlines, the whispers, the judgment. I thought loving you meant losing myself in all of that. But I was wrong. It’s not the world I’m scared of anymore. It was being unsteady in it. It was being yours while still unsure of who I was.”
I looked around the small space, at the crooked sign, the cozy chair, the little stack of books that knew me better than some people did.
“But I’m not unsure anymore,” I said. “I know what I want. I know what I can handle. And I know who I am—because you never tried to change that.”
