Page 56 of Here With Me
“Ouch.” I laugh. “I put all that recklessness behind me, remember?”
“Oh, right. You traded in your adrenaline junkie card for an AARP one. I’ll go easy on ya next time.”
It’s on the tip of my goddamn tongue to remind her how she’s the one who couldn’t keep up with me that night, but I keep that thought to myself.
But I’ll never forget I had her screaming out my name within eight seconds as she shook through her orgasm.
It’s all I see when I close my eyes, and then I hear her moaning in my head when I stroke myself in the shower.
Noah leads me to The Lodge, where she introduces me to a couple of the receptionists who make it more than obvious they’re flirting with me. And because I can’t help messing with Noah, I eat it up and write down my number when they ask.
“Need I remind you of the no employees datin’ rule?”
Her bitter tone has me smiling.
“No, thanks to you, I’m well aware of it.”
We hit the buffet, where I fill my plate because everything smells so damn good, and find a table.
“Now we gotta fire them.” She sits across from me, and her nostrils flare.
“Why not fire me?”
Her head snaps up as she stabs her fork into a piece of cornbread. “What?”
“Why do you automatically fire the girls and not me? I’m the one who gave them my number.”
“They’re the ones who asked,” she bites out.
“And I coulda said no, so accordin’ to your rules, shouldn’t we all be fired?” I shrug, taking a bite of my chicken-fried steak.
Her chest rises and falls as if she’s annoyed with me, and I choke back laughter at her frustration.
“You don’t think it’s rude to hand out your number in front of me?” she asks and then opens her mouth as if she wants to say something else but clamps it shut.
We both know we’d act on our feelings if we could without consequences, but considering we can’t, we’re stuck in this weird friend zone neither of us wants.
“I thought we were...friends. Like you and Jase, right?”
Ocean-blue eyes stare intently at me. Her jaw is so tense, I'm waiting for it to snap in half.
“Fine,” she grinds out. “Then you can’t get mad at me when I do the same tomorrow night at the bar.”
The hell she will.
“Sure. I’ll even be your wingman. Is that what y’all call it now?”
She scoffs as she shoves bread into her mouth.
The conversation dies, and we eat in silence. Noah acting like a jealous girlfriend is one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen, and I can’t wait to get her alone to tell her the truth.
“We should get back to the barn,” she says as she finishes eating. “Tripp and Landen have finished, so I wanna go check it out.”
“Any word on the cameras?”
“Not yet. He’ll probably check now that they’re done.”
I clear my plate and wave to the receptionists just to further mess with Noah. She turns and walks toward the exit. When I catch up to her, she acts indifferent and opens the door for me.
