Page 78 of Noah's Reckoning
Eventually he turned us so we were on our sides and grabbed the blanket that was folded at the end of the bed to cover us. I felt tucked into a cocoon I never wanted to leave.
But as soon as our breathing evened out and the blissful feeling started to mellow, there were all the questions that needed to be asked and answered.
“Noah…” I didn’t even know where to start.
“Hmm, do we have to do this?” he said, nuzzling my neck. “Let’s pretend we already talked it all out and this is where we are.”
Yeah, no. “That would be nice if I knew where we were.”
“Here. In Scotland. Together.”
“You’re telling me you actually left Dyson to come to EEI?”
“I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t let me on their rig if I wasn’t an official employee.”
I slapped his shoulder. “Noah! You’re being intentionally vague. I need answers. If I remember correctly, I told you I loved you and you stopped speaking to me. Now you just show up here and I’m supposed to understand why?”
He winced.
“Did you get my letter?” I asked him.
That instantly made him angry. “Yes, I got your fucking letter. How you thought you were going to end us with something as weak as that I have no clue.”
I sat up on my elbow. “Noah! I didn’tend us. You did. You didn’t talk to me for two weeks! Not a single word. How else was I supposed to interpret that silence? Other than you didn’t feel the same way.”
“I was working shit out,” he grumbled. “I told you I’m not good at this stuff. You knew that. You needed to give me more time to get to where I needed to be. Instead you took the first offer that came along.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I couldn’t deny it. Part of taking this job was following my career path, but another part was that it would get me out of Alaska fast.
“I didn’t know how you felt. About anything,” I insisted.
He winced again. “I should have told you. I should have called you. But it…well, it freaked me the fuck out. I’ve never been in love before, okay?”
I reached for his face. “You’re in love with me?”
“Hello? Am I not fucking here?”
“Noah,” I said softly. “I need the words.”
“Yes, I’m in love with you,” he said as if it hurt a little to say it. “Now your turn.”
I smiled. “I already told you!”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, tugging on a lock of my hair. “Well, I want to hear it again.”
“I love you.”
Wow, that was so much easier to do when you actually knew the other person felt the same way.
“It was the same for me, too. All that stuff you said about when it happened. Definitely long before the cabin. I kept telling myself you pissed me the hell off, but I also lived for those moments when you came to town to piss me the hell off. I didn’t know how to process it, or label it or deal with it. When you said you loved me...I shut down. Because, in my head, that was something that happened on TV and the movies and shit. Not something that would happen to me. Because loving someone, being loved that’s…big shit.”
I cupped his face. “I was scared, too. That’s why I ran. Why I didn’t tell you about the job. It seemed easier to pretend like us didn’t really happen. Like it would be easier to get over the hurt. But a minute didn’t go by where I wondered if I’d messed up the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He snorted and pulled me down against his chest. “Well, I’m here now. So you’re stuck with me.”
That’s when the ramifications of everything he’d done suddenly hit me and I sat up again. “But what about Hope’s Point and Cal and the guys? They were your best friends. And your dad and your sister are still in Alaska…”
This time he cupped my face. “They’re not going anywhere. I assume you’ll be okay with visiting them from time to time.”
