Page 90 of Keep Me Never
And I just can’t stop soaking it all in.
I dreamed of this kind of stuff as a kid. Of large gatherings with deep-rooted friendship and family, with noise and food and just…beautiful chaos.
That’s what this group is—the best sort of crazy. The deepest form of friends.
Someone is always laughing or crying, teasing or fighting. They can read the room without a word and instinctively know where to enter or exit.
They don’t take no for an answer and live as one. Someone is happy? They’re all happy. Someone is sad, they’re all sad. Someone mad? You better believe they’re going to talk about it.
My first time witnessing the endless love and support thesecore five have was when Ari had her accident their freshman year at AU. Every single one of them lived at the hospital with Noah. Brady, Cam, Chase, and of course her twin. At the time, I was still just “Noah’s friend Paige,” but it didn’t take long to become more.
Like Payton, I was welcomed into their tight-knit group with open arms and zero judgment.
Warm knuckles brush along my cheek, and I roll my head to the left, meeting the most disarming set of eyes—they’re really green today.
Chase tips his head, a tender, maybe slightly tipsy smile on his lips. “What are you smiling at, Angel?”
A gentle squeeze builds in my chest, soft and certain. It seems to be doing that a lot around him lately. “Just thinking,” I whisper, a little embarrassed being caught in this train of thought, by him especially.
“About?” He holds my gaze, and I get the feeling he knows, at least in a roundabout way, where my mind has gone.
A light blush heats my cheeks, but I let out a long exhale, my mouth tipping up slightly as I look from him to the others milling all around us on the raised back patio and below on the beach. “This is what my dad always wanted for me,” I say. “Friends like them and Friday nights like these. A place where I could fit, you know, and not just… I don’t know, tag along, I guess, but somewhere that felt like home.”
I meet his eyes.Someonewho felt like home…
His gaze is piercing, searching, and he scoots a little closer. “You feel that here?”
With meisn’t added, but I think it’s implied.
There’s an anxious hopefulness in the way he asks this, and I can’t help the fresh wave of nerves that arises at the question.
Still, I answer honestly, even if all I give is a small nod.
“Good. That’s…good,” he whispers, his hand sinking into my hair.
Footsteps sound on the wooden stairs, and Chase and I both look over as Noah appears.
Chase tenses, his hand falling to his sides as Noah comes closer.
“Hey.” Noah’s smile is friendly. “Anyone need another drink?” He holds up his empty water bottle, giving it a little shake.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.” Chase squeezes my hand, pushing up, and my eyes follow as he walks away, heading down toward where Mase and his sister are standing near the fire.
Noah sighs loudly, slowly lowering to take Chase’s empty seat. “I keep trying and he keeps shutting me down.”
“I think he’d prefer it if you punched him in the face, honestly.”
Noah’s brows snap together, and then a loud laugh leaves him. It takes him a minute to settle, but when he does, he turns his smile on me. “You know, I think you might be right.”
“I am right.” I chuckle, pulling the blanket over my legs, and look over to where Chase is standing. “He’s not complicated. Not really. He sees right and wrong, and with right comes recognition and with wrong comes?—”
“A left hook from a right-handed receiver?”
“I was going to say punishment and bone-crushing guilt, but I mean, same thing, right?” I smile, but it softens a moment later. “He just wants to earn everything, including your friendship, and if I had my guess, I would say he doesn’t feel like he has. You’re giving it to him freely, and he doesn’t want you to.”
Noah thinks for a moment, nodding slightly as he sits up again. “I can understand that, but at the same time…”
“At the same time, you hold no anger and you already see him as your friend.”
