Page 41 of Noel I Won’t
“Hey, Hopper,” he said. “Long time, no see.”
“It has been a while,” Hopper admitted. “I should get back over to Riverton for a visit.”
Gray nodded toward me. “Em, this is my old friend Noel from high school. I don’t know if you remember him?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “You were quiet but scary smart. We did a science project together once, junior year, I think?”
“Right, you’re Emory Gold,” I said, stunned, glancing between them. “How did this happen? I thought you were going to marry Allison Prince?”
He groaned. “Yeah, you and everyone else.” He shrugged. “It’s a long story, but Gray opened my eyes to what I really wanted.” He winked. “Now he’s stuck with me.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet,” Mom said. “You two make a beautiful couple.”
They really did. They were the stuff fantasies were made of. If I weren’t obsessed with what I might do to Hopper the next time we were alone, I might picture myself between these two. Not that I’d ever been into Gray in high school.
He’d never let on he was into boys—and he wasn’t the one who starred in most of my fantasies, anyway. Back then, he was skinnier, more shaggy, and pale. Just a ghost of the strong, very fit man he was now.
“Well, we should probably go find that tree,” Hopper said. “You can catch up with Noel more after we get you loaded up.”
“Oh, I can cover the store,” Mom said. “Why don’t you go with them, Noel? You can pick out our tree while you’re at it. If you don’t do it today, your father is likely to get antsy and try to do it himself.”
“If you’re sure you don’t mind?”
“No, not at all.”
“Okay, sure. We can catch up while we look.”
“Great,” Hopper said, sounding less than thrilled.
We followed him out the door, and he started across the grounds. Emory, Gray, and I chatted as we walked among the trees, catching up on what each of us had done since high school.
Hopper didn’t join in, but then he’d lived here all the years I’d been away. He probably knew all this stuff. I took hold of his arm, pulling him off to the side.
“You okay? You’re quiet.”
“Just doing my job.”
His face was unreadable. I nudged him. “What’s the problem?”
He cast a glance at Gray and grimaced. “You were so happy to see him. Did you two ever…”
I stared at him, waiting for him to finish, then burst out laughing when I realized what he was getting at. Gray and Emory glanced at us curiously, but they stayed put close to a massive fir tree.
“Relax, Hopper,” I teased. “I left a virgin. You can pretend you’re the only man to get a piece of this.”
He swept his gaze over me, top to bottom. “Good.”
To my shock, he grabbed the back of my neck and reeled me into a kiss right in front of Gray and Emory.
Gray gave a wolf whistle, and Emory laughed.
I pulled back, cheeks hot. “Feel better now that you’ve staked your claim?”
Hopper’s dark eyes met mine, intense enough to make my cock twitch in my pants. “You know, I think I do.”
He returned to Gray and Emory, talking about fir trees, as if he hadn’t just rocked my world.
Damn it. With a man who kissed me like that, it was getting harder to remember why I needed to leave so soon.
