Noah’s mom was no one’s quiet, tender mom. She’d still beat his ass if it came down to it. I’d watched it happen more than a few times myself. Plus, Grandpa Gus had gotten the scoop on how his mom had reacted after she’d found out how Noah had treated me that one day before he’d left. I wished I could have seen it.
I loved that woman. Admired the hell out of her. But that was beside the point.
“You need to go,” I finished, staring straight at him.
It was that sentence that dug in the deepest. I’d shocked him. “You’re telling me to leave?”
“He’s a member. You aren’t anymore.”
Those dark blue eyes focused in, surprise still all over his eyes and features. “I need to talk to you.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” I replied at the same time Jonah said, “Too late for that.”
I glanced over at him and had to fight the urge to smile again.
“I need to talk to you,” Noah repeated himself, frowning, finally ignoring the other man. “It’s important.”
“About what?”
His shoulders rolled backward, and his chin went up in defiance. “It’s private.”
He was full of shit.
If I could go back in time and slap the shit out of myself for all those times I’d clung onto our friendship for the sake of being loyal to someone who had once meant a lot to me, I would. How many times had he been a stubborn dumbass and I’d been left to help him or deal with his shit once Peter and Grandpa were fed up with him and his bullshit? How many times had I been the person who tried to talk some sense into him when he’d forced everyone else to exhaustion?
A hand that wasn’t so familiar anymore reached out and wrapped around my forearm, distracting me so much, I didn’t process quickly enough. “Let’s talk over dinner.”
Was this happening to me? All I could do was stare at him like he’d lost his fucking shit. Because he had. The last time we had been in the same room together he’d called me a slut.
He was lucky he was still alive.
So it wasn’t hard to look at him like he was fucking nuts and give him the only answer possible. “No.”
Noah swallowed as his eyes moved toward Jonah and back, shoulders bunched tightly. “I really need to talk to you.”
I repeated myself, genuinely asking myself how the hell my life had gotten to this point.
“For old time’s sake. You owe me that much,” he tried to insist.
The ‘I don’t owe you shit’ was right on my tongue.
“Please.”
Jonah tensed up beside me, and I couldn’t help but think about how he felt.
But… this was Noah. He’d put Band-Aids on me. He’d gotten a unicorn painted on his face by my side on my fifth birthday. He had carried me on his shoulder when we had been fifteen and I’d won my first Pan-American game. Before he’d turned into such a dipshit, he had been my closest friend.
But….
Then again, he’d also pushed me down a few times and caused me to need the damn Band-Aids in the first place.
Unfortunately, I knew him. At least I had known the person he’d been before becoming this. And if he was feeling entitled and genuinely thought he felt a certain way about me, there was only going to be one way that he’d stop all this shit and just let me move on.
“I’m not going to dinner with you. But if you want to talk, we can do it at the juice bar later. I have to work, and I’ve got Mo at home, and I want to spend time with her.”
His nostrils flared at the mention of her.
And it made me sad.
It made me real sad.
Friends were supposed to support each other. They were supposed to be there for one another even if you thought they were being dumbasses. Even when things weren’t perfect and easy.
I realized then better than I ever had before, that things between Noah and I would never be the same. Not even close. Not when he flinched when I brought up the joy waiting for me at home. The kid that was as much a part of me as my own hand was. Even more important than my stupid-ass hand.
And he was never going to be okay with where I was in my life now. Jonah or no Jonah. It didn’t take a genius to see that either.
It made me really sad, and I’d have to save that up for later.
The arm right next to my own went hard again, but I wasn’t going to think twice about it. Not right then.
“You don’t have time for me?” Noah asked, going there like I owed him something.
He should have known better. “No, I don’t. I barely have time to take a poop in peace. Are you good with five thirty or not?”
He could see it. I saw that. He could see that I wasn’t going to budge. Not anymore. Not when spending time with him had once been second nature. But that had been a long, long time ago.
The way he said “fine” almost got to me.
Almost.
But I had an imaginary Kevlar vest on, so it bounced right off.
And when Noah sneered at Jonah before basically stomping his way out of my office, all I could do was regret not giving him the official kick out of my life when he had ruined one of my dreams by being a careless prick.
“That went well.”
Jonah turned toward me. “You’re going to talk to him?”
I blinked. “I’m going to listen to him. At the juice bar. In the gym. I thought I said that out loud?”
That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting based on the scowl on his face.
The scowl that honestly pleased me a hell of a lot more than I would ever admit.
I’d had friends before who got all pissed off when their boyfriends and husbands got jealous, but I couldn’t find even the tiniest bit of anger inside of me. Annoyance, yeah. But just a little.
Because hadn’t he fucking listened? Did he not understand that I’d downgraded our conversation from dinner—when we hadn’t had dinner together by ourselves in… never—to being here at Maio House in front of people? Hello?
I had to keep my face neutral. I wasn’t about to ruin this shit. I was going to soak it up, eat it up, and gorge on it. Then do it all over again.
“You know what he’s planning on saying,” he accused in a voice that was almost that deadly one but not.
He was mad.
Hehe.
“I don’t understand why you need to listen to that fucking arsehole.”
Seriously, my heart soared, just flew right out of my chest and straight into the sky, and I had to keep my face straight so I wouldn’t give myself away, and it was a lot harder than I ever would have imagined.
This beautiful, handsome, amazing man was jealous.
Was that what joy felt like? It had to be. It fucking had to be.
It was because of that joy, and the borderline anger on his face and the fact that he had no idea that he was making my whole year by being mad, that I put a hand on that beefy-ass upper arm and told him calmly, “I’m only going because if I don’t, he’ll never drop it. Whatever it is he’s thinking isn’t going to go away with time. He needs to totally understand what the situation is, and he won’t listen if I do that in front of you, Jonah.”
He opened his mouth, but I kept going.
“I’m not going to dinner with him. I don’t even want to meet with him period, and I’m only doing this because he was my friend for a long time.”