Noah groans. “Really? How did I get roped into this? Who’s to say that Rivers is even going to want this? He’s a complicated kind of guy, you know. Fuck, he’ll probably come back here and have the shits that you changed his home around.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she throws back at him. “He’s going to love it. You’re just too tired to care because you’ve been working so much. Besides, doesn’t it make you feel all tingly inside knowing you’re doing something special for your best friend?”
Noah grins and I shake my head, knowing perfectly well what’s coming now. “Do you really want to know what makes me feel all tingly inside?”
Tully groans and stomps her foot before spinning on her heel and stalking away. “Geez, maybe I should ease up on Spencer. If he ends up with her then he’s already in for a lifetime of pain as it is. I really shouldn’t be making life harder for the poor guy.”
“Nah,” I laugh. “Keep hounding him. It’ll make him stronger and therefore more capable of keeping up with your sister. If you think about it, you’re really doing him a favor.”
Tully’s voice rings out from the living room. “NOAH! STOP BEING A PANSY ASS BITCH AND COME REMOVE THIS OLD CARPET!”
Noah lets out a deep sigh. “Do you think she’d come looking for me if I slipped out the laundry room window?”
“I think she’d force everyone else to stop what they’re doing and go looking for you with pitchforks and flames, only to make you come back here and do it all by yourself.”
“Shit, you’re probably right.”
I wink. “Haven’t you learned by now that I’m always right?”
“Haven’t you learned by now that you couldn’t be more wrong?”
I grin up at him, loving the way his eyes sparkle with mirth. “Well, I agreed to be with you, didn’t I?”
“No, no,” he says. “That’s on me. I got that one right.”
“Bullshit. You were running away to be Monica’s fake baby daddy. I was the one who came to you with the truth.”
“Yeah, but I was the one who got drenched in spaghetti sauce and forced you to take me home and clean me up. I don’t recall ever letting you out of my sight from that point on, even though you tried your damn hardest.”
“Trust me,” I say, rolling my eyes and stepping around him. “There were plenty of times. You’re not going to win this one, Noah. I was all in from the start, you were the one who had shit to deal with first.”
“Hey,” he says, hurrying up the hallway to catch me. “I was in from the start even during all that Monica bullshit. You were still mine. I knew it and you knew it too. Even that fucker up on the roof knew it and he still tried his luck.”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “That wasn’t the best night for me.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t the best night for my bathroom either.”
“You know, I’ve always wondered. That night…when you made me sleep in your bed. Was it really because you didn’t want me throwing up and choking on my own vomit or was it because you just wanted me to sleep in your bed so you could touch me all night long?”
Noah chuckles as a wide grin spreads across his face. He walks past me, leaving me in the kitchen before looking back over his shoulder with a devilish smirk that has my heart racing and my thighs clenching. “You’ll never know.”
He walks into the living room and just as he’s getting there, Spencer walks through the front door and makes his way towards the old carpet. Tully gives Spencer a beaming smile that has him startled for a moment before he rights himself and gets on with it.
She turns towards her brother. “Would you look at that?” she laughs. “A guy who comes and helps without needing to be asked a million times.”
“Yeah,” Noah scoffs. “Take away the possibility of getting in your pants and watch how helpful he is then.”
Silence claims Tully and Spencer while Noah and I get overwhelmed by our own smothered laughs.
The boys get busy and I make sure to remind them not to ruin my freshly painted walls and before I know it, they’re hauling shit out of the house, and the second the old carpet is removed, the smell seems to go with it.
With the boys busy and Ari happily bossing them around, I find myself walking down to the room at the end of the hallway. I’ve been dreading coming in here, but I know this job is never going to get finished if I don’t do something with it. Rivers’ scars will never fade if he comes home to see this reminder every single day.
I stand in the open doorway looking in at the mess of papers, torn mattress and knocked over shelves and tables, wondering what the hell I’m going to do. A part of me wants to just leave it, but then a part of me is telling me that it’s the least I could do for the woman who gave me a better life.