Tiebreaker (It Takes Two 2)

“A guy could get the wrong idea, Maren.” His irritation broke through the surface this time, making me flinch. “Gordon was about to follow you into the bathroom. You get what I’m sayin’?”

A cold chill spread over my skin. “No, he wasn’t. And jeans and makeup aren’t going to make anyone do something they weren’t already gonna do.”

“And you’re drinking––” he continued as if he didn’t hear me, eyes wide, drilling into mine. “What the fuck. You’re lucky I was here to stop it. Go home, Maren…You don’t belong here.”

He might as well have slapped me in the face. It would’ve hurt less.

“What’s goin’ on…Noah?” Crystal came up behind him. She curled a possessive hand over his shoulder and looked me up and down. We both ignored her.

By then I was on the verge of tears. Tiny beer muscles gone. I backed away, ready to run if necessary because I was not going to let him see me cry. My pride wouldn’t allow it. No matter how much I loved him.

“Where are you going?” he demanded. Pushing off the wall, he stalked after me.

“Leave me the fuck alone.” I’d never, not once, cussed around him. Never. It brought him up short. After that I turned and walked quickly toward the front of the house

Zach caught me on the way out the door. “Hey––you’re going?”

I moved past him and made excuses, hiding my face behind my hair. “Curfew. Gotta get home.”

His expression said he wasn’t buying it. He pulled away from the group of guys he was standing with and stepped closer.

“I’ll see you at school?” The hopeful gleam in his eyes got to me. Maybe this was exactly what I needed, I thought. A fresh start with someone new. A clean slate.

“Sure,” I told him. Because he had been nice and I’d had a good time with him. Up until Noah went and ruined it.

I lived four blocks away. I cried the entire way home. Sometime after midnight the click and chime of something hard hitting my bedroom window woke me. I opened it to find Noah down below, both hands running through his hair.

“I need to talk to you.”

“No.”

“Please…just gimme a minute.”

I loved him and he’d hurt me, but in the words of my father, we most often hurt the ones we love most. So I gave him a chance to apologize. Because he was the one I loved most.

I pulled on shorts, put a zip-up hoody over the tank top I always slept in, and tiptoed downstairs, careful not to wake my parents. There would’ve been hell to pay if my mother had caught me sneaking out to talk to a boy. Especially if that boy was Noah. She’d always been suspicious of us, assumed there was more to our relationship than we were admitting.

Slipping quietly out the front door, I found him sitting on the front steps. “I was a jerk,” he said as soon as I sat next to him. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. It just––” He rubbed his hands on his jeans, then raked his hair back roughly. After a brief sideways glance, he continued in a low voice, “You took me by surprise. That’s all.”

“Why? Because I showed up where I don’t belong?”

“No, Mare. That’s––I didn’t mean it.” He turned to face me. “I guess––what I mean to say is...fuck…I didn’t realize––” He paused. His color was high. I could see a streak of pink across his cheekbones that even the dark of night couldn’t deny. His brown eyes openly moved over my face and body. As if he were seeing me for the first time.

“We’re not kids anymore.”

“No. I’m not, Noah. And if you plan on treating me like one every time you run into me––like at a party…” My voice petered out. I didn’t have the courage to say that our friendship would end.

“I won’t.” He smiled. It was small and brief and took my breath away. I wasn’t the only one who’d changed. Noah had grown up too. Well over six feet, he’d filled out, that tall lanky frame packed with lean muscle. He was so handsome it was impossible not to stare.

“You’re my best friend, Mare. Nothing will ever change that…I promise. Are we cool?”

Hearing him refer to me as his friend stung. I had big plans for us; apparently he didn’t get that memo. And yet I couldn’t entirely regret it when he called me his best friend.

I nodded and stood. He held up his hand for me to pull him up. It was a mistake. I knew it as soon as my hand wrapped around his much bigger one. I pulled and he stood inches away, staring down at me, his brow momentarily wrinkling in confusion. And as his gaze wandered over my face and eventually dropped to my mouth, chemistry took over and did its worst. He leaned it and I held my breath.