"How?" I shoot the question out without realizing how much desperation is attached to it.
He scrubs his hand over his face. "I can't talk to you about this, Kayla. I need to talk to Alexa first. It will kill her inside if she knows I'm sharing stuff about Ben with you and not her."
Normally, I'd take that as a weak excuse for wanting to hold his secrets close to him, but this is Noah Foster. Alexa is his life and I know that he honors her in a way few men honor the women they adore.
"What am I supposed to do?" I ask genuinely. I feel completely conflicted inside. I have nothing concrete to dissuade me from Ben's confessions about the day his mother died. All I have to contradict that are some loosely disguised accusations that have come from my best friend's boyfriend.
"Stay away from him." He pushes on my hand. "I'm going home right not to tell Alexa everything about Ben. Then you'll come over and the three of us will talk about this together."
I nod. It's not in agreement. I want to know what happened in the past that has convinced Noah that Ben is the second coming of evil. I want to hear it from Ben. I need to talk to him now.
"Promise me you'll stay away from him."
That's not a promise I can keep. "I want to know what's really going on, Noah."
"You will." He reaches forward to graze his lips across my cheek. "I should have told Alexa about all this months ago. I'll talk to her and then we'll talk again."
I sigh deeply as he turns and heads down the street.
Chapter 19
"Have you ever wanted something that was bad for you?" I pull air quotes around the word bad. I don't know how else to define what Noah thinks of Ben.
"I'm a doctor." He laughs as his hand races up my thigh. "Everything is bad for me. There's like two things I should be eating. Everything else is the root cause of some kind of disease."
I laugh at the words even though I'm bundled into a tight ball inside. I keep glancing at my phone waiting for Noah or Alexa to call.
"Are you expecting a call?" Ben nods his chin towards my smartphone.
"I am." I've been debating whether I should just ask Ben about Noah's attack on his character. I trust them both. I care about them both. I feel as though I'm sitting atop a thick tug-of-war rope that they both are clinging to for dear life.
"Is it a work thing?" He moves his body closer to mine. "Your boss was in the ER the other day."
"What?" I say in surprise even though I anticipated it happening at some point. "She was smitten with you that day you called in for me."
"Smitten?" he parrots back within a wide grin. "Is that like saying she's hot for me?"
"All your female patients are."
"Some of the male ones too, " he says through a wide grin.
"It's not about work. I'm waiting for Noah to call."
His jaw tenses at the mention of his brother's name. "Why would Noah be calling you?"
"He's talking to Alexa about a few things right now." I pick up my phone and hold it in my hand. "Then they'll call me so I can go over."
"What kind of things?" He leans back into the soft leather of his couch. "Wedding things?"
"No." This is it, Kayla. Just say it. "It's about you."
"Me?" His finger scoops a piece of hair behind my ear, before it floats down my cheek. "What about me?"
"Noah knows we're sleeping together."
"How does Noah know that?" He tilts his chin towards me. "You told Noah?"
"No." I shake my head. "He saw us together."