Page 91 of Crowe
The ninth-floor common area was lit up when we walked off the elevator the next afternoon. I could hear it before the doors opened, the voices, the laughter, the warm chaos of everyone in the same room at the same time. The smell hit us in the hallway. Whatever Mika had been cooking smelled amazing.
Noah looked at me. “Did you know about this?”
“I may have sent a text,” I said with a shrug.
He shook his head, but the corner of his mouth twitched up in a small smile.
Mika was at the food table and looked up first, his face breaking into a warm smile when he saw us. Hawk was beside him, and he raised his coffee in a nod. Gator and Julius were sitting together on the couch, but Julius stood up the moment he saw Noah, like he’d been waiting for us to arrive.
He crossed the room and pulled Noah into a hug before Noah had fully processed what was happening, and I watched Noah’s arms come up around him and the way he held on.
“Gator told me what happened,” Julius said into his shoulder. “He said you were brave.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I don’t really think I was. I didn’t take the time to think about what I was doing, recognize the danger, and do it anyway. That would’ve been brave. I just acted without thinking, which was probably not all that brave or all that smart, to be honest.”
“It was amazing. Just don’t do it again.” He pulled back and looked at Noah with the direct, unfiltered look he only shared with the people who mattered.
Trixie, from her stand in the corner, announced, “Noah’s home. Noah’s home.”
The room laughed.
“She’s not wrong,” Mika said, coming around the counter with a bowl that he pressed into Noah’s hands. “Sit down. Both of you.”
We sat. Axel and Maddox were sitting on the floor arguing about the video game they were playing, which meant the world was exactly as it should be. Maddox stopped long enough to shout welcome home back over his shoulder.
“Pay attention to the game. You’re going to get us killed, and I want to beat this guy before we stop to eat,” Axel growled.
I ate my food, but my focus was on Noah beside me. He and Julius had their heads bent together as they talked about something in hushed voices. He reached over without looking and touched my arm briefly before going back to the conversation. Small. Easy. Like he’d been doing it forever.
“So,” Gator said, looking between us. “Word is, Noah won’t be going back to Houston.”
Noah looked up from his conversation with Julius, and our eyes met.
“No,” I said. “He’s not.”
“I’m moving to the camp,” Noah said. “With Jackson.”
Julius smiled at him like he was pleased with the announcement. But I hadn’t expected anything less from the man who’d found Noah half-destroyed and had sat with him through the hardest parts. What he cared about was Noah’s happiness, and it was easy to see that he was. He picked up his glass and looked at Noah.
“To finally being where you belong,” he said.
Noah looked at him and nodded before locking gazes with me. “To finally being where I belong,” he said.
We drank.
Maddox said something to Axel that made Axel throw a napkin at him, breaking the tension. Mika was already up getting more food, Hawk was laughing at something Gator said, and the rest of the room had gone back to their food and conversations. Everything felt… right.
Noah turned to me, and the room went on around us. “Thank you,” he said, quietly, just for me.
It didn’t matter what he was thanking me for. What mattered was that I planned on spending the rest of my life making sure that Noah was happy, safe, and surrounded by people who loved him.
“Always,” I said, and I meant it.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Noah
