Page 26 of All of Him
“Of course you do. You have a good one right now? I could use it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. He still looked tired. His hair had been combed, unlike the day before, but he had bags under his eyes.
“Fine,” I started. “One of the guys in my sister’s wedding party? I slept with him a few years ago. She has no idea.”
Noah laughed out loud and pushed himself off the counter toward me. His belly laugh was jarring—a stark contrast to his mood—but I was glad to hear it. There was light in there, waiting to be pulled out.
“Don’t take this offensively, but you don’t seem like thecasual sextype of girl,” he remarked, cocking his head curiously to the side.
I shrugged.
“Are you afraid of commitment?”
Maybe.Okay, yes.
“I’m bad at relationships. Sex without strings is easier,” I responded, covering up the depth of my reasoning. “However,” I continued, “not that it’s any of your business, but it’s a low number. So, I don’t exactly get around. What aboutyou?” I was mostly joking, trying to throw him off by turning the tables, but his sex life didn’t seem to be much of a secret.
“Not big on it,” he responded surprisingly. “I’m more of aserious relationshipkind of guy. A lot happened toward the end of my and Morgan’s relationship too. So, it’s been over a year, to be totally honest.”
“Wow, you didn’t need to tell me that,” I answered, my eyebrows poised high on my forehead.
I assumed Morgan was his recent ex, the relationship he had claimed to have screwed up.
“It’s not a big deal,” he admitted, shrugging. “I’m not trying to impress anyone, and we’re both adults here. I’ve only been with two women.”
I raised my eyebrows higher, surprised at the low number. But mostly that he had told me.
“The best part?” he started again, clearly salty about something.
He hadn’t spoken so much at once since we’d met, but it was obvious that he needed to get something off his chest. I wasn’t going to stop him; Noah Murphy became more intriguing with every sentence.
“Both of those women cheated on me. The first one? College—lasted two years. It took me forever to get back out there because of it. And then,Thursday, I found out that Morgan had also cheated.”
“Why do you care about someone you broke up with, like, months ago?” I asked, unable to control my remark.
I covered my mouth and apologized quickly, but Noah just shrugged.
“It’s not the cheating that bothers me as much as the circumstances around it, which, again, I don’t feel like getting into.”
“So, you were upset this week because of that?” I asked.
Noah nodded.
“Youdoneed a friend.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, his lips curling into a shy smile. “I guess I do.”
Noah acted the same as we always had throughout the day while working on the house. I assumed our friendship would be no different than our recent interactions, save for theforgiving Amanda when she says somethingdumb part. And having each other’s phone numbers.
My dad definitely tried to watch us on and off. It was like he was waiting for us to start holding hands and sing “Kumbaya” at any minute. Instead, the only conversation we had was at lunch, and that was about food.
We were finishing up for the day when Noah was scanning the eaves of the house for wear and tear. My dad was packing up his truck, but I noticed Noah grab a broom from the corner of my eye.
“No!” I yelled, remembering the beehive I’d seen earlier. I’d completely forgotten to tell my dad. “It’s still active!”
Noah didn’t hear me in time and poked it with the broom. I wasn’t really sure what hethoughtwas going to happen, but nothing good could come from what he was doing. He stood in the same spot, swatting them away at first, then turned to run inside after me. It had only been about fifteen seconds, but there were a lot of bees. I knew he’d been stung.
“What happened?” Dad asked, coming through the front door.
