Page 19 of All of Him
I raised my eyebrows and stared forward. Someone was angsty, but for a good reason. I was honestly surprised he’d brought up his personal life.
“No,” I reassured him. “I’m sorry, Noah.”
“For what?” he asked casually, checking his blind spot and moving toward the exit ramp.
“That you had to go through all that. The thing with your parents, I mean.”
“They were hardly parents,” he scoffed. “But there were a few good times in there. Maybe that’s why I leave the CD in.”
“I’ve never been through something that bad,” I admitted. “I’ve had bad days, yeah, but nothing compared to anything with your parents.”
Noah glanced at me briefly.
“And I hope that you never have to.”
His words were laced with sincerity, and I felt them reach out and comfort me. Something deep in him was battling with his soul, and I wanted to pull it out and fight it for him. But Noah didn’t seem easy to crack, nor did he seem willing to let anyone in.
“Thanks for driving me,” I said when we were about five minutes away. “I really appreciate it.”
“Next time you agree to get drinks with the office player, I’m not coming to your rescue,” he joked.
I turned to him and smiled, proud I hadn’t said anything too dumb during the ride. At the bar? Absolutely. But I nailed my social interaction test for the whole drive. Noah smiled at me genuinely as he pulled into a parking spot by my building.
“You have a beautiful smile, you know that?” I said. I meant it sincerely, but it probably came off as some slurred sentence I’d regret later—along with the things I’d said at the bar. “Why do you never smile?”Get the shovel, Amanda.Noah shrugged and sat back in his seat, not making any moves to leave.
“I don’t have a reason to.”
I stared back at him, waiting for a crack in the facade, maybe even a chuckle to show he was kidding. But he wasn’t. He was so broken, and I felt him bring me down with him.
“Have you seen your mom?”
I knew I was pushing it with his personal life, but everything we’d talked about when it came to his parents was answered. It was only when I brought up Ireland that he stopped the conversation. I had to tread carefully and, in that moment, fight the whiskey in my system.
“I haven’t,” he answered, shaking his head. “And I probably never will. It’s just not a part of my life that I care to revisit. It’s hard enough, living in…” He stopped, shaking his head again. That time, it was as if he were shaking himself out of some kind of trance, like he couldn’t believe he was telling me anything. “I don’t want to see her,” he finally finished.
“Tell me something, anything at all, about Ireland,” I tried.
Noah sighed and turned off the engine, which excited me more than it should have. It was like he was giving the green light on the conversation.
“Well,” he started, “I lived in Dublin.”
The way he’d saidDublinrevealed the slightest Irish accent, and my heart melted a little. Or my stomach was rejecting the whiskey, but who really knew? “And I had a boring office job, like I do here. I also had a lot of fake friends that I left behind.”
“Why do you say they were fake?” I asked, turning in my seat to face him. He shrugged and looked down at his hands, running his fingers over yet another scar on his palm—another scar that was part of the story that I so badly wanted to know.
“I guess it was just that they were more so not the type of people I wanted to be around. I met them all through Garrett…” He paused and looked out his window, his jaw clenching.
I gave him a few seconds, watching his chest rise and fall slowly, like he was trying to calm himself.
Finally, he cleared his throat and continued, “They were his friends, not mine. They liked to party, but I wasn’t the biggest fan. I felt like a babysitter half the time, cleaning up after them and shit, you know? Even in university, I didn’t want to be part of that crowd.”
“I get it,” I agreed. I, myself, was not one with many friends. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the ability tomakefriends. I just didn’t put in any effort. I enjoyed Teel and Delia and the time I had alone. “I’m kind of a loner too.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Noah reassured me. “It’s nice to do what you want, but itcanget lonely.”
“So, how did you meet your ex?” I pushed.
“I knew that a question about my love life was coming.” Noah laughed, letting loose that smile again.
