Chapter Sixteen
Noah
Waking up is never an easy task, and it’s all the more difficult when you’re waking up to how much of an ass you’ve been. I had no idea what had come over me when I lost it, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Even the possibility of a chance that Mark was getting some kind of special treatment that I wasn’t boiled my blood. In reality, deep down I knew it wasn’t true. After all, he’d only been there for less than a day when I flipped out, and he’d only been alone with Laci for a grand total of maybe half an hour while I was outside with Jack. She hadn’t said or done anything to make me believe she was going to do anything with him. In fact, it was just the opposite. She had reassured me that nothing was going to happen with him, so I shouldn’t have had any inkling that things would. I still couldn’t describe what had come over me, but she brought out the jealous beast in me.
I guess it was one of the many signs that proved I felt different about her than I’d ever felt about a girl before.
When I’d gotten home after my little explosion, I unpacked the food from the saddle bags and laid it all on the island in the kitchen, and then I spent some time pacing like a maniac, trying to calm myself down. After about ten minutes of feeling like a caged animal, a sudden calm swept over me and that’s when I woke up to how much of a jerk I had been. I knew I needed to make it right. Seeing tears roll down Laci’s cheeks was enough to rip my heart out, but when she told me I was scaring her, I could have sworn someone had stomped my heart into a pulp and lit it on fire. The last thing I ever wanted to do was scare someone I care about with my anger. Mom always told me when I was growing up that a real man kept a woman safe, he never made her fear for her safety–and I had done just that. I rode away to keep from scaring her more, which is what had brought me to the kitchen where I paced.
When I finally felt calm, I went back out to get on Simon and head to the lake to apologize. Just as I was buckling his saddle around his midsection, though, three horses trotted into view and I saw they were coming back. Jack and Mark seemed to be just fine, and even Laci looked far less troubled than she did when I had left, but she still looked like there was something scrambling her brain. I stepped into the sun and watched them approach the barn. Jack jumped down and walked up to me, asking if I wanted him to put Ella up. When I told him I could handle it, he immediately asked where the food was from the saddlebags.
“It’s all inside on the island. Go ahead and help yourself,” I told him. He danced away, and I looked at Laci and Mark. “Do you think we could talk?”
Mark nodded. “That depends. As long as you’re not planning on biting any more heads off, I don’t see why not.” He then glanced at Laci and raised his eyebrows as if to ask if she was going to join us.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said slowly. “Come with us to put the horses away. We’ll talk, then come back for Jack.”
“Are you sure we should leave him alone that long?” Mark asked.
“With the appetite that kid has, he won’t even notice we’re not there,” I confirmed. “Besides, it’s not like it takes that long to put the horses away. Worst case scenario, he’s eaten half of the food by the time we get back. No big deal, it’s not like there isn’t more.”
“Fair enough,” Mark agreed. “Shall we?”
The three of us walked over toward Sara’s ranch, Mark and Laci guiding the horses along while I kept my hands stuffed into my pockets. I didn’t know how to go about apologizing for being a complete and total ass, so I decided to start from the beginning.
“I don’t really know where to start, so I’ll begin with I’m sorry. To both of you.” I turned my attention to Laci. “You know, Lace, I really care about you.”
Her stare focused on me. “You’ve never called me ‘Lace’ before. It’s always been my full name. Why the sudden change?”
I wasn’t quite sure why myself, but I did my best to give her a reason. “I guess I just figure that people who call you that are the closest to you, and that’s what I want to be.”
A faint smile touched her lips; it was nice to see those soft, perfectly-shaped lips curl up instead of down.
“Anyway,” I continued, “if I frightened you, I never meant to. I just want to make sure you know that it wasn’t because I was trying to. It was because you make me…I don’t know. Crazy. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and the thought of losing you is, well, it’s a really unpleasant one.”
“What made you think you were losing me? I told you that I was with you.”
I glanced over at pretty boy. I was still convinced he was in love with her, and they had a connection. “This guy’s more intimidating than I thought he’d be. Not just because he’s a good-looking guy, but he also likes the same stuff you do, and you’ve known him for a billion years.”
“Funny, I didn’t realize we’ve known each other that long,” Mark laughed. “But seriously, Noah. It’s clear that she likes you a lot. And yes, I do have feelings for her, but I would never interfere with any kind of relationship you two have.” He shifted his attention from me to Laci. “I respect you too much for that, Lace. I want to be with you, but I’m not going to destroy your relationship in order to do it. I want to be with you because you chose me, not because I broke you two up.”
Damn, he was good. Or he was really a good guy like Laci had said. Either way, I felt threatened. Any sane man would.
“That’s good to know,” she said to him.
I didn’t want their moment to last any longer than necessary. I was trying to apologize, not give Mark more room to push me out. “Anyway, I guess what I mean is that I’m sorry for all of this. I shouldn’t have gotten angry and blown up on you, and I shouldn’t have left. It’s just that I didn’t want to scare you in any way. I never, ever want to make you feel afraid again. That guy is not me,” I assured her. “And if you’ll give me a chance, I want to prove that to you.” We reached the barn and led the horses to their stalls, then put away the saddles and started to walk back to my house. “So, are we good?” I asked both of them.
“As long as you treat Lace the way she deserves to be treated, yeah,” Mark said, extending a hand for me to shake.
I looked at Laci, waiting for her response. My gut twisted in knots.
“We’re good,” she said before pecking me on the cheek and taking my hand. The three of us walked quietly until we reached my house and went inside to find Jack gnawing on corn on the cob like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“Geez, kid, hungry much?” Mark asked.
“Told you he wouldn’t notice we were gone,” I chuckled. “Did you leave any for us, squirt?”
He inclined his head to the food at the other end of the island and grunted. I followed his gaze to find that he’d literally eaten almost half of the food that was sitting there, and then gotten into the fridge for the corn, which I guessed he heated up in the microwave. The three of us who hadn’t eaten yet settled down on stools around the island and dug in. As the four of us ate, I felt like everything would be just fine.
The rest of Mark’s visit went by without a hiccup.
***
Things really heated up after Mark left. Laci and I seemed to pick up where we’d left off the moment he called to say he was at the ranch: a hot and heavy make-up make-out session. I assumed she had held back a little bit so as not to rub it in Mark’s face, but it seemed like she was making up for lost time after he’d left. She didn’t do a thing without wrapping her arm around me or laying her head in my lap. I had to admit, it felt damn good to have someone want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with them. We spent every waking second of the next two weeks together–two weeks that led to what I’m fairly certain was my favorite moment of the entire summer: we went skinny dipping.
It started out as an innocent ride in my truck up the mountain to enjoy Make-Out Point, but it quickly took a turn. We were in the bed of my truck, getting sweaty pretty quickly in the hot and sticky night air. Lace pulled away and said, “Let’s go swimming.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I probably would have agreed to anything she’d said at that moment. “But do you really want to have to go get our swimsuits looking like this?” I indicated our sweaty, ruffled clothes that were all messed up in just the wrong places. Whoever we encountered would certainly realize that we weren't particularly innocent. Not to mention the fact that I had a raging hard-on, which was highly evident through my shorts.
A strange grin spread across her face as she asked, “Who says we need our swimsuits?”
“Are you serious?”
With an oddly seductive grin and a giggle, she leaned close to me and gave me an excruciatingly slow kiss. When she pulled away, I felt myself lean after her with my lips still puckered and my eyes still closed.
“Don’t leave me hanging!” I protested.
“Well, do you want to go swimming or not?”
“Is that even a question?”
“Then get your ass up here!” she called, climbing through the window and plopping herself into the driver’s seat.
“Who says you can drive my truck?” I asked, not really minding it, but wanting to give her a hard time.
“My driver’s license,” she replied simply. “Oh, shit! I’m coming between a man and his truck!”
“Count yourself lucky,” I sneered. “Nobody else besides my dad has ever had the privilege of driving Sheila.”
She snorted in laughter. Normally, that would be a huge turn-off, but somehow, she made even the least sexy things sexy. “You call your truck Sheila?”
“Sure do,” I told her, patting the side of the truck out the window. “Now, let’s get going before I change my mind.”
Laci gave a short salute and a nod, then said, “Aye, aye, Cap’n!” She turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. I was surprised to find out that she knew how to drive a stick shift and handled the size of my truck rather well. I gaped open-mouthed at her while she maneuvered the truck in an easy three-point turn and started back down the mountain.
“Look out! City girl knows how to handle a truck and drive stick!”
“Damn right, I do. My first car was a ninety-eight Ford Taurus. You think they made those bad boys in automatic? I don’t think so. And, I worked at the stables back home in the summers, so I’m used to moving the trailers around and whatnot.”
“You just keep getting sexier and sexier,” I growled, gripping her kneecap and kissing her cheek.
She needed a little bit of direction to find her way to the lake from the mountain in the dim light of dusk, but all in all, she pretty much knew her way around Stevenson. When the tires of my truck rolled to a stop, she opened the door and bounded out with much more energy than I originally expected her to have—then again, I had a renewed sense of energy, as well.
As with any good lake, there was an area that had a low bank that led right into the water and a hill that had a rope swing hanging from a tree at the top. Remembering that we didn’t have any towels, I grabbed the two blankets I kept stowed under the driver’s seat and followed her up the hill. In a matter of seconds, she was unhooking her bra and sliding the straps gracefully down her arms and wiggling out of her shorts. Her back was turned to me and she stuffed her phone into the pocket of her shorts and hung her clothes neatly on a low branch of a nearby tree before taking a few steps closer to the rope swing. She glanced over her shoulder at me, raised her eyebrows, then ran up, grabbed the rope, and swung out over the water. Her perfect little butt cheeks jiggled in just the right way as she approached the rope, and of course, I couldn’t help but stare. She let go and splashed into the water. I watched the bubbles come up to the surface of the water and her head emerged a few seconds later, her hair slicked away from her forehead and breathing slightly heavy.
“Well, are you coming in or not?” she yelled. Realizing I was standing there like an idiot, fully-clothed and holding two blankets as I gaped at my ridiculously hot, naked girlfriend, I hastened to strip down like her. I haphazardly threw my clothes and the blankets at the roots of the tree, then mimicked Laci by grabbing the rope, swinging out, and letting go with a whoop. Not to be outdone, of course, I twisted my body to allow myself to land in a perfect swan dive and splashed into the water to Laci’s applause.
“Impressive!” she laughed. “You must do this more often than you’re going to tell me.”
“Not the skinny dipping part,” I told her. “Usually with trunks on. But I’ve been coming to this lake ever since I was pretty young. So, naturally, I’ve been doing tricks as long as I can remember.”
She closed her eyes and flipped upside down to dive under the water, again showing me her ass, which I realized was much paler than the rest of her body—she must have sunbathed topless at some point that I didn’t know about. After about a minute, she emerged again, blowing out a deep breath and panting slightly. “Damn, this lake’s deeper than I thought. I didn’t even get to the bottom.”
“I’m just surprised that you made it that long without air,” I pointed out.
“I’ve been singing ever since I could talk. I’ve got lungs of steel!” she exclaimed, raising out of the water slightly and thumping a fist against her chest. My eyes darted down and lingered there, apparently longer than I had meant for them to because she snapped her fingers in my face before allowing herself to sink back to her neck in the water. “Yoohoo, eyes up here, bub.”
“You’re going gonna flash your boobs in my face and expect me not to look?” I whined.
“Exactly,” she declared. With a devious grin, she pushed up out of the water just enough for me to catch a glimpse, then ducked her head back under again. It was a good thing she couldn’t see below my waist because Noah Jr. instantly stood at attention. I dipped down into the water and mussed my hair to push it out of my face. I always feel the most like a jungle cat when I’m soaking wet, and this situation called for full-on jungle cat Noah. I emerged before she did. A hot flash of panic swept through me because, when I did come back up, the bubbles that should have been present over her head were not there.
“Shit!” I yelled, lunging forward to where I had seen her last. When it dawned on me that she wasn’t there, I was just about to turn around so I could look behind me when she popped up directly in my face and stuck her tongue out like some kind of stupid whack-a-mole. “Don’t do that to me!” I panted. “I thought you had drowned or something! Damn!” I told her, splashing a wall of water toward her. She returned the favor, then lay back on her back and began to kick away from me, stretching her arms far above her head in an exaggerated backstroke. “Are you purposely trying to show me your boobs?” I demanded.
“Why?” She turned and swam back to me so our faces were just about touching. “Does it turn you on?” she asked, planting a quick kiss on my nose and turned to swim away again.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, grabbing her around the waist and treading water up to meet her. I pressed my chest against her back, but did my best to keep my pelvis away from her body. I wasn’t about to do something if I wasn’t two hundred percent sure she was ready for it. I kissed down her neck and along the top of her shoulders as she twisted to face me. I gave her a small kiss on the lips before suggesting we swim to where it was shallower and we could touch the ground so we didn’t have to tread water anymore. I would never tell her this, but my legs were already starting to get a little bit fatigued; I didn’t want to think of how difficult it would’ve been to continue treading water when we really started making out like I was fairly certain we were bound to do.
She agreed and tugged me toward the low bank of the lake. When she came to a stop and firmly planted her feet, she yanked me close to her again and kissed me deeply. “You don’t waste any time, do you?” I asked between breathless kisses.
“Shut up,” she whispered, biting gently on my bottom lip. She wrapped her arms around my neck, then her legs around my torso. My breath caught in my throat; I was dangerously close to her in a way that felt wrong.
“Lace,” I started, pulling away a little bit. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not,” she said, frowning.
“Do you realize what is right below you right now?”
Keeping one arm wrapped around my neck, she dropped back down to her feet and grabbed me. “This?” she said with a sly smile.
I froze. “Yes, that.” She snickered, then pressed her lips to mine again as she started to slowly move her hand. I snatched her hand away from my nether region and threw it around my neck so I could pull her close. Again and again, we kissed, hot and hungry, allowing the water to swirl around us.
Something told me she wanted more just as much as I did, but my brain screamed at me to slow things down and not to even try it. If it were Jaime, I probably would’ve disregarded that little voice in the back of my head, but I just couldn’t ignore it with Laci. Maybe it was the level of respect I had for her—I don’t exactly know—but I knew sex would complicate things even more. We’d already had plenty of complicated by way of conflict and drama at the start of our relationship. Now that things were going smoothly, we didn’t need to throw something as heavy as sex into the mix …yet.
Don’t get me wrong, our hands definitely wandered, but I stopped short of anything rated R. She clearly noticed my hesitation because when we had both had our fill and had begun to swim around together, she took a deep breath and asked, “Am I not sexy enough for you or something?”
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “What?”
“You heard me.” She came to a stop and started treading water. I did the same, and she swam a little closer to me so she could search my eyes. “Am I not sexy?”
“No, you’re extremely sexy; what the hell would make you think you’re not?”
“It’s just that I would’ve thought that, during all of that, it would’ve turned into our first time together. I mean, we’re already naked, for Christ’s sake!”
“Baby,” I whispered, running my hand through her hair and settling it against the back of her neck. I kissed her and took her hand. “Come on, let’s talk out there,” I suggested. After we had waded out of the water and trudged up the hill, I spread out one of the blankets, laid down on it, then covered up with the other one. Tucking one arm underneath my head, I patted my chest with the other one. She lay down with me and pulled the blanket over herself before placing her head on my chest and reaching around to wrap her arm around my waist. For a few minutes, we just laid there in silence and stared up at the branches of the tree, where the moonlight was filtering in through the leaves. When everything felt settled and peaceful, I broke the silence.
“You wanna know I didn’t attack you like so much of me wanted to?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“Because,” I said, kissing her softly on the forehead, “you deserve better than that.”
“Better than you?” she countered before kissing my chest and laying her head heavily back down.
“Better than our first time being in a dirty lake in a lust-driven stupor.”
“Those are some fancy words for a cowboy,” she snickered.
“I’m serious,” I scolded. “I mean that you deserve better than that. I want our first time to be at the right moment, with candles and rose petals and all of that cheesy stuff.”
“I didn’t take you for such a romantic, Noah Tucker.”
“I’m normally not, but you bring out my inner poet. Things are different with you, Lace. Unlike they’ve ever been with anyone else. I just can’t bring myself to allow it to be purely physical with you with no meaning. It’s got to be perfect.”
“I see,” she all but whispered. “I’m not sure I understand why, but…”
I laid there for a minute, holding her, quietly thinking about what I wanted to say next. Finally, I landed on the exact words that would sum it all up. “I love you, Laci Daniels.”
She sat up and looked at me, covering her chest with the blanket as if she suddenly had some modesty to protect that she didn’t when we were swimming. “What did you just say?”
For a split second, I considered rescinding my statement, telling her that I cared about her or something like that instead, but the look in her eyes wouldn’t let me be anything but honest with her. So, I repeated myself. “I love you, Laci Daniels.”
As she lay back down and curled up closer to me, she responded. “I love you, too,” she said softly.
I kissed the top of her head again and wrapped my arms around her. “I know it’s only been a matter of weeks that we’ve been together, but you bring out something in me that I didn’t know existed. You’re beautiful, funny, smart, caring, and just amazing. I didn’t know what I wanted until I met you, but it didn’t take long to recognize it once it was in front of me. You’re what I want.”
“You know, I turned Mark down just after my graduation because I thought I didn’t want any kind of relationship at the moment, but you changed my mind. All of the little things about you add up to be exactly what I want and honestly, what I need.”
“I love you,” I repeated. Saying it felt like a weight had been lifted and I just wanted to tell her a thousand times over.
“Yeah, you said that,” she said with a light chuckle. “And, for the record, I love you, too, Noah Tucker. Also, a month isn’t too soon to say you love someone. My mom always told me when you know, you just know. There’s no set timeframe you have to wait. As far as I’m concerned, waiting to say it only strains things. It makes you both wonder what the other one is thinking. I like this much better. Did I ever tell you my parents were married after dating for two months? And, they were inseparable until the end. That was twenty-three years ago.”
“What are you trying to say?” I teased.
“Oh, shut up. If you’re implying that I think we should get married, you need to slow your roll.”
“Just checking,” I sighed. “You have no idea how much courage it took me to tell you that I love you.”
“I think I might have an idea.”
We laid there for another hour or so, just enjoying each other’s company and the afterglow of saying the “L” word for the first time. Just as I started to drift off, she sat up. “I’m getting a little chilly,” she said.
“Well, it’s no wonder,” I murmured. “Considering we’re both naked and laying between two wet blankets.”
“You add a little bit of warmth, but still, I think I’m going to put my clothes back on.”
“Fair enough,” I shrugged and rolled over onto my stomach as she stood up. With a long stretch, I glanced up to watch her shimmying into her shorts before hooking her bra in front of her stomach and spinning it around to put on the proper way. I army crawled for a few inches until I could reach her, then I grabbed her ankle. “Come back! Come back, I’m lonely!”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, throwing my shorts so they landed on my face. “Get dressed. I want to go lay somewhere more comfortable.”
“You expect me to go commando?” I balked. “My skin is far too sensitive for that. Gimme my boxers first.”
“And, you call me the princess. You’re so dramatic,” she said as the whipped them at my chest.
“Says the actress,” I responded, wiggling into them while still lying on the blanket.
When we’d both finished putting our clothes back on, I spread the blankets out on the bed of my truck to dry while Laci climbed into the cab. I joined her, started the engine, and began to drive. Combing her hair out with her fingers, she was weirdly quiet, even for her.
I reached out and took her hand. “What’s the matter, babe?”
“What’s going to happen?”
“We’re going to go back to my house and cuddle in bed?” I offered.
“I mean in two weeks. That’s all that’s left before I have to go back home to start filming. And, don’t you go back out on the circuit?”
“Yeah, but let’s not think about that.”
“Don’t tell me not to think about it, Noah. We have to think about it. I don’t want to have just told you that I love you and continue things just to have them fade away when I have to leave.”
“We’ll talk about it later, babe. For now, let’s just enjoy the moment. Please? I promise we’ll talk about it; just not tonight.”
She looked as if she was going to disagree, but decided against it. She nodded and turned on the radio. A love song started to play through the speakers, and instead of changing the station like I expected her to, she started to sing along, making a few meaningful sideways glances at me while she did. Her voice was gorgeous; it was obvious that she’d been singing all her life. Each note that floated from her mouth made it sound as though it were the only way it was ever meant to be heard. When the last note had ended, she stared at me as I drove.
“I’ve never appreciated that song as much as I do now,” she said. “It’s one of those songs you like and just sing along with mindlessly until you feel the same way she does.”
Strangely enough, I knew exactly what she meant. “As cheesy as it sounds, I’ve noticed that, too. Love songs have had a different meaning to them lately.”
“Good to know I’m not just crazy,” she laughed.
“Oh, no, you still are. It’s just that I am, too.”
If I was honest with myself, I’d definitely miss the moments like this when we had to go in separate directions: the little moments when we could laugh and poke fun at each other and see the other’s reaction. I didn’t exactly know what would happen when we were apart, but I did know that I wanted to try as hard as I possibly could to make things work, assuming she wanted the same thing, of course. I had no reason to believe that she wouldn’t, so I crossed my fingers that we were on the same page. Truth be told, I really wasn’t ready to talk about it because what if I was wrong? What if she thought this was a wonderful summer romance where she fell in love, but didn’t want to put in the effort of maintaining a long distance relationship for possibly months at a time? I knew I might still have Jaime if Laci decided to move on without me, but after experiencing how alive I felt with Laci, I knew I wouldn’t ever want something so meaningless and crass again.
I was in love, and it felt so damn good to be able to admit that to myself.
So what did I want to happen? I guess I had my answer.