Eleven
SENIOR YEAR
Noah is prompt, if nothing else. He pulls up at four on the nose, and I run out to the driveway to avoid inviting him in. But there’s no deterring my mother from following me out.
My mom thinks she’s some kind of one-woman equivalent of a Myers-Briggs personality test. She claims to be able to sniff out a tool in less than five minutes with a few strategic questions. It’s snap judgment at its best, but even I have to admit she’s uncannily on the mark most of the time. She’s right on my heels as I approach Noah’s bright blue Mazda.
Noah sticks his head out the window, and Mom holds out her hand as I climb into the passenger seat. “Bonnie Atwood,” she says. “You must be Noah.”
“Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.”
Strike one. That’s another thing about the South that Mom’s never gotten used to—young people calling her ma’am. It’s meant to be respectful, but Mom says it makes her feel old.
“I hear you’re new in town?”
I don’t know why she’d ask him that when I already told her. It’s like she prides herself on embarrassing me.
If Noah is aware that he’s under scrutiny, he doesn’t seem to care. “That’s right. I came to live with my dad this summer. We’re in Arbor Creek, not far from here.”
“Oh, Arbor Creek! I have some friends there. And Jadie lives there too, right, Macy?” I nod, and I can almost see her making a mental note to put her spies on alert for Noah-related gossip. Another by-product of junior year: Mom’s “mama bear” mode is a grizzly on steroids. She continues the cross-examination with, “And do you have any brothers and sisters keeping your mother company? Or is she on her own now?”
“No, ma’am, it’s just my dad and me.”
Strike two. Abandoning your mother is the filthiest of all sins in my mom’s book. She’s only in her forties, but she threatens to cut my brothers and me out of her will on a regular basis if we ever try to stick her in a nursing home.
“He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis not long ago,” Noah continues. “So I think it worked out for the best with me moving in.”
And there’s his redemption. Mom practically coos at his willingness to take care of an ailing parent. She makes sure I have my cell phone before ending the interrogation with, “You kids have fun. Remember, the park closes at dark.”
She waves as Noah backs down the driveway, and I sink into my seat. “Sorry about that.”
“For what? Your mom?” Noah glances over, his eyes alive with amusement. “I have that effect on them.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I take it you’ve met a lot of girls’ parents?”
He shrugs. “I’m a friendly guy.”
“I bet.”
Our eyes meet, and it’s there again—that flickering in my chest, the ripples of heat that have become part of my daily life. It hits me then that despite my best efforts, I’m attracted to him. That I could definitely see myself kissing him.
If I haven’t already.
* * *
When we get to Old Mill, I direct Noah to the parking lot. It’s only when we’re both out of the car and he’s slinging a backpack over his shoulder that I notice he’s wearing flip-flops.
“I hope you brought sneakers,” I say, pointing to his feet. “You can’t hike in those.”
He glances down and wiggles his toes. “Guess we’ll have to skip straight to the swimming.” He produces a wadded-up plastic shopping bag from the pocket of his shorts, which I realize are swim trunks. “I brought this to protect your brace.”
I shake my head. “At least I know you didn’t bring me here hoping to get an edge in the flag hunt.”
He puts his hands in his pockets as we start down the hill, past the red brick and floor-to-ceiling windows of the Mill Club, and head toward the trail. “I guess I don’t really get the point of it, to be honest.”
“It’s a team-building exercise. Coach Tori is big on the squad interacting with the football players outside of the games.”
Noah feigns indignation. “What, the keg parties and hookups aren’t enough?”
“Guess not.”
“And what does the winner get?”
“Losers buy the winners milk shakes at the diner during Friday Night Eats.” At least, they’re supposed to. I have a feeling Tyrell ended up spotting everyone on his team last year. “And, uh, bragging rights?”
Noah stops and gives me a look of disbelief. “You go through all this trouble, and there’s no infamy? No notoriety? Not even beer?” He shakes his head. “Mace, you guys are going about it all wrong.”
“You might have a point. Come on.” I nod in the direction of the wood steps that lead down to the rock-and-tree-lined creek.
“So why’d you quit the squad?”
“Long story. Here, we’ll take the stairs, since you didn’t bring appropriate footwear.”
Noah ignores me, heading instead for the steep footpath to my right. He looks over his shoulder and winks at me. “I never take the easy way out.”
“Suit yourself. But I don’t enjoy breaking bones.” I turn in the opposite direction and bound down the stairs, then jog over to where Noah is trying to hold his bag on his shoulder while negotiating a ninety-degree incline in brown leather flip-flops. “It’s not too late to turn around,” I call up to him.
No sooner do the words leave my mouth than his footing slips, and he doesn’t so much slide down the hill as surf it. It’s a wipeout, though, and he lands in a heap at my feet. I crack up laughing.
“So what did you prove by riding that hill like a wave?” I ask as I help him up, still trying to catch my breath.
“That I’m smooth as hell in every situation?” He dusts off his shorts.
“You already have a bad knee. You’re lucky you didn’t make it worse.”
He flexes the leg that had a brace around it at the last football game. “No risk, no reward. Admit it; that was pretty badass.”
“More like dumbass,” I say through a fake cough.
He chortles, and as we head upstream toward the sound of the waterfall, he takes my hand again. It’s starting to feel strangely comfortable, and I don’t know what to think of that.
“Wow, so what are these pipes?” Noah asks, pointing to the huge snake of iron tubing that lines the path. It sits on concrete supports that are almost as high as his ribs and runs the length of a portion of the river.
“This is part of the old water power system. It carried the water from the dam to the waterwheel. The original was made of wood, but this one replaced it in the early 1900s.”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “You’re a history nerd?”
“If you count reading the placard at the observation deck.”
We round a large tree, and when I see Noah’s face, I know he’s no longer concerned with the metal pipes.
“Wow,” he says, except it’s about ten syllables long. “This place is awesome.” He steps up onto a rock to get a better look at the waterfall, staring appreciatively. “Forget hunting flags. If Meredith reschedules, I’m hiding out here and letting everyone else do the dirty work.” He turns to me and flashes a grin. “Especially if I’m not getting a prize out of it.”
He starts to step down, but something on the ground catches his eye and his mouth drops open. “What the—is that a chunk of the old building? A piece of history, just lying there on the ground, in the same water where we’re about to swim?”
I have to giggle, because Noah geeking out over the mill ruins might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Not that I can blame him. Being here always makes me feel like I’ve traveled back in time. I picture the mill rotting away like a flower, except the petals that scattered were made of brick and metal and concrete and were left here for us to discover.
“Who’s the history nerd?” I tease.
He stretches a hand out to me, and I take it, letting him help me over the rock and down to a smooth patch of sand at the base of another tree. “You can’t have a dad who’s an air force veteran and not develop an appreciation for history. Let’s set up here.”
Noah spreads the blanket over the dirt in one quick motion, and then, without warning, grabs a fistful of his shirt from between his shoulder blades and pulls it off. That’s when I forget what we were talking about, where I am, and what my name is.
My imagination did his naked torso no justice at all. Good God in heaven, are those nipple rings? Yep. Yes, they are. I’m going to drop dead on the spot.
Or, I’ll do what I usually do when drowning in my own overheated blood: babble.
“There is kind of a prize for the pennant hunt, you know. Or there could be. I could feature the winner on the school blog.”
Noah kicks off his shoes and steps onto a smooth, rounded rock at the water’s edge. “For that picture thing? I heard about it, but I haven’t checked it out.” He balances on one foot and drags his other through the water. “Perfect.” He pulls the plastic bag from his pocket again and brandishes it. “You coming in?”
I have my bikini on under my clothes, which is probably obvious from the straps tied around my neck. But the idea of getting undressed in front of Noah makes me squirmy. He steps closer to me as if he read—or maybe misread—my mind. “Do you need help taking your clothes off?” He eyes my brace and holds up his hands. “I swear that wasn’t as creepy as it sounded.”
I don’t know who’s more surprised when I lift my hands over my head. He takes the hem of my shirt and peels it up off my body. Suddenly I can’t tell if the sound I’m hearing is the rush of water or the crackle of charged air between us.
How I thought that letting him take my clothes off could ever make things less awkward, I will never know. So I pull my cell phone from the back pocket of my shorts instead and start yammering again.
“Here,” I say. “Let me show you the share site.” I swipe the screen and pull up the Ridgedale’s Finest page. “Everyone posts their photos here, and I write up a little feature on one picture for the blog each week. Well—I’ve only done a few so far. See?” I click the link and let him take a look.
He makes a face. “You highlighted some junior who got her first car? How was that the most worthwhile thing happening at Ridgedale last week?”
“Hey! She’s been saving for that car since she was seven. I thought it was a cute story. Just like it’ll be fun if I spotlight the hunt winners. I’ll be covering it for the yearbook anyway.”
Noah takes the phone from my hand. “Wow. You post a lot to this thing, huh?”
I shrug. “I like pictures.”
“I don’t get the need to document every second of your life and make sure the whole world sees it.” But for feeling that way, he’s scrolling pretty intently. “Hey, wait a second.” He stops and clicks on a picture. “Is that you and Hargrove?”
“Oh.” I try to pull the phone from his hands, but he holds firm. “That was taken last year. I’ve been meaning to delete it.”
“Why?”
“Long story.”
Noah glances up from the screen. “You can’t use the same cop-out twice. We’ve got time.”
I give him a sly look in return. “Then we also have time to talk about why you two are always at each other’s throats.”
He touches the screen of my phone again, making the picture larger. “Joel uses people. He’s got your back for as long as you serve a purpose. After that, good luck.” I wait for him to elaborate, but he hands the phone back to me and turns the tables with a question of his own. “Your friends don’t approve of you hanging out with me, do they? Can I assume Hargrove’s at least partly to blame for that?”
My mind flashes back to Meredith and the confused look she tried to hide when I brought up Joel starting the fire. “I used to know where my friends stood when it came to Joel. Now I don’t know what to think except . . .” I don’t know why my resolve is gone in that moment, but I blurt it out: “I think Joel kissed me the other night.”
“You think he kissed you?” Noah says with a laugh.
“At the game. When the lights went out. Someone came up to me and kissed me, and I thought it might’ve been you, but it makes more sense that it was him. Except he hasn’t copped to it, and I don’t understand why he’d do that and then just walk away.”
Noah snorts. “Walking away is something he’s good at.”
I ignore him, swiping my phone until I come to the picture of the photograph I found on the football field.
“I even went back the next day looking for clues, but all I found was this.”
He takes the phone, and his lips settle into an unreadable line as he studies the black-and-white image of the tattoo. He stares in silence for so long that I wonder if he sees something I didn’t.
“Do you know what it is?” I ask.
“Snake tattoo,” he murmurs.
I roll my eyes. “That much I gathered. Do you know what it means?”
He hands the phone back to me with a shrug. “A lot of Native American tribes use snakes as symbols of defiance.” When he sees my eyebrow arch, he adds, “I’m a quarter Comanche, according to my great-grandfather.” He takes the phone again and gently tosses it and the plastic bag onto the blanket behind me before threading his fingers through mine. When he looks into my eyes, his have gone dark.
“So why does it make more sense for Joel to have kissed you, and not me? I’m assuming you’ve kissed him before?”
“Well, no, but—”
His thumb traces the inside of my wrist. “Then what makes you so sure it wasn’t me?”
“I—because you haven’t said anything. You haven’t acted any differently. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem like the kind of guy who, if you kissed a girl, would take the credit for it.”
“How do you know that’s not why I brought you here?”
My breath catches in my throat. “Is it?”
One of his hands moves to the small of my back. He doesn’t respond—at least not with words. In the next breath his mouth is against mine, and I know this is supposed to be the answer to my question.
It’s sweet and it’s sexy, and unapologetically thorough.
It’s also not even close to the answer I’ve been searching for.
It’s not that Noah isn’t a good kisser. But I know after only a few seconds that he’s not the kisser. The way we fit together, the way he tastes, the way my body reacts—it’s not that it’s wrong. It’s just that it’s not right.
He pulls back, tugging my lower lip between his. “I lied,” he says. I’m about to tell him I know, when he adds, “I brought you here to talk about something else.” He pulls me closer and winds his arms around my waist. “But I guess confessing worked out okay.”
What?
I push out of his arms and start to gather my things. “I don’t know if this is a joke to you or what, but it’s not funny.”
“Whoa, hang on.” Noah is at my side in a single leap and grabs my arm. “What did I do?”
“You’re taking credit for something you didn’t do. I’m not saying you don’t know your way around a kiss, Noah, but it wasn’t you on the field the other night. So if you’re only saying it was because Joel’s name came up, then you can count me out of whatever twisted game you’re playing.”
I try to jerk out of his grip, but he takes hold of my other arm. “Wait, Mace, listen to me. We were in the dark before, and now it’s broad daylight. There are people around, and—I’m nervous, okay? Because I have to ask you something.”
“Ask me what?”
He takes my phone from my hand and sits down on the blanket, patting the ground next to him. I hesitate before settling into the spot he indicated. When I do, he puts his arm around me and brushes his nose against my temple, his long hair tickling the side of my face.
Did I feel hair tickling my face that night in the dark? Why are those damn lips the only detail that’s crystal clear? My anger crumbles away with my conviction. Maybe Noah is telling the truth.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t live up to your expectations just now,” he says. “But I hope this makes up for it.” He holds my phone out with his other hand, and I see he’s turned the camera on. “Since you like capturing important moments in pictures, you can call this one . . . ‘When Noah asked me to homecoming.’ ”
My head snaps toward him as the phone clicks. I don’t even have to look at the picture to know that what he captured is proof that this day hasn’t gone as expected for either one of us.