Chapter 31

PRESENT DAY

 

When I wake up, my neck still feels sore, but much improved from the night before. But I can’t stop thinking about what happened in Noah’s room.

Did he really give me a massage? Did I really kiss him and beg to spend the night in his bed? Did I really grope his leg?

Oh my God, did I tell him that I loved him?

And more importantly, did he say it back?

I take my time in the shower, hoping that Noah might have left by the time I get out. No such luck. When I get out, everyone is in the living room—Gwen and Dad are reading together on the loveseat, Lily is coloring, and Noah is on the sofa, fiddling with something in his tackle box. He’s wearing his prosthetics now with shorts so that I can see the metal that forms his shins and the robotic hinges that make up his knee joints. When I walk into the room, he immediately drops his eyes and looks very busy.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” Gwen says.

“Good morning, Sleepy Mommy,” Lily giggles.

“Hi,” I mumble. I grab a loaf of bread from the counter, intending to make myself some toast for breakfast.

Gwen rises from the couch and walks over to me. “I was thinking we might take Lily to town to look at some dresses she could wear when she’s flower girl.”

I yank out a piece of toast but nearly drop it in surprise. “How soon is the wedding?”

Gwen shrugs. “We were thinking this summer. There’s no point in waiting, is there?”

Wow, that’s a lot sooner than I expected. It’s still hard to wrap my head around this whole thing. Another woman being married to my father—it seems impossible. “Uh, let me just get breakfast and then we can go.”

She waves her hand. “Oh, please don’t hurry. We were thinking we’d take Lily, and you could stay here.” She looks back at her son. “Noah mentioned he was going to go fishing again this morning. Maybe you’d like to go with him?”

Noah looks up sharply at the sound of his name.

“Um, maybe,” I say.

Or not.

Twenty minutes later, Gwen and my father are hustling Lily out the door, leaving Noah and me all alone. Part of me wants to yell after them, “Wait for me!” Instead, I turn to Noah, who is rising from the sofa with his tackle box, and say, “You can go by yourself if you want.”

He shrugs. “Do you… want to come?”

Being alone on a boat with Noah in the middle of the lake? I’m not sure how to feel about that. “Do you want me to come?”

He looks at me a long time. Finally, he says, “Yes.”

That’s settled then.

Noah holds his fishing pole and tackle box in one hand, and his cane in his other hand. We walk down to the dock together without talking much. I desperately want to bring up what happened last night, but I don’t know how to begin. Maybe when we’re in the middle of the lake, the inspiration will come to me.

At the dock, there’s an attractive brunette climbing into the boat next to Noah’s. She’s wearing short shorts and a bikini top with the most perfectly even tan I’ve ever seen. I can’t help but notice the way her eyes light up when she sees Noah, even with his prosthetic legs readily visible.

“Noah!” She waves at him. “I haven’t seen you all season. Where have you been?”

He grins at her. “Putting in extra shifts in the ER to pay for all this crap.”

“We should go fishing together again sometime,” she suggests in a way that makes me think “fishing” is a euphemism for something else.

“Sure, Jenny,” he says. “I’m going back to New York soon but I’ll give you a call next time I’m here.”

Well, girls are still hitting on Noah right in front of me. It looks like nothing has changed in ten years.

After Jenny takes off in her boat, I can’t help but notice that the interaction has put a smile on Noah’s face. We climb into his boat and he whistles as he unties it from the pier.

“Did you sleep with her?” I blurt out.

He looks up in surprise. “What?”

Why did I say that? What’s wrong with me? “Never mind.”

He smiles crookedly. “There wasn’t a lot of sleeping involved.”

“Ugh.” I roll my eyes at him. “Good to know you’re enjoying yourself out here.”

Noah doesn’t say anything, just turns over the engine and steers the boat out of the harbor.

He drives us to a secluded area in the lake. I watch him attach the weights and bobbers to the fishing line, then tie the hook to the end. He pulls out a plastic container of worms from his tackle box. He holds them in my direction. “Want to do the honors, Bailey?”

I shake my head. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

Noah picks up one of the worms and laces it through the hook. He picks up the end of the fishing line and throws it into the water with the same underhand motion that he uses to skim stones in the water. I look out in the distance and see the red bobber.

“Now we wait,” he says.

I don’t know how Noah does it. When he fishes, he just sits there, staring out at the water. He doesn’t read, just listens to the radio playing (but not too loud so it doesn’t scare the fish). I asked him about it once and he said he likes to be able to hear his own thoughts.

I like the quiet too. It inspires me. But unlike Noah, I have my sketchpad. I’d never come out on a boat without it.

The fish aren’t biting today. We’ve been out here for half an hour and Noah has repositioned the hook once. He doesn’t seem all that bothered though. I watch him staring off into the distance, his blue eyes cloudy, the wind tousling his dark blond hair. I have the urge to draw him again, but he might take it the wrong way.

“I should have called you when your mother died,” he suddenly says.

I look at him in surprise. “What?”

He clears his throat, looking embarrassed. “I should have… I mean, I wanted to. When I heard what happened, I knew you were probably devastated and I wanted to call you. I thought about it. I picked up my phone to do it, and I even had your number up on the screen at one point.”

The truth is, I had been desperately hoping Noah would call me when my mother died. When I was at the deepest depths of my grief, the only thing I longed for was his arms around me. My father was lost in his own depression and couldn’t offer the comfort I needed. All I could think about was Noah. I never wanted him back so badly as I did then. I needed him.

When I was at her funeral, I prayed he would show up. I kept looking around for signs of him. I didn’t care if he was in a wheelchair or on a new set of prosthetic legs—I wanted to see him so much.

But he never showed. And that’s how I knew there was no chance he’d ever forgive me.

“Why didn’t you?” I ask.

He picks at a piece of lint on his shorts. “I was finally getting back to a good place in my life. I was starting medical school again, and… I knew if the conversation didn’t go well, it would end up being a huge setback for me. I know that sounds selfish, but… well, I was young and stupid.”

“I wish you had called.” I grip my pencil tighter in my hand. “I would have really liked hearing from you.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. He blinks a few times, staring down at his legs. “Was she sick when you… when we…?”

“Yes,” I say. “I found out the cancer was back a week after your surgery.”

“Jesus, Bailey,” he breathes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to use her as an excuse for the way I treated you.”

He’s quiet, taking that in. “I wish you had told me.”

“Maybe I should have.” I look out over Noah’s shoulder, at the vast lake beyond our boat. It seems like the water is endless. “My mother really liked you. She was so angry with me for… what I did. She knew I’d never find anyone else like you ever again.” I take a deep breath. “She was right. The truth is, I’ve regretted that day for the last ten years. I meant what I said last night. I’m still in love with you.”

Noah is silent.

“I never loved Theo half as much as I loved you,” I say. “I’ve thought about calling you a hundred times, but I was afraid you hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you,” he says. “I was angry at you, but… I didn’t hate you. I couldn’t.” He heaves a sigh. “The truth is that I never stopped loving you.”

We stare at each other, letting the impact of his words sink in. My heart is pounding in my chest. Noah loves me. He’s never stopped loving me.

I lean forward and he bridges the gap to kiss me. A minute later, we’re making out like the boat is going down. The last two times we kissed, he pushed me away, but I know he won’t do it this time. I feel his hands touching my hair, my back, my chest, desperate to touch every inch of me.

“Do you have a condom?” I whisper in his ear.

The last time I asked him that on a boat, he said no. But this time, he fumbles around under the seat and triumphantly pulls out a string of five condom packages.

“Should I be worried that you have such a well-stocked condom supply on this boat?” I ask him.

“Well, it’s not a rowboat,” he points out. “It’s not going to capsize if we roll around on it. It’s pretty safe.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “And I suppose you know that from experience?”

“Hell yeah,” he says. He grins at the expression on my face. “What do you think I am—a priest? I’m a thirty-three-year-old single guy.”

Fair enough.

I run my hand over the metal of his prosthetic socket. He watches me, his brow furrowed.

“Do you usually take them off when you…?”

Noah shrugs. “Depends.”

“What do you prefer?”

“Honestly? I prefer them off. When they’re on, it’s like two weights dragging me down. But most women prefer I keep them on.”

“Take them off.”

He frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

Noah presses on that white button on the inside of his thigh which seems to release the suction holding them in place. He yanks his left one off, then his right. He lays them on the floor, in front of the seats. Last, he pulls off the gel socks that cover both of his stumps. When he’s done, only his bare skin is left. He shifts in his seat and the stumps flail in the air for a moment before he gets resettled.

He squints at me. “You’re not freaked out?”

“Noah, stop it.”

He sighs. “Look, after all this time, I get that they’re not the most attractive things in the world.” He rubs his left lower limb self-consciously. “My last girlfriend… I was with her for a while, and she wanted to get married, but… I knew she still wasn’t entirely cool with the whole thing. When I got home from work, I just wanted to take my prosthetics off and get in my wheelchair, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing that around her. She’d make a comment about how isn’t it easier to be on my feet, and even when she didn’t, I’d know she was thinking it.”

I feel my cheeks grow warm. I suspect at least some of his self-consciousness must stem from the way I left him all those years ago. But what he needs to understand is I didn’t leave because I wasn’t in love with him anymore. I left him because I was deeply depressed and couldn’t cope. But I find him as sexy now as I ever did.

“I heard…” I put my hand on his thigh, under his shorts. “I heard that after an amputation, the residual limb can get very sensitive. Like, extremely sensitive in certain situations.”

Noah’s eyes widen as he gets my meaning. “Well… yeah. That’s… um, true.”

I run my hand up, then down his thigh. His eyes widen further and I can hear him swallow. “Bailey…”

“Let me show you how sexy I think you are,” I whisper.

“Okay,” he manages.

Noah gets down onto the floor of the boat. I get on top of him and we’re making out once again. Every time I touch that scar tissue at the end of his legs, he lets out a groan. By the time he gets the condom on and dives inside me, I can tell that he’s desperately struggling to hold out for the sake of my own pleasure. But as it turns out, he doesn’t have to wait very long. I’m just as turned on as he is and I climax almost immediately. It’s lucky we’re on a lonely boat in the middle of a lake because I’m not quiet when I do.

When it’s over, we lie together on the floor of the boat, sweaty and sticky in each other’s arms. I rest my head against Noah’s muscular shoulder and he pulls me close.

“I never stopped loving you either,” I say.

He smiles at me and squeezes me tighter. He’s staring off into the distance, his blue eyes clear this time.

“What are you thinking?” I say.

“I think…” He kisses my forehead. “That we’ve got a bite on the line.”

The fishing pole Noah set up is bobbing slightly. Looks like he’s right.