“When?”
He shrugs his shoulders which allows me another moment to check out his upper body. Noah Riley looks better than I remember, and that’s not something I thought possible. “I would have gotten it in the mail sometime this week.”
“She wanted itlastweek,” I remind him.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Which I suppose is why I’m here. Lorelai knew I would send it right out.” I need to stop staring directly at him or I’m liable to go blind. Looking at Noah is like gazing into a full solar eclipse without those retina-saving pinhole glasses.
“Why are you in Elk Lake?” he asks. “I thought you moved away after college.”
“I came back after my divorce.”
His eyes pop open like I just admitted to a cardinal sin. Which, to be honest, ticks me right off and is probably the reason I feel the need to explain, “My husband cheated on me, so I left him and came home.” Thank goodness I don’t blurt out the rest of it.
Noah shifts his weight onto his other leg which causes his towel to once again slide. “I’m sorry. That’s pretty rotten.”
“Yeah, well.” My eyes dart toward my friend’s bedroom. “I’d better get Lorelai’s sweater to the post office before it closes.”
His chin bobs up and down. “I appreciate you helping out,” he says before walking past me toward his own room. It looks like I’ve been dismissed.
Going into my friend’s childhood bedroom, I make quick work of getting her sweater out of the closet. Once I have it in hand, I take a minute and look around. The same Spice Girl posters are still on the wall from when we were in high school. Her bulletin board is covered in snapshots of our earlier years. Even her duvet is the same white eyelet with the quilted top that she bought at JC Penney when we were freshmen. Being here is like walking into a time capsule and it’s wreaking havoc on my senses.
My mom started remodeling my bedroom the day I graduated from college. I’m currently sleeping in her sewing/crafting room on a daybed that lacks the comfort and ambiance of my childhood domain.
In the weird and altered state I’m in, I’m suddenly hit by a barrage of conflicting emotions. While feeling a renewed sense that anything is possible, I simultaneously realize my life didn’t turn out like it should have and now it doesn’t feel like there’smuch hope. I try desperately to cling onto a flicker of optimism, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to let hope back in.
I do know one thing though. I’d better keep my distance from Noah Riley. I am not looking to be sidetracked, and he is nothing if not totally distracting.
CHAPTER FOUR
NOAH
The last thing I expected was to have to come home in the middle of the day to shower. But when you step, slide, and fall into a pool of fresh vomit left by a student, there really is no other option. From now on, I’ll make sure I leave an extra set of clothes at school so I can shower there.
After hurriedly changing into a clean pair of jeans, I pull a fresh sweater over my head. Then I comb my hair and grab a pair of socks out of the drawer. The shock of running into another person in my house probably took five years off my life, but at least it was someone I knew and not an ax murderer. Not that I ever really knew Allie Rogers, but she was always around when we were kids.
Allie is nothing like I remember her being. Of course, I haven’t thought about her in years and the last time I saw her was at Lorelai’s high school graduation party. Back then I would have described her as mousy and nondescript. Which is clearly no longer the case. She’s tall—she seems taller than she was back then; her hair is darker and longer than I remember; and her eyeshave a dangerous kind of spark that radiates from them. It’s like she knows something about me that I don’t even know about myself. Which I find totally disconcerting.
While I’m marginally annoyed to have had a second sizable shock in my day (the first being the vomit slide left by that poor girl), I’m relieved my sister found someone else to do her bidding. Now that school is back in session, I’m busy from early in the morning until at least seven o’clock at night. There will be very little me-time in the coming months.
Once I’m dressed, I stop off in the kitchen to grab the tuna fish sandwich I made for my supper. After tossing a bag of chips into the sack, I scan the room to make sure there isn’t anything else I want. There’s not much here so I’m going to have to find some time to hit the grocery store to stock up on snacks.
After turning off all the lights, I hurry out to my car. I parked out front instead of pulling into the driveway, which is probably why Allie thought the house was vacant. Once inside, I immediately put on my Pitbull playlist on Spotify. Then I jam out to“Fireball” on my way back to the high school.
It’s a surreal feeling to once again be going to Elk Lake High School day after day. Part of me expects that every time I cross the threshold I will have time-traveled into the past. Whenever I pass my senior year locker, which is probably ten times a day, I try to remember the combination so I can get my textbooks out.
Walking into the lobby, I’m once again greeted by the principal. He looks more harried than he did this morning. “Mr. Riley,” he says while striding purposefully in my direction. Stopping in front of me, he asks, “You don’t happen to know anybody who might be willing to take on a substitute teaching job for the rest of the year, do you?”
Being that I no longer know anyone in town, I tell him, “I sure don’t. Is someone leaving?” Obviously someone is leaving, or he wouldn’t be looking for a sub, which is once again a clear indication of how bad I am at small talk.
“Trish Bailey’s husband got offered a job in San Francisco. Hestarts next week, and she’s going to follow him as soon as she can get their house on the market.”
“That’s fast, huh?” I mean, who gives notice and leaves a week later?
Johnathan’s gaze shifts nervously before he answers, “She might have mentioned something about it being a possibility a month ago, but I didn’t see the need to fill a position that wasn’t even vacant yet. Also, who wants to leave Elk Lake? We live in paradise, man!” He punches my shoulder like I’m his drinking buddy.
“Paradise, huh?” I force a smile on my face. Even though I love Elk Lake and it was a great place to grow up, it is not by any stretch of imagination my current idea of nirvana. It’s also not the ideal place for a single man in his thirties to live.
