The water churns around us, steam curling into the air. Noah shifts beside me, his knee knocking lightly against mine under the surface. I don’t know whether it’s on purpose or not,but suddenly I’m aware of every part of him again—how close his shoulder is, the damp heat of his skin, the curl of his wet hair at the nape of his neck.
“So,” Maya says, breaking the silence as she turns to Rick and Cassidy, “Maria mentioned you guys are going to Italy soon?”
Cassidy brightens at once. “Yes! We’re going for three weeks. Starting in Milan, then Florence, then Rome, and ending in Venice. It’s partly for the wedding too.”
“Cassie’s always dreamed of a destination wedding, so we’re already scouting locations,” Rick adds, sliding an arm around Cassidy’s shoulders. He glances at Noah as he says it, obviously fishing for a reaction.
Noah doesn’t give him one. Instead, he leans a little more into my side, his thigh pressing more firmly against mine under the water. I try not to tense. I try not to think about how close his elbow is to where I’m still humiliatingly hard.
“Please make it a Venice wedding,” Maya says, full of excitement. “The theme could be a Venetian masquerade. I’d kill to wear one of those creepy plague doctor masks.”
Cassidy laughs, and as she launches into a detailed description of her wedding vision, Noah shifts even closer to me, tucking himself against my side and resting his head on my shoulder.
“Is this okay?” he whispers, his breath warm against my ear.
I nod, because I don’t trust my voice. Across the tub, I can feel Rick watching us, and Noah must feel it too, because he turns and presses a quick kiss to my cheek.
My chest tightens. He’s been affectionate with me all day, and a part of me likes it far too much. Another part keeps reminding me I’m not supposed to. This is pretend. A favor. A game we started for someone else’s sake.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about how easily he startled under my hands only yesterday, and now he’s tucked against me with the quiet trust of a puppy who’s decided I’m safe. It does something dangerous to me. I sit there, barely moving, trying not to want more than he means to give.
“We were thinking of Ireland as another option for our wedding destination,” Cassidy says suddenly, turning to me. “I went to Galway once when I was little, and I loved it.”
“That’s nice,” I manage, aiming for polite, even though all I can really think about is Noah pressed against my side.
“Have you been to Ireland yet, Noah?” Cassidy asks, clearly trying to draw him into the conversation too.
I still can’t tell whether she knows about him and Rick. At first I assumed she didn’t, but there’s something strained in the way she looks at Noah sometimes that makes me wonder.
“I haven’t,” Noah says, and then he reaches back for my right hand, where it’s resting on the edge of the tub behind him, and starts absently playing with my fingers. The easy touch makes my pulse jump. “But Connor and I were talking about maybe going to Ireland in September,” he adds, as casual as anything.
It’s the first I’m hearing about any trip to Ireland, but I make myself nod and keep my face neutral. Apparently our fake relationship is picking up plans faster than I can keep track of them.
“Oh my God, you never tell me anything,” Maya says, giving Noah a wounded look.
Noah lets out a soft laugh against my shoulder. “I was getting there.”
Cassidy smiles. “That’s really sweet, though. Connor, are you taking him over to meet your family?”
I feel Noah’s fingers pause around mine, his grip tightening, but I keep my face neutral. “Yeah. My mum and my sister still live there, and they’ve been asking when I’m finally bringing Noah over.”
While Cassidy gushes over how sweet it all is and Maya keeps needling Noah about when he got so secretive that she apparently doesn’t know anything important about his life anymore, I catch Rick’s face across the tub. He’s gone blank, staring into nothing, too deep in his own head to fake much of a reaction. He’s clearly not happy hearing any of this.
And that’s when a thought slips in that feels a little too dangerous.
I don’t want Rick jealous. I really can’t afford that. Because if he gets jealous, he’ll try to get Noah back. I can already see the possibility taking shape in his eyes, and even though Noah probably wants Rick to react this way, I don’t.
The selfishness of that thought unsettles me. What the hell am I even doing? How did I go from wanting a weekend distraction with my cute neighbor to feeling sick at the thought of his ex trying to get him back?
I keep my face still, trying not to let the frustration clawing at my chest show. As if he can sense it, Noah’s left hand slides around my torso and pulls me even closer. I turn to lookat him, and my heart gives a dull ache when he flashes me that quick, apologetic smile.
The weight of him against me is comforting for exactly the reason it terrifies me. It feels too right having him here, tucked against my side.
Shit, that’s what gets me. This doesn’t feel like an act anymore. Not to me.
And that’s a problem, because this whole thing—this weekend, this relationship—has an expiration date.
CHAPTER 9. Noah
