CHAPTER24
An Accident
My eyes droppedto Noah’s lips right as they parted, and it was like time froze. His head moved closer as his hand settled on the mattress behind my butt. Alarm bells went off inside my head. It was too much for my delicate sensibilities to handle. Lightning flashed again, highlighting the flecks of gold in his eyes, and my brain worked a mile a minute.
Did I want to kiss Noah Kincaid?Absolutely.
Did the prospect of it happening right now give me stage fright and make me feel like puking?Yeah, little bit.
So, what did I do?
I chickened out.
Clearing my throat, I ducked down across Noah’s lap and reached for the fallen album. If I had the photos back, I could use them as a barrier between his all-too-inviting lips and my own reckless ones.
What I didn’t count on was a follow-up clap of thunder ricocheting through the room with the force of a lion’s roar. I jumped out of my skin, head jerking up and meeting the softness of Noah’s nose in a woefully-ill-timed headbutt.
Noah grunted in a mixture of surprise and pain, and we sprung apart.
My eyes darted to him in growing dread, and it was blatantly obvious that my head made quite the impression on his nose.
Blood was everywhere.
“Oh no.” I watched in dawning horror as blood dripped from his nose like a faucet. “Oh crap, Noah! Are you okay?”
No, no, he very obviously isnotokay, Emma.
He groaned and rolled back to lie against my bed, both palms covering his volcanic nose. He tilted his head back to ease the bleeding.
I frantically looked around the room for anything to stem the flow of blood until my eyes landed on a roll of paper towels underneath Teresa’s bed.
“Oh God, I amsosorry!” I sprung off the bed and scooped up the paper towels. I hastily ripped a few squares off before glancing back at the amount of blood and ripping off five more just to be safe. With another leap onto the bed, I accidentally kneed Noah’s side in the process and elicited another moan before I pulled gently at his hands. “Hold on, I have towels. Let me—”
His hazel eyes opened to meet mine, filled with a dull sort of pain that made my heart clench. Noah grabbed the paper towels from me and held them to his nose as his eyes closed again.
I hovered awkwardly beside him and reached out to pat his shoulder in comfort before deciding that probably wasn’t the right move. Maybe it was best not to touch him at all.
Noah cleared his throat, the sound a little too clogged for my liking, while all I could do was sit there uselessly and watch the blood quickly soak through the paper towels he pressed to his nose.
“Should we go to the hospital?” I shifted my weight back and forth between both knees. “It might be broken. I can call 911 since you probably shouldn’t be driving yourself—especially with that crazy storm out there. I’d offer to drive, but I’d have to use your car and I’ve never so much as driven a go-kart in my life. I wouldn’t want to end up driving us both into a flooded ditch where the car locks would malfunction and we wouldn’t be able to escape before drowning tragically and your poor, fancy car would—”
“It’s not broken,” Noah cut off my frantic rambling, and his eyelids fluttered open until he was looking at me steadily. His voice sounded delightfully like he had a stuffy nose, and I made a vow to make fun of him for it later. Just not now. Maybe after he finished bleeding out on my bed. “I’ll be fine. I just need a moment.”
“Are you sure?” I watched as the red stain spread further through the paper towels. It was making me a little lightheaded to see so much blood. “I have a really hard head. It once knocked out my neighbor’s tooth when we were playing tag.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Noah muttered dryly around the wad of paper towels. “I promise it isn’t broken, though. I would know. And I’m sorry, my clothes are still wet and now I’m probably getting blood on your sheets.”
Noah leaned up, but I planted a hand on his chest and eased him back. “No, no. Don’t you dare get up. It’s fine. It’s just a blanket, and you need something to lean back on.”
He miraculously listened as his lean shoulders rested back against the abundance of girly blankets. His pristine hair was tussled, and strands stood up every which way.
I sank back against my headboard and ripped off more paper towels to place in Noah’s waiting hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said again as my shoulders slumped. I’d wanted Noah’s return from Seattle to be a fun celebration that he looked back fondly on, but it was turning out to be the opposite.
“Stop apologizing, Emma.” Noah remained calm as he blotted the paper towels carefully against where the blood flow was thankfully slowing down significantly. “It’s all right. It was an accident.”
“But I hurt you, when you were just trying to…” I trailed off, unsure if we wanted to touch on what’d almost happened moments ago. Noah’s eyes met mine again in question, and I cleared my throat before grazing over that touchy topic. “I mean, I pretty much just beat you up.”
