Page 164 of I Never Stopped Loving You

He closes his eyes and leans down to kiss me, but I stop him by placing my hand against his lips. His eyes shoot open as he looks down cross-eyed at my hand covering his mouth.

“Why?” he mumbles against my palm.

“It wasn’t nothing. Your head was cracked open. You were bleeding so much. You blacked out, and you wouldn’t wake up.”

I can still feel the pain from the fear gripping my chest. When I was holding his head in my lap trying to stop the bleeding, I couldn’t breathe. My mind just spiraled into what-ifs.

“Hey. Shh. I’m sorry. I promise you, though I feel fine. I’ll stop saying it was nothing.”

He wraps his arms around me and rests my head against his chest. I can hear his heart racing and feel the guilt he’s feeling from how that day went. He just wanted to make me breakfast and spend the day with me, but then everything has been complete chaos since then.

“Thank you.”

“Hey. Are you guys coming?” Jenna’s voice comes from the bottom of the steps that lead up to this room.

“No. We just finished,” Noah laughs, and I can hear the disgusted groan from Jenna.

“Nasty. Hurry up.”

We can hear her footsteps trail off down the hall.

“Come on. We’d better go before she comes up here. If she sees that bathroom, she’ll want to move in,” I tease, but honestly, I’m serious.

“Hell no. Having Jeremy here is crazy enough. Having both of them…Dear God. I would not be able to handle it,” he groans.

“Aww. I think you would secretly love it,” I tease, causing him to roll his eyes.

“Let’s go before I drag you into bed. We really should go to sleep.”

At the mention of the word sleep, my body uncontrollably yawns, and he laughs as he kisses my head.

“Breakfast, story time, then sleep,” I say, yawning again.

“I’m holding you to that. You’ve had a long night.”

“Are you actually going to let me sleep?”

“We’ll see, Little Rabbit. We’ll see.”

We quickly make our way downstairs to find Jeremy and Jenna in the kitchen together. Jenna is sitting on the counter looking relaxed as Jeremy moves around the kitchen separating food onto the different plates. She’s watching him with such admiration that she doesn’t even realize we’re watching them until Noah clears his throat.

“Oh, good. You decided to join us,” Jenna jokes as she jumps off the counter.

“Is that your ass print on my clean marble counters?” Noah groans.

“Clean? Sir, when I got here the other night, there was still dried waffle batter on the ceiling.” She points up in the air, and we both follow her gesture. “Well, not now there isn’t.”

“Wait? The other night? What other night?”

“Sunday night. I wanted to make sure the house was clean for you, and she wanted to help,” Jeremy cuts in.

“You came over here when I was in the hospital?”

Jeremy’s eyes widen slightly before he glances at Jenna then back to Noah. An unspoken conversation seems to pass between them before Noah nods and walks further into the kitchen. He steps up to Jenna and pulls her into a hug.

“Thank you, Jenna. I appreciate you helping clean my house.”

She looks over at me stunned, seeing as the night at the restaurant, he looked almost in pain when she hugged him.