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I frown, shaking my head.
“You had something to say that night, to Chase and to Noah. But you only got the chance to talk to one. Face to face anyway.”
“Cameron!” my brother screams.
“You texted the other.”
My skin prickles, and I draw into myself.
She tosses me my phone, and I catch it.
“If you’re really ready for all this, re-sync your cloud, Ari.”
Mason jerks from me, getting in her face. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What you should have done a long time ago.” She glares. “You were the one who got her a new phone, flashed her account over.”
My eyes fly to Mason, his glare still pointed at Cameron.
She shrugs. “I’m her best friend. I know her passwords too, and after she decided, she didn’t want to know, I went to her phone planning to do the same, but it was already gone. The entire thread. You deleted it, didn’t you?”
“I did what was asked of me.” After a moment, his eyes meet mine, shame weighing them down. “He didn’t want to make things harder on you.”
He…
Noah.
My chest rises and falls with several breaths, and then I whip around, rushing into the house. I lock the door once I’m through, and Mason’s hard bang beats down instantly.
Someone comes around the corner, frowning at me as he heads to unlock it, but I’m already tearing open the door that leads to Noah’s room.
As I reach the last step, Noah pokes his head around the corner, and we both freeze.
“I… um.” I blink, glancing behind me and back. “No one told me where your room was…”
Noah’s brows pull and then slowly, he nods.
“Yeah,” he answers the question I didn’t have to ask. “You’ve been here.”
“A lot?”
“That’s up to interpretation.”
“Noah.”
“Yes, a lot.”
I nod, looking down, and that’s when I remember why I came in the first place.
I step around him, into the space, and I’m nearly knocked off my feet.
It’s the scent. The mint and pine. It’s Noah.
“Ari…”
I lift the calendar and turn to face him, slapping it into his chest.
He has a choice to watch it fall or grab hold of it and read it, and he chooses to let it drop to our feet.
A tenderness falls over him and his head tips the slightest bit.
He already knows what’s on there.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he rasps.
A humorless chuckle leaves me, and I shake my head.
“What?” I stare. “That’s what you have to say about this?” I shake my head again, spinning away from him, and moving farther into his place.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says quietly, the warmth of his presence growing closer. “But more and more, I have no idea how to accomplish that.” He’s right behind me now, my body senses his. “Lies hurt people, and I feel like all I do is lie when I look at you.”
I gulp. “So don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
The hairs on the nape of my neck stand as the heat of his breath reaches me.
“Lie.” Slowly I face him, and my lungs expand. “Don’t lie to me, Noah.”
His blue eyes pierce mine, and he gives a curt nod. “Okay.”
“Say You Swear.”
A broken breath pushes past his lips, and he nods again.
With anxious waves rolling over me, I point to the calendar on the floor. “The gala. I was supposed to go with you.”
He nods, and an ache forms in my chest.
“I had a dress.”
His lips tip the slightest bit. “You did?”
“You didn’t know?”
He shakes his head. “I bet you wanted to surprise me. What color?”
“Guess.”
He points his smile to the floor, as if he knows but doesn’t say a word.
“The gala. That’s what you meant when you said I owed you a dance. Because I should have danced with you then.”
Another nod.
Tears prick the backs of my eyes, but I hold them in. “Why did I draw hearts all around the date?”
“You didn’t.”
Frustration blooms, and I bend, snatching it off the ground and slap it into his hand. “You swore.”
“You wrote it on the calendar. I drew the hearts.”
“Y-you drew the hearts?” I stutter. “In three colors? On the calendar in—”
“In your bedroom.” He stares, hesitating, but only for a moment. “And in your school planner. And on the one in mine.”
“In your… what?”
“Bedroom,” he whispers.
My throat swells. “Show me.”
Nodding, Noah holds a hand out, so I slip away, slowly moving through the small living room area and through the open door that leads to a fresh made bed.
A pair of shoes sit at the foot of it, and papers litter the small desk in the corner.
I freeze when I spot an old T-shirt tossed in the corner, one that looks a lot like Mason’s old high school shirt, the one I stole as sleepwear.
My head snaps over my shoulder, my cheeks heating when Noah nods.
He slips ahead of me, pulling the standing calendar from his desktop, and hands it to me.
