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“You know about this?” she asks Sawyer.
He ignores her, turning his full attention to Noelle. She looks shell shocked. With the cat decidedly out of the bag, I move to Noelle’s other side to wrap a protective arm around her shoulders.
“It’s okay,” I whisper into her hair. “We’re here. We’ve got you.”
Richard’s lip curls in disgust. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”
He storms toward the main exit, slashing a line through the crowd.
Noelle sucks in a ragged breath and massages her brow.
“I need some air,” she says.
She takes off through the throng in the direction of the rear exit. People move aside to let her pass, whispering and shaking their heads.
“Fuck...” Sawyer mutters under his breath.
Miranda downs what’s left of her wine in one gulp. “I think I need another,” she says.
Sawyer scowls at his mother. “I think you’ve had more than enough.”
Chapter Fourteen
Noelle
My high-heeled shoes weren’t made for trudging through ankle-deep snow. Neither were my black tights.
Every gasp of cold night air feels forced. It’s like I’m wearing a corset that’s only getting tighter each time I breathe. I make my way around the lodge to Colton’s back porch. Frida’s in the lobby, and as much as I enjoy her company, I don’t want to see her right now. I don’t want to see anyone, save maybe Sawyer and Colton.
I climb the porch steps, drag the cover off the hot tub, kick off my shoes, peel off my dress, and climb in. The warm water envelops me like a hug. I breathe in the steam rising from the surface. I don’t want to turn on the bubbles. I just want to sit here, in the deep, dark quiet. Away from the eyes of the crowd.
My dad knows I’m seeing two men. Not only that, he knows I’m fucking a father and his son.
The look on my dad’s face when I admitted it is seared into my mind’s eye like a brand. He regarded me with such unadulterated derision, such naked repulsion.
I should be bawling, yet as the scene replays across my mind, the tears don’t come. I guess, after all these years, I’m just wrung out.
My dad is never going to approve of my relationship, and until he forgives my mom for leaving him, he’s never going to get over his prejudice when it comes to women and sex.
It’s not okay, but it is what it is. I can’t change him. All I can do is try not to let his biases affect how I live my life.
Footsteps crunch through snow. Sawyer and Colton, following my footprints. Sawyer reaches the porch first. Without skipping a beat, he tugs off his shoes and clothes, then joins me in the hot tub. Colton strips down to his boxers before climbing in to sit on the other side of me.
I think back to our first night together, the three of us seated like this. At the time, all I knew was that I wanted to be closer to these men. Little did I know, I was already halfway to falling in love with them.
Their hands find mine underwater. I rest my head on Sawyer’s shoulder, feeling buffered and cradled between two solid, protective bodies. For a while, the only sound is the gentle ebb and flow of our breathing.
“Was that good publicity, or bad publicity?” Sawyer asks.
I laugh in spite of my sadness. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
“How’d Mom even find out?”
Colton sighs. “I said something I shouldn’t have, after Noelle ran out of the workshop.”
“What happened in the workshop?”
“Your mother tried and failed to drag me on a trip down memory lane.”
