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“Oh, no. It’s not gone. It’s just waiting in the wings for you to calm down and let it back in.”
“You’re good to me, Noah, but I don’t know if anything can help me.”
I found it so easy to be truthful with Noah, but I felt as if I was whining. Noah just laughed, though, deep and throaty. “We all feel like that sometimes. I have, you have, and we’re not alone in that.”
“No, I guess not. Still, thanks.”
“Stop thanking me. You’re working hard, helping me out when I needed it most. We’re helping each other, Eli.”
I was glad to hear it, though I didn’t think my contributions added up to his. Still, it was nice to hear.
There it was again, him glancing over to me, but it wasn’t some friendly look. Shadows were in his eyes, like they were hooded with something that felt passionate. They moved over me, like in that millisecond, he was seeing me without the layers of clothes I had on right then.
I knew the look because I’d caught myself looking at him the same way so many times I couldn’t count. When his eyes weren’t on me, though, I could pretend they never were, and I was maybe imagining all of it.
I found out different later, but for those moments, all I could do was guess.
The next couple of weeks went well, and I saw Noah ease on the worries. The snow came again twice, but it was lighter both times, and easily dealt with, and then were days of warmth that surprised me.
We went about our routines well, and there was a definite tension between us, the kind best taken care of with a hot romp in bed. I knew what I needed was so much more than a warm body in bed, however, and a nice smile over dinner. Mostly I thought it was me alone, that I was imagining his attraction to me. I couldn’t look at him without my body warming, my head swimming a little. The more I got to know him, the more attracted I was.
I spent time in the soddy still. The warmer days had me there, once the work was finished, and I’d sit on the bed, reading. I took comfort inside the place, alone, where once I hated being without another voice close by.
When the sheriff came, I was in the soddy. Noah greeted him by the barn, where he’d parked, and they were close enough that I heard their voices, but not their words. The cracking of the sheriff’s, like he was a smoker, and the low timbre of Noah’s, that voice that could ease even the most raging horse.
I’d ever started doing it. I was comparing myself to horses too…
I began to shake, nearly apart. I knew it was me, that he was there for me, but when I heard him drive away, for a moment, I thought it was possible I was wrong.
I wasn’t. Noah came to the door, barely knocking before he pushed it open to find me on the bed, hugging my legs as I sat upright in a fetal position. “Dammit. You heard.”
“I didn’t hear the words, of course, I saw the sheriff!”
“He was… looking for you.”
I wanted to collapse, to scream out with the fear and frustration, but all I did was choke on my words. “M-me. He was h… here for me.”
My heart was beating so quickly, and my chest hurt, like some huge hand was squeezing me there. I couldn’t breathe well, but still my breath came out and in and out and in, like I had just been saved from drowning.
Noah sat on the bed with me and wrenched my stiff fingers off my shin to grip my hand. “Look at me, Eli.”
I did, but his face swam in my welling tears. It made him look like a monster in the deep of the lake, but his words were soothing. “Stop fretting about all this. This, we can fix.”
The word came on one of those fast breaths and it was barely audible. “How?”
“The sheriff and I, we know one another. He told me he was looking around for a guy that went through here. Last signal that was had on his phone was here in this county. I told him I saw you but didn’t tell him more and he didn’t ask. He’s not much interested in finding you, being he’s a lazy asshole, but a good enough old boy. Says you stole from your ex. That’s all he said, and you already told me that. What you need to tell me now is where you sold that watch.”
“Why?”
“We’re gonna go buy it back and take it to the sheriff. Right now, it’s a domestic thing.”
I got up and yanked my hand from his. Everything in me exploded, like I’d been keeping it bottled and the bottle shattered on concrete, letting it come out along with the shards of glass that had barely contained it.
I flew to the wall near the bed, yanking the radio from the shelf, hearing it crash to the floor before I beat my fists, knuckles first, against the wood.
I didn’t feel the pain, or maybe I did on some level. Pain was my thing, the only thing that took me out of my own head, but right then, I didn’t feel it like I wanted to. I slammed my fist on the wood, begging my own body to let me feel it, but the adrenaline wouldn’t allow it.
I was screaming, crying, wanting to break by way through the wall and hide in the dirt, never coming out, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not when Noah Oliver was there and could stop me.
