AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her gaze held his for a beat, and he had no idea if she caught his double meaning. “Fine. But if she starts crying, that’s on you.”
“Of course she’ll cry. It’s my mom. But it’ll be because she’s so happy. I think she was losing hope for me.”
Mia’s face contorted and she put her elbows on the table, dropping her head in her hands. “Noah.”
“What?”
Her words came out muffled. “I’m going to break your mom’s heart.” She lifted her head and let her arms fall across each other on the wood. “When we eventually break up. It’s going to kill her.”
He sighed. “Yeah. It will.”
Mia looked so forlorn he almost laughed.
“Let me worry about that,” he said. “For now, think about how happy you’re about to make her. Isn’t a little temporary happiness better?”
She frowned. “Not always.”
Yeah, true.
Mia twisted around to look at the clock. “My parents will be up by now. I’m just gonna get this over with.”
She picked up her phone and tapped the screen before she put the phone up to her ear.
“Want to put them on speaker?” he asked. “Do it together?”
She looked at the ceiling as if in thought, then shook her head with a little scrunch of her nose. Suddenly her face cleared. “Hey, Dad. Is Mom around, too? I have some news.” She paused. “No, I’m fine. It’s nothing like that.”
Noah knew exactly how her dad felt in that moment. He constantly worried about her health, too.
“Hey, Mom. I’m fine. I, um, called to tell you both that...well, Noah and I got married yesterday.” She met his eyes and tucked her lips between her teeth as she listened.
What were they saying? He couldn’t hear yelling or screaming from where he sat, so that was good, right?
“I know. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing for us, too. The marriage, I mean. We’ve been, um, dating for a while now.” She widened her eyes and held up her free hand, fingers spread, as if asking if she was doing this right. He shrugged, and she kept going. “But we’ve just been friends for so long we weren’t sure how it was gonna go, and wanted to keep it between us for a while. Turns out I’ve never been happier, and when Noah suggested we get married, I said yes.”
“Oh sure, put it all on me,” he muttered.
She pursed her lips to hide a smile. Then, her face suddenly went pale. She locked eyes with him, and he tilted his head to the side, mouthing, “What?”
She swallowed. “Yes. I do. I love him.” Her voice got quieter with each word. “More than I ever thought possible.”
Noah stood, his chair scraping across the floor, and took his plate to the sink. His hands shook as he rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. Mia continued talking, doing a damn good job convincing her parents she’d fallen for him and knew he was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
They’d saidI love youto each other before, but only in the context ofI’ve known you forever and you’re one of my closest friends, not theI’m about to go out of my mind because I’m so crazy in love with youkind of way.
When it came to her, he’d felt both.
But he’d only ever shown her one. It was important it stayed that way.
And for the hundredth time in twenty-four hours, he wondered just what he’d gotten himself into.
On Sunday, they had lunch with his parents and told them the news.
His mom cried for a half hour.
His dad was pretty quiet about it, especially when they also mentioned Mia planned to quit her job at the firm to go back to school. Unease had spread down Noah’s spine, so he pulled his dad aside while his mom fussed over Mia.
“I know the timing is weird, but this is real, Dad. We’ve been talking about it for a while, and it made the most sense to get it done before she got caught up in school again.”
