AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He couldn’t help but let his gaze rest on her familiar face. “We’re not strangers.”
“No, but you’re not gonna dateme.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Noah’s stomach tightened. He thought about that night back in college—and the split second when he thought they might become more than friends.
Her face paled, and he’d bet she was thinking about the same thing. “Anyway, all I’m saying is you can’t keep turning women down. You’re hot and you’re sweet, and women adore you. But eventually they’ll stop asking. I’ve never understood what you’re waiting for.”
Over the years he’d turned deflection into an art form. He didn’t want to answer that, but neither would she. “What areyouwaiting for?”
She frowned. “That’s different. I’m not being picky, I just refuse to burden someone with my situation.”
“A one-hour drug infusion every week isn’t ‘a situation.’”
“You know that’s not all it is.”
Yeah, he knew her excuses. Her disease couldn’t be cured, and a few years ago she’d been put on the kidney transplant list. He wasn’t trying to downplay it, but it was ridiculous to think those things would stop a man from wanting her.
“If they ever find a match for me, I’ll have to go through the transplant process, and even then, at my age, I’ll probably need another one eventually. This will affect my entire life, and it’s not fair to put that on another person. I don’t even let my parents help me. There’s no way I’m asking a man to.”
“What if someone thought you were worth it?”
She huffed out a breath. “Stop trying to turn this around. We were talking about you, and why you don’t date.”
Noah fixed his eyes on the television. “I’m seeing how some things pan out.”
“Like what?”
Damn, he was such an idiot. “Just some things.”
He could practically hear her teeth grinding. “You drive me crazy,” she said. “For the person I know best in the world, sometimes I feel like there’s a whole part of you I’ve never seen.”
Her dark brown eyes locked on his, and he kept his expression carefully neutral. “Same.”
She watched him for a moment and then dropped her gaze. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet he barely heard her. “Would you rather be able to fly, or read minds?”
How many times had they started sentences to each other with those three words? Dozens, at least.
“Fly.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. People talk too much as it is. I’m not sure I want to know the things people don’t want to say out loud.”
“I talk a lot,” she said.
He grinned. “I know.”
She laughed. “Jerk.”
“What about you? Read minds or fly?”
“Read minds.” Her eyes met his again. “Especially yours.”
He was glad as hell that wasn’t possible. If she knew what he was thinking every time they were together, she’d probably run for the hills.
He shook his head as if she were crazy. “You don’t want to know what’s going on in here.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “It’s a lot of design details. Planning my next climbing trip. Some guilt and a lot of what-ifs.”
He wasn’t sure why he said that last part. It just sort of came out, and her expression turned downcast, and a little sad. She glanced at the console table behind them, to the frame he knew contained an image of him and his late brother. In the photo they were eight and ten, sitting on the edge of the tree house in the backyard of their childhood home. Even though Nathan had been two years older, Noah had always been big for his age, and they could have passed for twins, if it weren’t for the hair. When meeting new people it was always Noah’s ginger coloring that grabbed people’s eye first, but it had been Nathan’s outgoing personality that captured their attention.
