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By their logic, I should be in love with Shiloh, but he isn’t the Novak brother whose bed I want to slip into when I’m worn out from my shift.
It isn’t Shiloh who I want to lay under the stars with and map out a future I’ve long since stopped believing was possible.
Blair makes me want to believe again, because I believe in him and his dreams even when he doesn’t.
And I believe I’ll never want to kiss another man’s mouth as reverently as I want his lips on mine again.
One more kiss will never be enough.
Chapter 21
Blair
I lied. I got a call from a distressed neighbor that Dad had taken a sledgehammer to the porch and had cut a gash on his leg that needed medical attention. I ditched class, I ditched tutoring, and I drove him to the emergency room screaming and cussing me out the whole time.
He stayed long enough for them to sew it shut and ignored the prescription of antibiotics because it would just sit useless in his cabinet like the last bottle anyway.
The deck was in shambles. So bad that a code inspector would fine our asses so hard with one look at it. So, I spent another hour cleaning everything up, taking another round of my Dad’s verbal abuse, and then going back to my apartment and scrubbing the grime, shame, and disappointment from my skin.
When Atlas sent me that gym selfie, the only thought was that he could silence the noise. Being with him turns down my inner critic, makes me feel comfortable—wanted.
If the other night proved anything, it’s that Atlas sees me for me. Not a solution to problems, not as a big brother, not as a college kid barely keeping his own head above water—but me: Blair.
The temporary lightness from the visit vanishes the moment I walk through the door and hear Noah screaming.
By the time I make it to his room his breathing is loud and ragged, but the door is locked. It ends up being quicker for me to break the thing open with a bobby pin than for him to recover and open it himself.
Noah’s room is meticulously clean and organized. That’s why it’s so shocking to see his bed in such disarray. The covers are kicked nearly onto the floor, the sheet is half off the mattress and half tangled in Noah’s legs, and Noah is sweaty and trembling with wide eyes as he holds his favorite stuffed owl to his chest.
Those big, blue eyes meet mine, and he launches himself across the small space into my arms, damp face buried in my chest, and one arm gripping the back of my tank in a tight fist.
“Another bad dream?” Atlas and I fell asleep the other night wrapped in blankets and each other under the stars, and when I made it back to my apartment around three in the morning, Noah was curled up on the couch with tear tracks on his cheeks. He’s spent the last several nights with me in his bed for fear of the dream coming back, but our sleep schedules don’t always line up, and today was one of the days he usually sleeps well into the afternoon.
He’s been jumpy and anxious, says he keeps getting flashes of a nightmare he can’t quite remember.
“I woke up in the dream,” he says, sniffling into my shoulder. “Someone was in my room. They were on top of me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t wake up because I thought I was awake…”
“Noah.” I curl my arms around him like a protective cage. “No one’s here, baby bear. It’s just me and you.”
“I have to get ready for class,” he mumbles through a hiccup and sob. “‘M gonna be late.”
I kiss the top of his head and ease him back until his knees hit the mattress and he sits.
“What do you need to do to get ready?”
He tilts his head, eyes closed, and wrinkles his nose. “Shower. Clothes. Food.”
“Okay. Those are all really easy.”
His eyes open with a series of slow flutters.
“How about this? You go shower. I’ll set you out some clothes and make lunch. That sound okay? All you have to do is wash up.”
I can tell he’s chewing on the inside of his cheek by the way it caves in, making the little dimple at the corner of his mouth pop. “Dino nuggies and ketchup?”
Noah’s go-to snack when he needs a quick bite of energy and nutrition is a frozen box of nuggets shaped like dinosaurs that’s supposed to have vegetables in them. A good way to trick kids into eating greens. I think I pulled that card on Shiloh a few times before the cute shapes stopped cutting it and I had to get more creative.
“Anything for you, baby bear. Shower?”
