Page 58 of Catching My Dreams

Noah shrugged. “I haven’t exactly been nice to you in the past. He’ll think you can do better.”

“He’s my friend, but he can’t dictate who I can and cannot date,” Ella argued, her eyes widening when she realized what she’d assumed. “I mean, if that is what we’re even doing,” she added quickly, her cheeks warming with embarrassment.

“Dating sounds a bit too normal and unexceptional, considering how I feel about you,” he replied, moving toward her and placing his hands on the counter on either side of her legs. “But yes, I’d say that’s what we’re doing. Wouldn’t you?”

Ella nodded, her eyes caught on his heated gaze.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” he murmured, his eyes moving down to her mouth. “Because I’ve wanted you for as long as I’ve known you, and now that I have you, I’m not about to share you with anyone else.”

Ella was about to call him a caveman, but then she thought about Madison, and the wave of jealousy that hit her was intense enough to make her teeth grind together. “Neither am I.”

“Good thing I only belong to you then,” he told her before his lips met hers.

Noah burned the first omelet. Neither of them cared, but Ella made sure not to distract him while he cooked the next two.

They ate together at the dining room table, and Ella tried not to focus too much on the fact that it was the first time she hadn’t eaten breakfast alone in her house for at least a year. She may have made breakfast for everyone when Asher was missing, but they’d never actually gotten around to eating before Noah had discovered the watch in Ella’s bedroom.

Noah had no idea how much it meant to Ella to have him there with her, filling the house with his deep laughter and his easy chatter. Her house had never felt as safe as it did when he was there to cast the shadows away and keep her fear at bay. But he couldn’t stay forever.

When he left, reluctant as he was, Ella wanted to cry at how quickly her fear returned, prickling at her like hundreds of pairs of eyes and crawling over her skin like spiders.

She got dressed under her bedcovers, walked through the house with Archie clutched to her chest like a safety blanket, and jumped when the wind blew the door to the backyard closed after she’d opened it to let the Yorkie out.

When her phone rang with a call from her mother, Ella was so relieved she’d have someone to speak to she almost didn’t care how long it had taken for her parents to call her back.

“Hi, Mom.”

“I got a missed call from you?” Her mother’s voice was cold and disinterested.

“I needed money for an Uber yesterday.”

“You have a car, don’t you?” the woman asked with a heavy dose of malice. “One your father and I pay for.”

“Yes,” Ella replied through gritted teeth. “But I couldn’t drive because the muscles in my neck were so tight I couldn’t move my head.”

Her mother scoffed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Ella. If you need money for physio, just ask.”

Ella closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to find even a sliver of patience. “Okay. I need money for physiotherapy,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

“And I’ll send it through as soon as you apologize to me.”

It was Ella’s turn to scoff. “Wow.”

“You know what? I can’t deal with you right now,” her mom said. “I’m putting your father on the phone.”

“Ella?” her father’s gravelly voice came through her phone’s speaker.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Your mother is very upset over how you spoke to her the other day,” he said.

“And I’m very upset over the fact that I’m scared and alone, but neither of you can be bothered to come home.”

He sighed. “As much as we want to be there, we can’t simply quit our jobs.”

“Do you?” Ella asked softly. “Do you actually want to be here?”

“What do you mean?”

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