Page 62 of Catching My Dreams

Noah nodded. “And I’ll let you.”

Asher turned his attention back to Ella. “And you and I are meeting for coffee tomorrow. It seems we have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Sure,” she replied, looking far less tense than she had walking into the house. That was progress, at least.

“I feel like I’m missing something here,” Noah’s dad piped up from where he was still standing in front of the stove. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and walked around the island to shake Ella’s hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Ella. It’s been too long.”

“It has,” she agreed. “Thank you for having me.”

“It’s a pleasure.” He sent her a warm smile before narrowing his eyes on Noah. “Should I be concerned about the way Asher and Chris reacted to your arrival?”

Noah grimaced. “I might have been a monumental jerk to Ella for the last decade or so.”

His dad’s brows drew together, and Noah hated the disappointment in his eyes as much as he knew he deserved it.

“Noah’s exaggerating,” Ella stepped in quickly. “It really wasn’t that bad.”

Noah was about to refute her lie because the last thing he wanted was for her to lie for him, but Chris beat him to it with a scoff.

“It really was that bad.”

Ella covered her face with her free hand and sighed. “It was all a misunderstanding,” she tried to explain with a groan.

“So Noah accusing you of being a conceited, selfish bitch for years on end was just a big misunderstanding?” Asher asked, his anger at Noah obviously still very much present.

“You did what?” Noah’s dad yelled, but Noah was more worried about the way Ella flinched at her best friend’s words.

“That’s enough,” Noah said, his patience completely eroded as he stared Asher down. “I might deserve this shit, but Ella shouldn’t have to stand here and listen to this. She and I are going to take a walk outside, and when we get back, you better have found a way to keep your thoughts to yourself.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He led Ella through to the dining room and out of the French doors that opened out into the backyard. The pool house he’d used to stay in but had become Riley’s home since she’d moved to Virginia stood proudly across the pool, but Noah barely spared a glance for it.

He’d spent more time at his mom’s house growing up, and he was starting to realize that even his room there didn’t feel like a home in the same way that Ella’s did.

Noah came to a stop next to one of the hydrangea bushes that grew bounteously from the flower bed in front of the pool house. It was too late in the year for it to be covered in flowers, but it hadn’t yet suffered from the winter cold. He turned to face Ella and closed his eyes when he saw the defeated slump of her shoulders and the sadness in her expression.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured.

Ella dropped his hand, and for a second, he thought that was it. Asher and Chris had reminded her of all the reasons she shouldn’t be with him, and he was going to lose her. But she looped her hands around his neck instead.

“Hey,” she said, and he opened his eyes to find her looking up at him with a small smile playing on her lips. “You have nothing to apologize for. We both knew they wouldn’t react well.”

“But they’re right.”

“They don’t know the full story, Noah.” Her chest rose with a deep inhale. “They can say whatever they want because nothing they say will ever change how I feel.”

“You mean that?” he asked, unable to keep his lips from tipping up into a grin. “You’re not about to run for the hills?”

She shook her head, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Nah, I’m here to stay.”

“Well, in that case,” he said, his hands sliding up to rest on her waist.

He lowered his head until his lips were grazing her ear. He’d been craving her since the last time he’d had a proper taste, and he so badly wanted to abandon their dinner plans, take her back to her house, and spend hours worshipping her body. But her neck was still sore, and he didn’t think his family would appreciate it if he fled before dinner.

“Let’s go inside so you can meet the rest of the Warner clan.”

Ella dropped her hands from his neck and slapped his shoulder. “Tease.”

Noah chuckled. “Come on. I’m sure Edith and Olivia will have heard the commotion and are impatiently waiting to say hello to the person who made my dad yell.”

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