Page 56 of Groupthink

I pulled on my black Pink Floyd tee and a pair of dark jeans, then strode back through my bright bedroom, checking out that little cutie in my bed from all angles.

Her hair was the darkest thing in here, except for her black dress crumpled on the floor.

A smirk widened across my face as I remembered yanking it off her.

When it ripped.

Oh, shit.

I gathered the fabric in my hands, and sure enough, a long, gaping maw yawned open in the side.

Fuck. That woulddefinitelyreduce the chances of her wanting to hook up again…

Maybe Noah could fix this.

Noah could fix anything.

I carried the bundle to the kitchen and set it on the granite countertop. If I forgot about it there, Noah would notice it when he came back from the gym. He noticed anything out of place immediately.

I set up the Chemex filter, got the coffee moving, and then started on breakfast.

At nine-thirty on the dot, Noah burst through the door in his workout gear, looking only slightly disheveled, and that was exactly as disheveled as he ever got. The dude looked like he’d just got back from a photo shoot with Sports Illustrated or something—like a blond Adonis, but cooler.

I knew he’d been a model when he was younger—I figured it was impossible not to be when you were six-foot-four, jacked like a knife, and had that Kpop Pretty Boy look.

But he never talked about that part of his life.

His eyes landed on the Chemex hourglass-shaped filter, then the dress, as if magnetized to anything out of the ordinary in this clean, orderly space.

“Dude, you broke out that thing? You’re such a fucking hipster.”

“Shut up, asshole, you use it more than me,” I smiled, working a sizzling omelet on the stove.

“And why are you making breakfast? You don’t eat breakfast. Unless…”

Noah glanced around the kitchen excitedly as if a rare animal was hiding in here somewhere.

“I have a guest.”

“She still here?” he asked with a disbelieving smile, leaning on the counter.

Asshole. “She’s still asleep.”

“Ah, so that’s why it’s quiet in here. Iknewsomething was up when I opened the door and didn’t hear some rapper yelling.”

“Rappers are always yelling in here,” I tapped my temple. “The speakers just project it throughout the house.”

Noah chuckled. “If you could control the music in here with your thoughts, I’d have to move out.”

I smiled, but he didn’t know how much I’d lingered on that thought myself. How I wished I could shut my mind up; move out of it. Enjoy the silence for once. Because if left unchecked, it chattered away about the most meaningless things.

Noah’s gaze went to the crumpled black fabric. “What’s that?”

“Her… her dress,” I explained. “I was wondering if you could—”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it,” Noah said, understanding immediately, almost telepathically what I wanted.

“Thanks.”

---