Page 44 of Inherited Holiday

“I’m fine,” I rasped, trying to sit up.

“You’re not fine. You took a hard fall. Nicholas, you saved me. I landed right on you.”

“Noelle,” I sternly stated. “Just help me.”

“Fine,” she agreed.

Once I was upright, I called an Uber, and from the second she helped me onto her couch after he dropped us off at herhouse, I closed my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. I was not sure how long I lay there when Noelle was suddenly handing me pain relievers in one hand and an ice pack in the other.

Thankfully, her dad was out of town.

Slowly, I sat up, groaning out in pain.

“Here.”

I took them.

“Are you really okay?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Even if you weren’t okay, you wouldn’t tell me the truth, would you?”

“I don’t lie to you.”

“I find that hard to believe, but I’ll accept it for now.”

The look on her face was full of concern.

Confusion.

Longing.

Which made me question my resolve about how much I’d share with her at that moment.

Noelle

I changed into a hoodie and sweats. The uncomfortable silence hammered all around me, tearing into my insecurities about what was concerning him. Nicholas’s body was in the room with me, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.

He looked lost.

I’d never seen that look on his face before.

The quietness was deafening, stirring me to ask, “What’s wrong?” His eyes locked with mine as I sat in front of him on my bed.

He shrugged.

“Never mind, we don’t have to tal?—”

“I got in a fight with my parents before the game.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

He thought about it for a second. I didn’t think he’d reply.

“You know them, same ole, same ole. I’m just tired of not being good enough. They’re always trying to change me into someone I’m not. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I want to open my own construction business after we graduate, they don’t care.”

Chalk it up to hormones, or maybe it was me desperately wanting to connect with him. In that second, sitting in front of him, it felt like I was the first person he’d shared this with.

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