Page 90 of Echoes of Us

“Focused?”

He clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. A small, uncertain smile tugged at his lips. “I’m fine.” He bit his cheek and placed his hands on his hips.

“You look a little—” I took a moment to study him, “—rattled.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he let out a surprised laugh. “Fuck you,” he muttered, making me laugh too. Noah smiled and looked away, shaking his head. He stepped back to his mark, running his tongue over his lip, still smiling despite his frown. He seemed to want to say something else, but hesitated. It was a strange look on him. I was used to Noah acting on pure impulse.

“Sorry,” I said with a shrug.

“I am.”

I turned to him, puzzled. “What?”

He smiled again. “Rattled.” He shrugged.

That familiar smile, the one I knew by heart—Noah pressing his lips together, lifting his shoulder, fixing his eyes on mine before looking away—he was flirting with me. My stomach flipped, the thrill of seeing that look again coursing through my body. I focused on the net. I didn’t say anything before the game resumed, but I knew he saw my smile.

After the game ended, we changed. Noah gave me a tentative smile before Ezra placed a hand on my shoulder. He wanted to talk, so we left before the others. When we were far enough, he gave me a look.

“What?”

“What is going on with you and Noah?”

“Nothing.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Nothing? With the smiling and laughing?” he pressed.

“It’s nothing,” I repeated.

Ezra stared at me.

“What?”

He stopped walking. “Att, I know Noah stayed at our house the other night. I got the notification from the door on my phone. He left at six a.m.,” he added.

I shrugged. “I talked to him, but nothing happened. He just slept over.”

He was still unconvinced.

“Colin said it was a good idea. For closure.”

“Yeah, to get over him, not to get back together with him,” he retorted.

“Ezra, I’m not getting back together with Noah.”

“Are you sure about that? Because you’ve been looking at him an awful lot lately.”

I glanced back at the gym and then at him. “I’m sure about that. I overheard Noah talking the other day about me and that conversation we had, and it just…”

“What?” Ezra pressed.

“I didn’t think he was still hung up on me. I thought it was just me. I thought he felt guilty about what he did to me, but I didn’t think he was going through the same thing,” I explained.

“I told you he wasn’t over you.”

“Yeah, but you could have just been saying that to make me feel better. I don’t want to get back together with Noah, but it feels nice not feeling like I’m the only one in this dump of a situation.”

“Do you remember who put you there?”

---