Page 71 of Coming Home

He let out a heavy breath. “I didn’t always. After my injury, I wasn’t…” His eyes flicked to the street and then back to her. “…me. Not really. At first, I had no interest in dating because I needed to get my head straight. After I was medically discharged from the Marines, I focused on getting healthy. I did my PT and went to see a counselor at the VA. I wasn’t in the right headspace to date anyone.”

“Do you still see your VA Counselor?” she asked.

“Every two weeks.” He leaned back in his chair. “PTSD will always be something I have to deal with. I think that was a big reason why I didn’t date. PTSD is part of my life, and that means it will be part of my partner’s life. For a long time, I was scared of laying that on someone else.”

“Did that concern also hold you back when you almost kissed me after Evan died?” Nat bit her lip, thinking of the regret that swam in his eyes that day.

He’d said it was because her brother had just died and he felt like he was taking advantage, but she wondered if it was more. If all that he’d been battling since his injury held him back. It had only been ten months after his accident when he almost kissed her.

“It wouldn’t have been fair to put that on you then. You already had so much to deal with.”

Her heartbeat galloped as she replayed all the moments with Noah over the last ten years. “But you wanted to…even if you didn’t do it, you wanted to kiss me, and not justthatnight.”

“Yes.”

Nat closed her eyes. The image of the yellowjacket tattoo on his right pec flooded her vision. Home was so important to him. Why had he stayed away for so long after he’d gotten out of the Marines?

“Why didn’t you come back after you were discharged? You’d just got out when Evan died. The plan was for you to come home. Why did you stay in San Diego for five years?”

“I needed to get to a good place mentally before coming back.”

What he didn’t say aloud, despite the words dancing between them, was, “to you.” There was no reason she should think that, but she did.

“Did you stay away because of me?” she breathed, her steady gaze locked with his despite the anxious twist in her belly.

“Yes.”

Her heart raced. “Did you come back because of me?”

“Yes.”

“Noah, why?”

“When I was injured and came back to Walter Reed for my recovery, you called every Friday night. You were the only person to talk to me like I was…well, like I was still me. Everyone else was so tentative around me. You talked to me abouteveryday things, like about a crafting project you were doing orThe Gilmore Girls. You even called me names and picked on me. I don’t think you know how much you helped me. When you called me after Evan died, I got on the next plane. I know you thought it was because of Clayton, but it was also for you. I wanted to be there for you in the same way you’d been there for me.”

Nat reached across the table, linking their hands. “You were. You were the first person I called after the police told us what happened. You were the only person I could let myself fall apart with because I knew you had me.”

“And you had me,” he murmured. “You brought me back from the darkness I was in after the injury. Those calls from you were like a lighthouse leading me home. When I came home for Evan’s funeral, I was expecting to find that twelve-year-old girl I had last seen, not the eighteen-year-old woman I found. It threw me. It wouldn’t have been right then. I wasn’t who I needed to be, not then. I left to become him and came back when I felt like I was him.” He swallowed hard. “Although, I don’t think I’m him. Not completely. I still have my demons…they’ll never be gone. There’s no magic pill to take them away.”

“You’re still my Noah. You’re still perfect.” She smiled as she repeated his words from the night she told him about her guilt over Evan’s death. “Our broken pieces are parts of who we are. You never stopped being Noah. When we’d talk while you were recovering, there was a shade of something different in your voice. The charming carefreeness that had been there was dulled, but you were still Noah. You’ve always been that man you say you want to be. Even if you don’t see it, I did…I do. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have stomached thirty-minute conversations about why Rory should have never dated Deanand listened to my pro/con list about which colleges to apply to.”

He chuckled.

“So, when you came back…why didn’t you make your move?”

“Your life was in Boston. We’d talk and see each other when you were visiting. I used that as an excuse, though. Then, I told myself that you could do better. I found so many excuses to hide the fact that I was scared. Scared that you didn’t feel the same way. Scared that it was all one-sided. Scared of hurting you. I’m still scared. When you came back… all those excuses fuzzed in the reality of you being there. When we got into that argument the night of the engagement party, the only thing that scared me was the possibility of losing you. Nat, I care about you so much. I can’t imagine a life where you’re not in it. When you started seeing Duncan again, I told myself to not get in the way of your happiness, to be content with you in my life as a friend.”

“You didn’t do that very well now, did you,” she teased.

“No.” He smirked. “I know it’s still early with us, but I don’t think I could ever be content with just being your friend.”

“Me either.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time...”~Louisa May Alcott,Little Women

The soft click of the door shutting broke into Nat’s dreams. Blinking her eyes open, she stretched. Streaks of early morning light peeked into the hotel room through a small gap between the drawn curtains. She reached, finding only emptiness beside her.

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