Page 138 of Stop and Seek
But Noah didn’t want anythingfromhim.
He just wantedhim.
“Come on,” he muttered, cranking on the cold tap. “Get it together.”
He splashed water on his face, palms pressed into his hot skin.
Don’t fucking cry.
The door opened. Quiet. Lock clicking back into place.
“Good, you’re back,” Max said, breezing past the bathroom. “We’re leaving tomorrow at seven. Yes, seven in the morning.I’m just as pissed but it was the only flight they had into Cali—what the hell happened?”Her voice hit a high note, and Noah heard glass clinking together, then the sound of it hitting the bottom of the empty trash can.
Max’s hand slammed against the bathroom door. “Who do you think pays for the damage to hotel rooms, Noah? Whosecardis on file?”
Noah didn’t answer. He stuck his hand under the water, peeling back the broken skin in thin, tiny strips until the sting became too much. Watched the water run pink down the drain.
“Did your tortoise stop being fun?” she asked. “I’m not going to say told you so—”
You just did.
“—but you should’ve left him alone.”
He waited for his heart to stop trying to crawl out of his stomach.
“I’m not going to Venice.”
“Excuse me?”
Noah shut off the water. Grabbed the towel. Turned to face her.
“I’m not going to Venice,” he repeated, like she hadn’t heard him.
“We had plans—”
“I’m not going, Max.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, lips pressed into a thin, tight line. “You’re blowing me off for a guy.”
Fighting wasn’t going to fix the problem.
Noah wanted to go home. Even if it was Theo’s too-small apartment with the soft mattress and the blood stain on thecarpet. That was home now. Becausehewas. And Noah would wait outside Apartment B for the rest of his life if Theo asked him to.
Max popped her gum.
“I can’t wrestle your tall ass onto the plane,” she muttered after a minute. “Fine. You wanna stay in bumfuck Ohio? Be my guest.”
She turned, headed back toward the bedroom. He heard the latch on her suitcase snap open.
“If we end up with a job—” she called back, but he already knew what she was going to say.
“I’ll be there."
Seven days felt like seven years.
Noah didn’t leave the hotel room except to restock the protein shakes or pace the halls like a lunatic. He hadn’t changed his shirt. Not because he liked how it smelled—though it did still smell faintly like coconut—but because changing it felt like admitting something was over. That it couldn’t be fixed. He could fix it. Hehadto fix it.
The one camera in Theo’s bedroom wasn’t doing it for him. Theo would go off screen, come back. Off screen, come back. Over and over.
