Page 17 of The Forever Formula
“I think I just liked having a person, you know?”
She fixed a look of sympathy on her face. “Well, I’m sorry, but I never liked Roger.”
I belted out a laugh at her blunt words. “You didn’t?”
“Nope. He was about as exciting as a baked potato.”
I let out a snort. “He was a chemist. And yet still, we were lacking in the chemistry department.”
Megan laughed at my corny joke, and I was grateful.
“Why didn’t you ever say something?” I asked. “If you really didn’t like him—”
“Because I couldn’t. You’re my best friend. And I figured if you were happy, that’s what mattered.”
“Well, I wasn’t. Not at the end, anyway.”
“Then I’m glad you’re free of him. You need to have chemistry with someone. The explosive kind, preferably.” She winked at me.
At her words, my mind instantly went to Noah. Chemistry with Noah was never a problem. We’d always had it in spades. Heck, maybe we even had it now, even though I tried to ignore it. I think he did too.
If I ignored it, maybe it would go away. Let’s hope, anyway.
• • •
Once we were back inside, I made sure Megan was settled in my old bedroom. She put her things away, then picked up a framed photograph on my desk.
“This was him?” she asked.
I nodded. “That’s Grandpa Paul.”
“His nose was like a bird perched on his face.”
A soft chuckle escaped me. “Oh, I know!”
“Thank gosh you didn’t inherit his nose.”
“Preach, sis.”
Megan and I dissolved into easy laughter, and I hugged her good-night. It was good to have her here.
Upstairs in the loft, snuggled up in the freshly washed blankets, I felt lonely despite the guest room being filled for the first time since I’d been here.
My mind drifted to Noah.
Maybe it was scandalous to some back then, that I was eighteen and he was sixteen, but he was more mature and just as grown-looking as Austen was at the time.
Noah certainly knew how to charm me with that crooked smile and those blue eyes of his. He was easily the cutest boy in town, somehow more handsome than his brothers. He was always trying to impress me, even from the time we were little. Gathering flowers for me, or an impressively large pine cone he thought nine-year-old me would like.
I smiled at all the memories that I hadn’t thought about in so long.
Eventually, he’d caught my eye in a different way, though. I remembered when things changed, and I began thinking of himthatway.
We were in high school by then, and there was at a party at the hot springs. That was the cool thing to do back then. Sneaking off after dark with a couple of towels, and maybe even a couple of beers in a backpack and out into the woods.
Of course, no one would think to wear a bathing suit, or maybe we just wanted to be sexy in our underwear, but I found myself in a little pool with just Noah. I don’t even know how it happened.
“I’d always thought you’d wear granny panties,” he had said, teasing me. The confidence of teenaged Noah was astounding.
