Page 114 of Brim Over Boot
“Not your fault,” Noah rumbles against me. “I’m sorry, too. Just…please try not to leave me hanging like that, Colt. I thought, for a minute…”
“You thought what?”
A small tremor wracks through him. “I thought you were going to hurt me again.”
I still. “What?”
“When you didn’t show up at the barn,” he continues, his nose pressed to my neck. “It was the same place, and… You just can’t hurt me like that again, Colt. I know we were kids, but—”
“Hold up,” I say quickly, trying to see his face. “What are you talking about?”
He rolls his head toward me, blinking. “When I moved here. We were seventeen, and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Um, what? You moved to town when you were twenty-two.”
“No,” he says slowly. “I was seventeen, nearly eighteen. Our senior year of high school.”
I try to sit up, and Noah lets me, looking as confused as I feel. “What…the actual fuck?”
“Are you serious right now?” Noah asks at an even clip, his voice turning hard. “You know exactly what happened, Colt.”
“Um, I most certainly do not. So I’m gonna need you to explain. Like, right now.”
He scoffs, scooting away from me. “Senior year,” he repeats. “I was the new kid at school. We hit it off talking about horses, and you invited me over. I came.”
“And?” I prompt, even as my head reels.
“And you dumped a bucket of horse shit on me through the hayloft door.”
I jump off the bed, my pulse racing. “What. The actual fuck, Noah. I didnot.”
“You did.”
I let out a laugh that’s entirely devoid of humor, and Noah seems to realize I’m serious.
“Are you kidding me?” he says, voice incredibly low. “You don’t…rememberme?”
My breath puffs out, and I bend at the waist. “Start over.”
“Jesus Christ. I moved to Darling after my parents died. Stayed with Walter and finished out my senior year in school withyou. I thought I’d met a friend, but instead, you made your thoughts on the matter very clear.”
“I don’t…” I shake my head. I would’ve remembered him, wouldn’t I?
“I went by Junior back then,” Noah says woodenly. “It’s what my parents called me because my dad… His name was Noah, too.”
Oh, fuck.
Junior.
“You looked different,” I wheeze.
“Yeah, well… No tattoos back then. Hair was longer. Hadn’t quite grown into my body yet.”
I look at Noah now, his expression like stone. It’s such a far cry from the kid who showed up for a few months at the end of my senior year, his cheeks rounded and a shy, if not troubled, smile on his face. I get that now. He’d just lost his parents, hadn’t he?
He looks nothing like that boy.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him, my chest aching. “You ignored me.”
