Page 23 of Reconnected Hearts
“Lucy, I think we need to talk about last night,” Noah starts. My breath catches in my throat. This is exactly what I’ve been dreading.
I glance over at him and wave my hand in the air, dismissing his attempt to start the discussion. “No, we don’t. It was nice, but it was a mistake, and it’s not going to happen again. That’s that. There’s nothing else to talk about.”
Noah frowns. If I didn’t know better, I might feel bad, I might consider letting him convince me that it wasn’t a mistake, that actually we could make this work out. I can’t even let him try.
In a perfect world, maybe things would be different. Maybe I would have the luxury of believing him. But this isn’t a perfect world and I know that I have to do what I have to do.
“Right, yeah,” he says, clearing his throat “Uh, that’s what I was gonna say anyway. So, that’s great. We’re on the same page.”
He scratches the growing stubble on his chin, he looks exhausted, and I feel exhausted.
I’m starting to think that maybe this whole trip is doomed. Getting stuck with Noah wasn’t fate. It was more like a cosmic punishment that will not end.
I hate this.
CHAPTER12
NOAH
We must look like a couple. Two young, attractive people doing something together in public. That’s pretty coupley, I think. Granted, Lucy is always several paces ahead of me, but still. We are a couple of people doing things that people typically do in a romantic context. That would make us a couple.
I feel oddly proud. With every stranger we pass who gives us even the laziest of glances, I just want to scream thatI am with Lucy Marino. Especially the tall, blond guy who was staring at Lucy for entirely too long, going so far as to fully turn around as he walked to stare at her ass. I really wanted to yell at him.
She’s mine. Back off.
But she’snotmine. Jesus. When did I turn into a boyfriend?
I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Lucy Marino has me tied around her pretty, perfect finger, and for the life of me, I can’t fathom why. She’s not the first girl I’ve messed around with after a few too many drinks, but she is the first one whose side I can’t stand to leave. I want to watch everything she does. I want to see the sunlight reflect in her eyes and the wind ruffle her hair across her neck. I’m consumed by her. I’m obsessed. When she looks at me, my heart flutters and I feel sick to my stomach.
I hate it.
She’s not mine to want and Ishouldn’twant her. She’s given me a million reasons not to. She wants absolutely nothing to do with me. She’s closed off. She’sstiffaround me. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that my knees still wobble every time our eyes meet. I lose more and more confidence the longer I’m alone with her. I’ve always had this charisma that can carry me when all else fails. But Lucy isimmuneto it.
I feel like a lovesick teenager. I’m stumbling over my feet. My tongue is all twisted up. I’m rambling and hoping that something I say is cool enough to impress her.
It never is.
At best, she tolerates me.
I take a step, she takes two. I ask her a question, she gives me a vague one-word answer. I silently plead for even a millisecond of her attention, she ignores me. For the first time in my life, not only am I losing a game of cat and mouse, but also, I’m the mouse.
I can safely say that being the mouse sucks.
I follow her around the city all afternoon and nothing changes. She ducks into shop after shop and promptly pretends that I don’t exist. I’m nothing to her. A mere inconvenience.
I debate leaving her to her own devices and retreating back to the hotel with my tail tucked between my legs, but I’m a Laurier, and Lauriers don’t give up so easily.
I don’t have to make her like me, but I do have to make herseeme. And I meanreallysee me. Right now, she has this picture of me in her mind that just isn’t right at all. I’m not a bad guy. I’m not a villain to be vanquished. I’m not out to get her.
I’m just someone with a lot of confusing feelings threatening to bubble over and boil me alive.
On second thought, maybe it’s not my feelings that are confusing. Maybe it’sLucy.Lucy, who’s hated me from day one. Lucy, who got me kicked out of class. Lucy, who has no hesitation to speak her mind—loudly. Lucy, who let down her walls for the briefest moment to comfort me when I thought my life was falling apart.
I can’t be the only one who feels that things have changed. I can’t be crazy in thinking that this all happened for a reason. I was meant to miss my flight. I was meant to sit next to her. I was meant to share a bed with her last night. And I am absolutely, without-a-doubt, meant to change her mind about me—for good. I can’t go back to being strangers with this giant wedge between us, not after everything that’s happened.
“It’s getting dark. We should head back,” Lucy says suddenly, though I don’t need her to tell me. I’m all too aware of the emerging moonlight making her eyes look more like a steaming cup of coffee versus the volcanic auburn they were in the sunlight.
Why do I care?
