Anything More Than Now (Sutton College #2) Page 7

  “Watch out, Landry,” Noah says, swinging Beau’s mattress around, nearly knocking off my head. His voice is a warning.

  I shove it back toward him, my eyes narrowed. “Why are you helping?”

  “Get out,” Beau says, throwing a sweatshirt at me. It falls a few feet away and he swears. “I don’t have time for a lecture.”

  I keep my hand firmly on the mattress Noah is trying to slide out of the room, and glare at Beau. “You should be resting.”

  Beau repeats what I’ve said under his breath, giving a heartless laugh. I’m struck by how empty the room already is, how fast this happened without me knowing. I want the world to stop moving without me.

  “Let me by,” Noah says, his voice soft. Coaxing.

  I cave and step aside; the sadness wins over my anger at Noah. He should be trying to help Beau, not letting him run away. His eyes meet mine as he hauls the mattress out of Beau’s bedroom. I hear it bump along the wall until the door to the garage door opens.

  “I know everything is shitty right now,” I start. I have no idea how to say what he needs to hear right now. I have no idea how to say something even remotely caring to Beau, which was our problem to begin with. I was a show pony, prancing and preening every day for attention and he gave it, but I was never enough because it was all one-sided. I was who I thought he wanted instead of allowing myself to love him.

  “But it’s going to get better, right? That’s all anyone tells me right now, Reagan, and I don’t want to fucking hear it anymore. So will you just go?”

  “I could, sure.” I step in and see a few empty boxes, a painting from Matisse swinging from its place on the wall as Beau tosses a pair of jeans. “But I’m not going to.”

  “Fucking perfect,” he says, raking his hand through his hair. He’s bent on the floor, his other arm braced on the floor, holding him up. But it’s shaking, like his voice.

  The sight of him, so small, throws me off and unsettles me. It reminds me of watching him walk into the waiting room after he learned he had MS. He looked me in the eye, then walked out, never admitting what was wrong until I got into the passenger side seat. Then it was a teary declarative sentence, two palms angrily striking the steering wheel, and a new future for the both of us. A short future.

  I ignore him and fold a few blankets, stuffing them messily into a garbage bag. It’s wrong to help him when I don’t want him to leave. He’s giving up, he’s retreating, he’s….

  Oh. My. God.

  “Does Matisse know?” I ask, spinning around. Anger drips between the syllables of each word, my hands clenched tightly at my side.

  Beau looks up from his spot on the floor, then pushes to his knees and holds onto the wall until he’s standing. His dark eyes are red, and if exhaustion had a face, it would be his right now. “Pack or get out” is all he says to me.

  “Beau, you can’t just pack up and leave without telling Matisse! You can’t just leave her.”

  His head snaps up before he whirls and punches the wall. His fist flies through the old plaster.

  Noah

  All I hear as I come in from loading the mattress into the bed of my pickup is Reagan yelling at Beau. I turn the corner and fill the doorway as my best friend pulls himself up from the floor. I fight back the urge to rush in and help him. I know he doesn’t want that. And then something inside me breaks as Reagan yells, “You can’t just leave her!”

  She left me, you know.

  Everyone has a chapter in their lives they don’t want known, and for Reagan, it’s her missing sister. No wonder she glared at me earlier as if she was going to pull out a blade and shank me.

  It takes a lot to keep rooted to my spot in the doorway and not pull her into my arms and kiss her, to make him leaving easier. It takes more not to say anything, to soothe her. Guilt clogs up those words and freezes my limbs, guilt because I’m standing here watching Beau as he throws a punch into his bedroom wall and I’m stuck between the two of them.

  “All right, fucktard, let’s get your sorry ass up to Canada.”

  Beau doesn’t put up a fight when I help him out the garage, or up into my truck. I walk around and climb inside, steeling myself with a deep drag of air heavy with motor oil from Beau’s bike parked in the garage.

  Two hours pass without a word. I’m trying my best to get him home without making it a two-day trip, but we have ten hours left and he’s not exactly chatty company. I focus on the road instead, keeping the music low while he burrows away in the pillow I gave him to rest against the window.

  “You look like you’re going to murder me,” Beau croaks into his pillow.

  I glance at him, then back at the highway, checking my mirrors before I slide into the outside lane and increase the speed control a few notches.

  “Nope.” My thumb drums a distracted beat against the steering wheel. “Go back to sleep. It’s going to be a while before you’re home.”

  He mumbles something like the smartass he is and I grin, cutting off a blue sedan set on making my trip three times as long.

  “Slow down,” he says. “You’re not stealing this one. You own it, remember?”

  I check the rearview mirror to make sure it’s clear then slow us down.

  “I don’t want Mati to see me go through this. I don’t want her there if it’s bad news. I don’t want her to have to watch me die.”

  That’s my limit—hearing Beau mention death. I can be quiet and let him vent, but I won’t let these shitty ideas of his brew until it poisons his reasoning.

  “You’re not going to die.” My voice is firm but I can’t ignore how those words seemed to have stuck in my throat for a beat too long.

  Beau sniffs, his voice hoarse when he answers. “You don’t know that.”

  If I wasn’t flying up Route 5, I’d slam on the brakes and set him straight. Instead, my foot presses the gas and we rush forward. He pales a bit and slams his eyes shut, swearing at me.

  “You don’t know that either,” I say finally. I feel as if I should admit what I did with Reagan, to help clear up this awkward tension between us in the cab of the truck. Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe I’m just so guilty now there’s no point in coming clean. So we slept together? I don’t think she cares at all to repeat it.

  Lie.

  So I might love her? She doesn’t know how to love someone back.

  Lie.

  I’m a horrible, shitty friend who’s hiding a truth that means everything to him.

  Truth.

  I can’t do this.

  Reagan

  I pore over my senior thesis as I stand behind at the checkout counter at the library, taking another big gulp of my Americano. I should lay off the caffeine but between searching for work and pulling extra hours at Zola so I can pay Greg, sleep is more a concept than a reality for me right now.

  Another bleary-eyed student waits, slowly sliding a book toward me, leaning on the counter as if he might take a nap at any minute. I print the slip and close it between the pages, already taking off for the jar of antibacterial gel at the end of the counter when I notice the body barreling toward mine through the busy lobby of the library.

  The crowd cuts away to Noah striding up to me. It’s only been two days since Beau moved out but it seems like forever ago since I’ve laid eyes on Noah.

  I steel myself, straightening my spine as his eyes connect with mine. It feels as though I have a balloon expanding in my chest, close to bursting. I purposely hold my breath, refusing to allow myself to be such a girl. I shouldn’t be so happy to see him.

  Noah doesn’t say anything, only grabs my hand and hauls me behind him. I try to tug away, dragging my feet.

  “Stop being such a caveman, jerk.” I speak to his back because he doesn’t stop, only leads us farther back into the stacks away from the eyes of everyone else. “Use your words,” I snap, feeling myself flush as someone points to us before we take a sharp corner.

  His T-shirt is wrinkled, his jeans loose. I’m hit with t
he smell of him, of man…of Noah. I’m so caught up in trying to put words to that that I miss we’ve stopped. Well, I do until his hands grip my face and guide my lips to his in a hungry kiss.

  It doesn’t stop, this kiss, doesn’t pause. It’s one speed—more. It’s deep in its desperation and that balloon in my chest suddenly bursts and I deflate, melting back against the book stacks. I stop fighting and let my mouth follow his.

  The pressure from his fingertips on my cheeks pops my eyes open. I watch him as he loses himself. My neck is tilted back and I feel a bit broken, like I’m an ill-repaired doll, my limbs bent this way and that. Maybe he senses that because he loosens his grip and slows his lips, but it’s still consistently full of want.

  I try to focus on his shoulders beneath my hands, how steady they are. His body is a homestead to me, a bonfire signaling me to return. I slip my hands around his neck, skimming just below his collar to feel the burn of his skin against my cold hands. What I feel, what’s happening is so confusing. It’s so good but I can’t…I feel as if I’m being pitched up in the sky, the ground miles below.

  Noah doesn’t stop and he doesn’t let me catch up to wherever his head is at. His fingers reach down and brush at the hem of my skirt, quietly moaning into my mouth as he raises them higher, bunching the fabric high up on my thighs.

  “I’ve been thinking of this for the past twelve hours.” His lips leave my mouth, trail down my neck and nip at my collarbone. His lips mirror that path, making me ache for his mouth against on mine as he sears my skin with his mouth and teeth. A simple path of kisses from left to right like eclipses.

  I sigh, closing my eyes. He curls his hands under my skirt, grabbing my ass and lifting me, pulling my hips to meet his. Noah traps the unnatural sound I make in another heated kiss.

  “Someone is going to hear you, screamer. Be quiet.”

  I pull at the nape of his hair, wanting to fight, but wanting to continue more. “We’re in Poetry, no one’s going to come around.”

  His soft chuckle cuts across my jaw in a hot slice. I don’t know what he’s doing to me. I think I’m falling apart. I think my brain has stopped working.

  It’s only when he teases, “Use your words, Landry,” that I realize I have lost the ability to put one word in front of another. It has a lot to do with the book spines pressing into my back, his hands roaming over my body, pushing my shirt to skirt over my ribs.

  Noah’s undressing me in the library.

  The thought sort of tumbles around me, pushing to make room in my head and my chest. I can’t figure out the disconnect. Why I hated him until he stormed up to me and dragged me here. Why I keep trying to build up this space between us when…

  “I don’t like you,” I say, breaking away.

  Noah ducks his head into my shoulder, his own moving up and down as he tries to catch his breath. “I had to go. He’s my best friend.”

  I bow my head to rest against his. Without thinking, I kiss his temple.

  And that’s what uncoils my lie. That brief, sweet touch of my lips. I know he knows now. For two people so obsessed with using the right words, I can’t admit that I’m lying. I can’t even admit that I missed him.

  And I did. God, I did.

  Noah slowly lets me down to the floor, slowly starts dressing me again, covering up my flesh like the secret between us. He tries to put me back together, but it’s too late for that. My lips are sore and swollen, my head too dizzy, and my heart is hammering against my chest. And the feeling—the one I’d rather not call it what it is—is full in my lower belly.

  I would have fucked him in the stacks without caring who saw. That’s what Noah does to me. He makes me forget what it’s like to have my feet firmly on the ground. He’s possibility.

  He cups my chin, pressing his thumb over my swollen lips, retracing the spot where he just branded me as his. I’m not an idiot, I felt it too. I spun into the possibility of letting Noah into my life with that kiss. I crashed into the reality that I’m already his.

  “Who are you trying to fool, pretty girl?”

  I dart my eyes to the floor, afraid to admit that when he walks away, he’ll be taking something with him today. Something new, like a sliver of my heart.

  “I had to go. I had to bring him home.” He clears his throat, his shoulders visibly tensing. “But this isn’t about him, is it? Not really.”

  I open my mouth and sputter for a few seconds, so caught up in what I want to say and what needs to be said. I still end up saying the obvious.

  “He broke her heart.” My throat actually starts to close up, at least it feels as if that’s what’s happening. “He just left and she’s lost now.” I reach behind me, running my hands over the spines of old poetry books, forgotten years ago. But at least they’re comforting, at least there will always be stories in the world.

  He’s quiet, studying me. “I came back though.”

  My eyes snap up to his and my arms go slack. Hell, my whole body does. I’m suddenly a marionette that’s lost its strings. I fall to pieces on the floor.

  Noah backs away and scratches the back of his neck. “I’ve had a long drive and I—”

  “You haven’t been back to the frat house?”

  He snorts and a tiny smile plays at his lips. “You never listen to me, do you?”

  I look at him blankly, confused.

  “I drove straight here. Couldn’t think of anything else but—” he leans in close, his mouth teasing the air around my ear, so close yet so far away, “—kissing you.”

  “So you did.” I rub my hands over my lips as he heads down the aisle.

  “So I did.” He pauses at the end of the aisle. “Don’t be a stranger, Reagan.”

  But that’s exactly the problem. We’re not really strangers anymore. That lie has been shattered too.

  Chapter Seven

  Reagan

  So that kiss happened at the library, the one that turned my world upside down, the one that cracked my heart of stone open just a bit…. I’ve been living every day since for the past week with a heart that’s a little more vulnerable, especially whenever I’m around Noah. And since he agreed that we should keep our tutoring appointments, I’m seeing a lot of him.

  I slip in to grab my free sandwich on Tuesday, another speaker addressing the gathered Kappa Sigma fraternity. I slip in secretly hoping a certain frat boy will be waiting.

  “Want to go to the library?” Noah asks, standing behind me.

  He’s teasing and I like it, but I don’t let that show. The advantage of resting bitch face is that when I want to appear disinterested, it doesn’t take much effort. I peek at him from behind my curtain of long hair and bangs, and swallow. I’m waiting for another kiss like last week’s, the sheer force of want that knocked me over. The intensity of that kiss, that moment, of us together…that was something I’ve never experienced in my life. It was something I never thought I could experience. It’s sort of hard to even dream of something like that kiss when I keep everyone at a distance.

  Everyone except Noah it seems.

  “Is that a yes then?” He tilts his head at me while I stand and brush a hand down my skirt.

  “Sure, but we’re still only meeting for an hour today. We’ll skip going to Zola.” I walk out and he follows as I race across the courtyard to the library. “And we’re absolutely—”

  “Visiting Poetry, I agree.”

  The deep sound of his laugh as I toss him a glare over my shoulder makes my toes curl. I used to think he was such a dumbass. When did I suddenly think he was anything more than the guy who crashed on my couch reeking of pot and cheap beer?

  Noah comes up behind me, his warmth wrapping around me as he leans forward and pauses, his arm brushing my waist as he reaches for the door to the library. I close my eyes and, for a brief second, pretend his other arm wraps around me and pulls me tight against him. I think, just for one quick glimpse of a daydream, that his lips hum over my neck in a greedy kiss.

  Except
I never give in fully. I never relax back into him and Noah doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t brush my hair away from my neck and kiss it until warmth sinks deep in my belly and my legs ache. Except that spot between my legs does ache. I feel heavy, my skin buzzing with anticipation. This is the problem. Ever since the library, not only do I miss him, I crave Noah.

  I grip my bag tighter and rush through the library. He matches my steps, never falling behind as I wind us through the stacks, through the crowded study spots, deep to the back of the library to my favorite spot.

  Two chairs face each other, divided by a beat-up table covered in forgotten papers and torn magazines. It’s private, and the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows is nice, overlooking the fountain and shady trees outside.

  I’m not sure why I brought Noah here. This has always been my secret, my favorite place to slip away beside my bedroom so I could get homework done, write papers, or catch up on reading.

  As if he guessed just that, he sinks down into the chair in front of the window, not saying a word. I sit and dig through my bag and grab my laptop, then cross my legs.

  Noah meets my flushed stare, then reaches out, circling his hand around my ankle. His fingers run a short length up and down my calf. I forget myself and my head falls back as my flat hits the floor between us.

  “I didn’t bring us back here for this…for more….”

  “No?” He tugs just hard enough that I feel his fingerprints redden my skin and I sigh. I actually let out this horrible wanton sound that is nothing like I’ve ever uttered.

  Shit.

  I push myself back into my seat and give him a kick with my foot, ignoring the way the corner of his mouth is kicked up or how my body is warm, my breathing uneven. “You have one hour, so take out your paper and get to work on it.”

  He salutes me before cracking his book open and pulling out a folded mess of scribbled notes.

  My mouth is dry, my body aware of everything, including the vent that kicks on above me. The shiver only intensifies the fire rolling over my skin at the memory of his hand around my ankle, the firm grasp that made the feather light touch of his fingers more intense.