Noah (More Than Friends Book 2) Page 15

  “You must be the happy father,” the doctor greeted me. I smiled, my cheeks numb with the fake expression.

  I stood back while they rubbed jelly on Callie’s stomach and started examining her. The doctor and nurse exchanged jargon I understood, nothing concerning or questionable…until they mentioned the baby’s measurements.

  “Six inches,” I whispered to the nurse as she stretched her fingers into a new pair of gloves, “that’s too small for being five months along.” My chest hummed, but I couldn’t tell if it was worry for the baby or selfish hope. Hope that it wasn’t mine. Then I felt guilty and horrible because that poor baby needed a daddy.

  “Five months?” the doctor responded, overhearing my question. “Callie, you’re not that far along. Let’s get the probe to check.” I was rigid, holding my breath while they examined Callie and discussed their assumptions. Too soon to obtain an accurate measurement. Every pregnancy is different.

  “It’s not too early for a paternity test,” I objected, my nerves raw and wired. “I want one. Now.”

  “Noah,” Callie whimpered from the bed. “Please don’t embarrass us.”

  I persisted, ignoring Callie and turning to the doctors, sobriety in full effect, rage and hope twisting inside of me. They advised us it was simple and could be done with minimal risk to Callie. I pleaded with her, for the sake of her baby, to do it.

  “Callie,” I begged, holding her hands in mine, her manicured nails digging into my skin, “please. If you loved me once, if you love this baby, please be sure it’s mine. You know I’d give it the world, but I need to know…please. These doctors don’t care who the father is, but I do. Just do it, Callie. Please. Christ!” I needed to keep my cool, but it was difficult as hell. I was a ball of nerves in that small room, the alcohol from last night and this morning seeping from my pores, my thoughts of the last time I’d spent in bed with Lizzie twisting in a tormenting display in my mind.

  ***

  I tried calling Lizzie again. It went straight to voicemail, no ring or anything. It’s like she turned her phone off to me, to the rest of the world…to us. I wanted to tell her, scream actually, about how there might be a chance Callie’s baby wasn’t really mine, but I forgot my place. It should’ve been in bed next to Lizzie, but I’d fucked that up by having a past before her…before life.

  So I called in sick, letting someone else take the helm for a night, and let myself go…again. Shit, it was a bender without Lizzie. I don’t even know what I was hoping for. I guess after it got through my thick skull that she was ignoring me, I figured I needed to numb the pain, the pain of Lizzie leaving me, the pain of Callie coming back. Heart, balls, meet my stomach…where I hoped everything would slosh together and somehow cure my aching soul.

  Muffin snored on a pillow near the front door, like even he hoped Lizzie would come home. It sucked. So I sucked down even more, breaking into Sean’s absurdly expensive bottle of booze they’d given me as a thank you weeks prior, drowning myself like a fool.

  I’d changed into sweat pants and a t-shirt by the time my bottle was half gone, Muffin still snoring like a bastard in the foyer. I missed Lizzie so much, it hurt. Everything ached for her. My skin, my hair, my body, my soul. I was somewhere between drink seven and thirteen when I reached for my quiet phone, not even sure why I dialed Sean’s number…of all people.

  His tired voice crackled into the phone. “N-Noah?” Hearing him was a trigger, and no matter how wide my mouth gaped, I couldn’t produce a sound. He asked for me three more times, and all I could do was barely hold the phone in my trembling hand. He was the closest to her I could do in that moment of weakness, and yet I was silent.

  “Listen,” Sean’s whisper was stern, “I’m going to assume you’re home…right? Okay…I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  He clicked off, and I was sitting on the couch, slowly realizing how dead I’d feel in the morning, but I couldn’t process how to prevent a hangover from his fancy booze and what I was going to do once he came over. Why’d I call him? Of all people. Because Sean was Lizzie’s best friend. They’re more than friends; they’re a family. I miss her.

  Soon enough, he knocked at my door, and I needed to cling to the walls and furniture to answer him. His eyes widened when he saw me, but he pushed himself in and didn’t say anything as he closed the door. I fumbled back to the couch and looked up at him.

  He ran a hand through his brown hair, pausing to hold his neck while sighing like I’d gut-punched him. With the other hand crossing his chest, Sean balanced his feet on my floor, shoulder width apart as though preparing for battle.

  “You look like crap,” he grunted. “You think this is how to get Lizzie back?”

  “Nope,” I slurred, “this is just how I feel.”

  “How do you think she feels, man?” I couldn’t answer him because I didn’t know how she felt. She wasn’t answering my calls. We fell so damn fast, and I thought we were impenetrable. I didn’t know I could ever hurt her; I didn’t see this coming. How could something so perfect just vanish like this?

  “She doesn’t want anything to do with me,” I grumbled, avoiding Sean’s stare. His brows furrowed, green eyes narrowing at me without judgment. I knew because he slowly exhaled with a palm on my shoulder.

  “Don’t you think you owe it to each other to know both sides of things? She’s a mess without you, Noah,” he confessed. A mess? But she left me. I was ready to fight for her. Hell, I had been…she didn’t give me a chance.

  I looked at Sean, studying the worry in his eyes. “I am a mess without her.”

  “Clearly.” Sean nodded to the bottle on my floor.

  “Even if she answered my calls, I couldn’t face her. Not like this.” I looked away from him, trying to avoid him in my periphery. I was so damn ashamed, it was debilitating. I heard Sean stand, feeling his weight shift from my couch, but I kept my eyes on the bookshelf across from me. My blurry gaze stopped on Jade’s book, and I realized I wasn’t the hero I thought I was. I ruined everyone I loved.

  I was reaching for the bottle when Sean ripped my hand away. “Noah! What is happening?” Sean took the bottle, carrying it into the kitchen where I heard the glurp, guzzle, slosh of excess pouring down my drain. The faucet turned on, Sean rattled through cabinets, and I considered how much me calling him would embarrass Lizzie. I was selfish. I didn’t think.

  I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye, battling the brimming sobs threatening my eyelids. “Sean?”

  “Yeah?” He returned to my living room carrying a glass of water, Muffin following Sean’s shadow.

  “Tell me she’s okay,” I uttered, nodding appreciation when he handed me the water. “Tell me she’s—”

  “Still hopelessly dedicated to you?” He chuckled while sitting next to me, but I wasn’t sure if it was annoyance or kindness. “If there’s one thing I know about those three girls,” his laughter was gentle now, “it’s that their hearts are open, deep, and the most fiercely loyal things we’re lucky to experience.” I could only grunt a reply, focused on blinking away the guilty tears that clung to the shame and worry I held inside of me.

  “But,” he continued, “she’s falling apart. You two fools need to fall apart together, pick each other up, and move on.”

  “Like you and Avery?” I caught his eyes mid-sip, noticing he shook his head with the hint of a smile.

  “No, Noah. Like you and Lizzie.”

  “How do I do this?” I wasn’t asking him, not even myself, but hoping the universe would give me some sort of sign. It didn’t, but Sean did.

  “You need the grand gesture.” He laughed. “This is the part of the movie where you chase her to the airport or show up at her work with something so obnoxious she can’t miss it. She’ll have to kiss you just to make it stop.”

  “I love her, Sean,” I affirmed, hoping those words would somehow flow out the window and into Lizzie’s condo just blocks away.

  “I know,” he agreed. We both leaned back on the
cushions, staring at the ceiling and saying nothing more. My head spun, but having Sean there made it seem a little more manageable. Maybe because he kept Lizzie real, keeping me full of hope. Muffin struggled to get onto his lap, so Sean helped him, letting the old man burrow and snore. I almost missed the soft alert tone on my phone through Muffin’s grunts and rumbles.

  “Do you want me to get that?” Sean questioned, pointing to my phone on the floor. It wasn’t a phone call or text but an e-mail. I didn’t know who would send me an e-mail at whatever the hell ungodly hour it was, unless it was my mom in another time zone or spam about me winning millions. I shrugged it off, but the damn thing dinged once more, so I slipped from the couch to grab it.

  I stopped breathing, my heart draining as it squeezed between my tight lungs and back onto my sleeve.

  Subject: CONFIDENTIAL: Test Results [automated message]

  The chart and medical jargon were things I knew how to read, but it was all a flurry of symbols in my mind. I needed text, concrete sentences that gave me a chance…a chance to do the right thing. Sean placed Muffin on the floor and went to the bathroom while I scoured the attachments. I held shaking hands to my mouth when he returned, staring at me like he was watching me die. That’s what it felt like, because I think something was dying in that moment.

  “What is it?” He tentatively approached, my dog once more following him. “Are you okay?”

  I wasn’t ashamed to cry, handing him the phone because I couldn’t even take a damn breath. I stared at the floor, waiting…

  “In all analyzed DNA,” Sean read aloud, “there are no genetic markers linking Noah Donato Rossi to the paternity of the child, determining that the likelihood of Noah Donato Rossi being the biological father of this child is less than ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine…holy shit, Noah.” I rolled my teary eyes up to his, watching his mouth twist into a smile. “The grand gesture,” Sean playfully mocked.

  A crackle of thunder rippled through the sky, vibrating the light fixture on my ceiling. Muffin scampered to Sean like a cheating bastard and cried for him. The three of us looked at each other while the clouds opened above us and the lights flickered before fading into darkness.

  “Well,” Sean laughed, moving across the room to sit on the floor in front of the couch, “we can wait out this storm together.”

  “You should get back to Avery.”

  “I didn’t just mean the weather, Noah.” He nudged my knee with his shoulder, like the damn little brother he was turning out to be. “You’re going to need someone to resuscitate you in the morning. And I owe you that favor.”

  “I can’t believe you’re joking about that,” I gaped, admitting it was amusing, “and the other storm?”

  “I know,” he paused as thunder tore through the sky again, “the girls have a date tomorrow night, or tonight, whatever time it is. I could make Avery late, and Jesse could do the same with Ella, and that’d get Lizzie alone.”

  “I’m not intruding on her turf,” I objected. I needed something better, and fast, because I knew this hangover was going to make my shift at the station impossible.

  ***

  I carried around a gallon of water and ibuprofen, aware my liver was pissed as hell at me, but nothing else worked to keep the throbbing headache to a minimum. The storm worsened throughout the day, with no sign of stopping and severe weather warnings scrolling on every channel.

  I hid in the bunks, regretting everything I did last night, except calling Sean and reading that e-mail. I should have been jubilant, but my heart was so hung up that I couldn’t even call Callie to tell her. She’d gotten the e-mail too, but I still felt…I don’t know…obligated? It was a messy situation, and maybe my heart was just still so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even celebrate reality.

  Maybe, the more I thought of it, I did want a kid someday. Maybe I was grieving. No. I’m depressed. I lost my girlfriend, I lost a baby I didn’t want, and I’m hungover. I got angry only two times, thinking of how easy it was for Lizzie to just give up on us, on me…but then I remembered what Avery and Sean told me before I’d drunk myself into a stupor and I felt like a reckless bastard.

  With the power outages, my phone wasn’t charged, and we were running the station on generators for most of the evening. Water dripped in one corner, and I tried to keep it from ruining things by placing a bucket under it. I was in no condition to use heavy machinery and fix shit. I paid the newbies one hundred dollars to keep their billiard game on hold, just to save my head.

  I tossed and turned, tried to stay still, and I couldn’t shake anything.

  “Rossi.” The Chief shoved my leg. “Wake up.”

  I groaned, rolling on my side. “Go away, Mom.” He kicked me the next time, huffing about my snarky comment. I heard his knees crack behind me as he lowered to my bedside.

  “You’ve got a visitor.” I opened my eyes, praying it wasn’t like the last visitor they’d let into the station. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just a delivery.”

  “Sign for me.” I turned over, facing the wall again, disappointed. I didn’t hear what he told me while walking away because my head hurt too much. So does my heart.

  The lights flickered, the comforting hum of electricity returning us to the modern age, and the first thing I did was search for my phone and plug the charger into the wall. I went on two calls between naps, simple fixes with people hurt doing stupid stuff downtown, and waited out the rest of my shift.

  When the clock finally rang with the shift change bell at midnight, I was the first out of there, quick to go home and clean the mess I’d created.

  “Hey, you,” Nina called as I turned the corner in the hallway, “going out for drinks tonight?”

  I laughed, definitely considering sobriety after last night. “No. Thanks. If you see Silas, tell him to call me.” She gave me a thumbs up and continued on with whatever she was doing. I really didn’t care. I had one mission: figure out my shit and get Lizzie back. Thunder rumbled above the city once more, rain pouring as I stepped onto the sidewalks of downtown Madison.

  State Street was barren, and I appreciated it. I didn’t want to rescue anyone except myself, and I didn’t want to deal with screaming college kids pretending their skin would melt beneath the rain. At each crosswalk, I looked up to the sky, letting every drop slam against my face in the humid summer air. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and reached for it, letting more raindrops hit my tongue before I choked.

  Lizzie: Meet me under the stars.

  I squinted, rubbed my eyes, blinked, all trying to make sure I hadn’t lost it. A horn screamed at me while I stood dumbfounded in the middle of the crosswalk. I reread her message ten times once I made it to the other side. The stars? At the park? My thumbs and brain weren’t communicating. I forgot how to text…so I ran, in the pouring rain, falling down four times, to James Madison Park, because I remembered. I couldn’t forget holding Lizzie in my arms, talking about how incredible it was to find one another in the entire universe…I remembered those stars.

  My shirt and jeans were sodden and soiled, dragging me down while I ran through puddles and splashed across the city. The handful of blocks felt like a marathon, and I couldn’t settle my heart or my throbbing head. Each debilitating pound pierced my chest, and I wanted to topple over too many times. I couldn’t see in the spray of downpour and darkness, but I searched everywhere. I reached for my phone to check once more that her message was real, but the battery died. I almost sank in the sand, and my jeans weighed more than me when I spotted the boathouse and the gray silhouette watching the choppy waves splashing in Lake Mendota.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I opened my mouth to shout her name, but nothing came. When I got closer, I noticed she was shaking, her bare shoulders covered in cascading drops of rain. Lizzie crossed her arms, holding herself together, and when I stood feet away from her, my mouth wide and eyes full of everything I felt, I watched tears join the drops of rain trickling along her cheeks.


  “I don’t care, Noah,” she yelled through the storm, no other greeting given.

  “About what?” I wanted to scream but couldn’t. In fact, my heart stopped speaking to me. It felt Lizzie’s and left my sleeve, leaping across the sand to nestle next to hers.

  Lizzie stood in front of me, and it took everything not to touch her. My wet fingertips twitched with the need to hold her, to feel the softness of her delicate skin beneath the pads of my fingers. I waited for the next boom of thunder to rip open the sky before trying to reach for her. Her muscles soften under my hands, and mine did too…like we’d been desperate for the fix. I knew I was. The last week alone was running rampant through my brain, like a disease I couldn’t cure…until she spoke again.

  “I’ll be there for you. I’ll do whatever you want me to do when your baby comes. I don’t care that it isn’t with me, that it’s with your ex. I just care about you.” I listened to her, walking as close as I could to Lizzie without hugging her. In the rain, I could smell how sweet she tasted, the strawberry of her lip gloss, the coconut in her shampoo, the vanilla in her perfume.

  I couldn’t handle it anymore. I glided my hands up her arms, over the curve of her shoulders, and along her neck, stopping only when her face was in my hands, and I lowered my mouth to hers. Rain dripped along our skin, pooling between our lips while competing with us. Lizzie’s tongue demanded more from mine than ever, savoring every taste it could master while licking and twisting with mine. Her lips were softened with the rain, and neither of us cared about the storm in our periphery. Every burst of thunder challenged us, the lightning invigorating us with our own electricity.

  “I’m sorry, mermaid,” she uttered, her voice cracking as her lips left mine. We stared at each other, green flicking between blue in the storm.