Last night’s kiss had gone on extra-long. Noah could see he was making progress in breaking through Roni’s defenses. He understood why she was still hesitant to go any further. He wasn’t without worry either. The possibility that something could go wrong was too real. But there was no way he couldn’t try. It was a huge risk but one he felt was absolutely worth the reward should it all work out, and he was certain it would.
For now, he’d take what she would give him, knowing they had somewhat of an unspoken agreement. Getting her life back to what it used to be was important to her, and he’d respect that. She did say she wanted to deal with that first before making any major changes in her life. So he’d be content knowing she wasn’t considering anyone else either. Most importantly, although she set down the law that she would handle Kratz and there would be no ass-kicking should he ever show up again, she did once again mention she had no interest in reconciling with the guy, not even in friendship terms.
The fight Friday night was only four days away. He’d focus on that instead. Last week, Abel’s fight had been a huge hit. They had a full house at the gym, and Abel said he’d actually held off a little before knocking his opponent out to give the spectators who’d lined up hours before the fight a longer show. But he warned Noah not to even think of doing the same, since not only was his a rematch but he also needed to send out a message to his much tougher opponent in the following fight.
Noah waited in the ring for Abel, who’d jumped out for second to take a call. He turned to check on Roni. He’d done such a good job impressing her with his phone it might’ve backfired. All that time she spent snuggling with him on the sofa every night while she played with his phone might be out the door. She was now saying that, as soon as she was up for an upgrade on her phone plan, she was getting herself one. In the meantime, she used his during her workouts. This week it had come in handy. With his fight this week, he was training even longer, which meant he had less time to train with her, not that she needed him anymore. Most of her workouts consisted of her doing an hour on the treadmill then some weights for toning. But she said listening to music made that hour on the treadmill go by so much faster.
Most of the day he’d train methodically without ever falling off track. But when Roni got there in the evenings, it was a different story. She’d been a little down still because of the whole Nellie thing.
He watched her now, trying to make out her mood. Abel jabbed him hard in the ribs, making Noah flinch. Noah hadn’t even noticed him get back in the ring.
“Can I say something without you getting all stupid on me?” Abel glanced at Roni then back at Noah.
If this was about her, he wasn’t promising shit. “What?”
“I hope to hell you don’t do what you did at your fight a few weeks ago.”
Noah punched his gloves together and frowned. He knew exactly what Abel was getting at, but he rolled his neck as he walked around the ring and asked anyway. “What’s that?”
“Get all caught up watching her and lose focus on the fight.”
“I won’t.”
“Dude, the second she walks in here every night, we may as well hang it up. You check out just like that. Yesterday, you could barely concentrate whenever she walked through the room. You can’t do that on fight night, Noah. You remember what happened last time?” Abel glanced away and looked out into the gym at nothing in particular. “Maybe it’s better if . . .”
Noah peered at him. “If what?”
“If she’s not there Friday.”
“No!” Noah held back what he really wanted to say. That he needed her there. As crazy as that sounded and even though he’d been pissed and distracted with the guy carrying on with her during the fight, there’d been something so comforting about her being there. Even the ride there, he’d felt so much more at peace than he ever had before any fight. And now, after everything that had happened between them, he knew that feeling would be even stronger. “Don’t worry about it.” He jabbed Abel playfully, his words a little calmer now. “I’ll focus. I promise.”
He could see Abel wasn’t impressed or convinced by his promises. “Yeah? Prove it. She’s got, what, twenty minutes left? Let’s see how long you can go without looking her way. Show me now.” He jabbed Noah hard on the shoulder. “C’mon, lover boy. Let’s do this.”
Noah resented having to force himself to keep his attention away from Roni, but he knew Abel had a point. Still, he decided to use the aggravation to his advantage and jabbed hard at Abel, missing his chin by an inch. Abel laughed, jumping in place now. “There you go. Focus. Maybe next time you’ll land that.”
“Asshole,” Noah muttered as he swung again, harder this time, but Abel blocked it. He swung again this time, landing one on Abel’s side.
Abel laughed again, completely unfazed by the solid jab Noah landed. “Call me crazy, Noah, but I think this focusing shit really works for you.”
They went at it for a while before Abel called their sparring session done. First thing Noah did was glance over in Roni’s direction. She was standing by the treadmill, drinking from her water bottle. When she finished, she wiped her forehead with a towel. She glanced at him then smiled when she saw him looking.
“Geez, she’s as bad as you are.” Abel nudged Noah before stepping out of the ring.
Noah laughed but didn’t say what he was thinking. He sure as hell hoped so.
~*~
Even though their routine had changed a little this week because of Noah’s extra training, once home in the evenings, everything was blissfully the same. Noah flipped through the channels as Veronica lay on the sofa, resting her head on his lap, playing with his phone. She still couldn’t believe the amount of things she could do with it. Noah had even showed her an app that she could use to start her car. It was unreal.
She resized the picture she’d taken that weekend of the guys while they were completely engrossed in their game. It was so cute; they all looked like their actual lives depended on whatever it was they were concentrating so hard on. The app she was playing with would let her add thoughts over their heads. She was in the middle of adding thoughts above Noah’s head when she hit something and the screen switched over to an incoming text—from Rita.
Veronica’s stomach did that weird thing it’d done just about anytime there’d been mention of Rita—the same thing it did when she’d seen Noah hug the groupies after his fight. The text was bad enough:
Sorry I won’t make it to your fight this Friday. My week is going to be crazy. But before I forget, I wanted to wish you luck, even though I know you won’t need it. Kill ’em baby MUUAH!
That alone was enough to light a fire inside Veronica. Had Noah asked her to come see him fight? He’d said they didn’t stay in contact after she left.
But it was the follow-up picture message that made her sit up slowly. It was a picture of Rita and Noah on his motorcycle. Her arms were wrapped around him, and her hands strategically were placed in his inner thighs, right at his crotch area. Even though Noah’s smile was barely there, her entire body pushed up against him, and the seductive smile she wore was that of a woman who’d either just gotten laid or was about to. The text under the picture read simply:
Aren’t we cute?
And the date—New Year’s Day. The day after he’d told Veronica he loved her. The very day he’d sworn Rita had spent the entire time inside and nothing happened between them.
“Very cute,” she muttered, tossing the phone at Noah.
Noah flinched in surprise but managed to catch it as she stood up. “What?”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. The boulder wedged at her throat made any ability to speak impossible. She had nothing to say to him anyway. This was her own damn fault. How many times did things like this have to happen before she learned to just stick with her initial gut feeling. Already this could cause a rift between them—the very thing she’d been so afraid of from the beginning.
Noah was obviously slow to catch the connection his phone had with her sudden change in mood that now had her bolting from the room. “What’s wrong?”
She’d made it all the way into the bathroom, locking the door safely behind her. But instead of crying, which was the original plan, she took a deep breath and rinsed her face. She hadn’t slept with him yet—something her gut had managed to win out on all this time. For that she was eternally grateful. There was still time for her to pull out and do some damage control to their friendship.
As unpleasant as any thoughts of being around Noah with other girls or to even have to hear him talk about other girls was, it was something she’d have to consider. This was not going to work.
Veronica had just managed to ward off the tears when Noah knocked on the door. “You okay?”
His voice alone was enough to have her choked up again. “I’m fine.”
“What happened? Did you suddenly feel sick?”
“Yeah, I did.” That was one way to put it. “But I’m okay now.”
She turned the shower on in hopes that he’d walk away. She wouldn’t be able to talk to him much longer without him noticing the strain in her voice. Thankfully, he left and she could shower in peace.
The long shower she took did the opposite of what she thought it would. Instead of calming her, it gave her more time to evaluate the facts. First of all, Noah had lied. She couldn’t be certain that he’d actually slept with Rita New Year’s Day, but Rita’s body language in the picture made one thing clear. His visit with her that day hadn’t been as innocent as he’d made it out to be.
Second, Rita was obviously under the impression that Noah was with Veronica now. They lived together for Christ’s sake! The two-faced bitch had the gall to be all over him like that and be texting him with that fucking picture? She had to know the possibility of Veronica seeing it was a good one.
Veronica thought she’d been a little too nice—a little too accepting of the fact that the guy she’d just done a few weeks prior was now giving his undivided attention to another female. Maybe this was her way of sticking it to her.
Unless, of course, since Noah seemed so impressed that Rita wasn’t the clingy type, she probably was the type that didn’t mind being his whore on the side. Veronica was so worked up by the time she got out of the shower she had to fight the urge to confront him about it.
If she did, the way she was feeling now, she knew without a doubt the conversation would probably end with her screaming at him to get the hell out of her house. That’s exactly what she didn’t want to happen ever. As much as she hated to admit it, the very thought of Noah no longer living with her was one she wasn’t ready to accept. She wasn’t even ready to think about it, not yet anyway.
Maybe in time. Maybe once she slipped back into her life—got a life of her own—without him. Maybe then it wouldn’t feel so unbearable. For now, she’d just have to start slow, take a few steps backwards, and—this thought made her literally gasp—stop the goodnight kisses.
~*~
Noah heard the bathroom door open and Roni walk into her room, closing the door behind her. It took him a while, but he’d finally found some tea bags in the pantry. Chamomile—perfect. No matter what the reason, nothing fixed an upset stomach better than chamomile. Jack swore by it, and it always helped Noah whenever he wasn’t feeling so hot. It even worked for hangovers. The sour stomach part anyway.
He fixed Roni a cup and waited for her to emerge from her room, but she never did. After a half hour of flipping through channels, hoping to hear from her, he knocked on her door. “Are you feeling better?” he asked softly in case she was already asleep.
“Not really,” she said, her voice sounding so strange it made him nervous.
“Anything I can do? Take you to the doctor’s or something?”
“No, nothing. I took a sleeping pill and it’s really kicking in.”
Though the thought of going to bed without the taste of her on his lips was disappointing, his worry outweighed anything else he felt at that moment. “Maybe you shouldn’t go to work tomorrow.”
“No, I have to. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
After saying goodnight, he walked the mug of tea to the kitchen and dumped its contents in the sink. He cleared anything they’d left out in the kitchen from dinner, something they usually did together, and called it an early night. Even watching TV without Roni wasn’t the same anymore.
He was still lying in bed awake when his phone rang. He rarely got calls in the evening, but it was even stranger that it was from Hector, so he sat up a little worried.
“What’s up, Hector?”
“Did Roni and that asshole Kratz actually go out?”
The call alone was out of left field, but his question was even odder. “Why?”
The phone got a little muffled, and Noah heard a door squeak closed. Hector lowered his voice. “Well, you gotta promise first of all that you won’t say anything to Abel.”
“About what?”
“About me being in the dean’s office again.”
Noah chuckled. He knew firsthand all about being in the dean’s office on a regular basis. Kratz was such a hard-ass it made total sense that wiseass Hector would be on his shit list. “I won’t.”
“All right, so I’ve been in there a few times lately, but today I noticed a picture of him and some chick. You know, like a couple in the snow. I had to get a closer look to see who the fuck would be with asshole Kratz.” He laughed, but Noah was already feeling too annoyed to laugh. He had a feeling where this was going. “I didn’t recognize her at first because she’s wearing a beanie and shit, but she looked familiar. Then just behind it, there was another picture and there they were, Roni and Kratz, holding hands in front of that Medieval Times place.”
“Yeah, they went out years ago, I guess.” The annoyance he’d felt had manifested. He was now officially pissed. “He has the pictures on his desk?”
What a fucking joke. They hadn’t gone out in over a year, and his pathetic ass still had the pictures of them up?
“Nah, they were on a bookshelf behind his desk. Only reason I got up to get a closer look was because he left the room for a sec. So, no shit, she really went out with his ass? You know the more I’m around her the younger she seems, so seeing her in that picture with him was creepy as shit.”
“That’s ’cause it is.” Noah wished he could add, And that’s why she fucking dumped his ass, but he couldn’t.
That was the worst thing about her having dated such an asshole. Not only had she actually been attracted to him and dated him for several years ,but splitting with him hadn’t been her choice. It’d been his. And now he was sniffing around again, and he was still displaying pictures of the two of them?
This didn’t sit well with Noah. He may’ve agreed to the no-violence rule with Roni, but he’d made it clear he wasn’t promising anything. All the shit this bastard had put him through in high school was water under the bridge now. In hindsight, Noah probably deserved some of it, but this changed everything. He’d gotten Roni to admit one thing. She wanted nothing to do with Kratz now.
If the fucker even thought about weaseling his way back into her life now, he’d have to go through Noah. And Noah could think of no better way to unleash all the tension he’d been building these last few weeks around Roni than beating the shit out of someone who would try to come between them.