Me: Are you close? They are starting to sign people in.
I want to go in to get a good spot and pick the best book to re-bind. But I also don’t want to go in and be separated from Noah.
Every second that passes where I don’t hear back from him feels like an eternity. I decide to call him in case he is driving. After four rings it goes to voicemail, so I decide to leave a message.
“Noah, where are you? They are letting people into the class.”
“Miss, it's time to go inside. They are about to start.” The nice older lady taps me on the shoulder to make sure I know it’s about to start.
“I'm just waiting for my friend,” I reply.
“I know, honey, they just don’t let people in after the class starts,” she replies.
I dial him one more time. This time it doesn’t even ring and goes straight to voicemail. My heart breaks a little but I don’t leave another message. I'm a lot of things, but desperate and reliant is not one of them.
“I guess he’s not coming,” I turn to say to the lady, who looks at me with very sad eyes.
“I'm ready, can you show me where the class is?” I finish.
I head into the class, create a beautiful, custom binding for one of my favorite books, and decide one thing for sure: I will never let Noah Kneland play with my heart ever again.
He broke me once shame on him. But to let him in again, shame on me.
I will never make that mistake again.
Chapter 37
Noah
“Whattheactualfuck,Kneland?” I hear Cole yell as he comes barrelling into the weight room at the fire station. I put my weights down and stagger my steps to ensure I stay steady for what is about to happen.
Cole is going to kill me, and I’d say I don’t deserve it but I missed my date with Ollie on Friday and haven’t seen any of the Bennetts since. Hopefully Carter isn’t with him, because then I might actually die. We may be adults now but, to this day, Carter is still the most terrifying Bennett there is. There is something about him, his dark demeanor, that keeps me on edge, and doing everything in my power to stay on his good side.
The door to the weight room is already open but judging by the way Cole just ran through the frame he was hoping to slam through it. I stay silent as he approaches and shoves me.
“Why did I just get off the phone with Liv, losing her absolute shit saying you stood her up on your date?” Another shove. Harder this time. A few of the guys put down their equipment to stand by. “I fucking vouched for you, and not even a month into it you do this shit again? What the fuck?”
I finally open my mouth to say something but he shoves me twice as hard as the first two times knocking me backward. This time, the guys jump in and grab Cole’s arms before he does it again.
“I deserve that,” is all I can bite out at first.
The glare Cole gives me is the equivalent of him taking a butcher knife and stabbing it into my ribcage and twisting.
“There is no excuse for not calling Olivia. I know that I fucked up. But before you beat the hell out of me which I will let you lLet me at least tell you why I missed our date. Please.” I feel like I'm begging my best friend to not dump me like a high schooler would.
The guys have let go of Cole’s arms and he turns his body so that it's half facing the door out of the weight room and half facing me, indicating to follow.
This is my favorite thing about him, he may be angry, he may want to kill me, but he has always been reasonable, level-headed, and thorough in getting all of the information. I follow him out of the weight room and we settle into his office, where he pours each of us a cup of coffee. He doesn’t sit behind his booming oak desk but in the dark red, leather swivel chairs facing the desk. I'm grateful, because otherwise, it’s like I’M sitting in Principal Watson’s office all over again.
I take a moment to gather myself, sigh, and look down at my coffee before I begin.
“Shit, dude, that is fucked up. How are you?” Cole asks when I finish speaking. He didn’t say a word the entire time I spoke, just listened and for that I'm grateful. If he had started asking questions midway through I don’t know if I could have finished telling him. I may have gone through years and years of therapy but talking about this has never been easy and I don’t suspect it will get any easier now.
“I don’t know,” I reply. Because I don’t know how I am feeling. I have not had time to process it, and I feel shitty about standing up Olivia. I just want to go to her to explain everything and hold her in my arms. “She isn’t responding to any of my phone calls or text messages, so I'm going to drive out there to see her, and try to explain,” I add.
“She’s working today, she just finished lunch and gets off at seven tonight. Go shower, and get out there. She will understand, Noah. Go talk to her, don’t stress about the rest of the shift, go take care of yourself,” Cole says, and before he even finishes his sentence I'm out the door running to my car.
I know I fucked up. I know I should have called her, I should have let her know what was going on. But there wasn’t time, not until it was too late.
