Noah's phonerang well after the party must've ended.
He was happy for the distraction, eager to hit the button that stopped his screen reader from droning out legalese as he reviewed the contract that had finally come through.
It was the ringtone he'd assigned to Jilly.Uptown girl.
He didn't even consider not answering. "Hey." He stood up and stretched.
"Hey, Aiden. Can you call Noah for me?"
Aiden? Had she dialed the wrong number?
Envy flared hot and bright, and then her words registered. She was teasing him.
"Ha ha," he said drily. "He's too young for you."
She snorted. "Maybe I like younger men."
And maybe Aiden would be good for her. His assistant was personable and responsible and... sighted.
That absolutely wasn't a flare of jealousy tearing through his gut.
"I'm not interested in long distance," she said.
And suddenly, the silence buzzing between them was loaded with meaning. Was she interested in short-distance? Like the distance between their two houses?
He swallowed against the want that rose inside him. He wouldn't ask.
When the silence lasted a beat too long, she cleared her throat. "I was actually calling to ask if you needed to talk."
She was?
"When Callum got back to the house earlier..."
She left the sentence hanging, but he could guess. Callum was frustrated. Angry. Disappointed.
Noah had taken the mishmash of emotions and compressed it into a ball and stuffed it into the dark recesses of his soul. Where everything else he didn't want to regret lived.
"I don't want to talk about that."
She was silent for a moment. Then, "Okay. I have to go back to the oncologist Monday morning after I drop off the kids at school."
He waited for her to say something else. Why was she telling him?
"Did you talk to your sister?" he asked.
"Not about that." Her words were clipped, loaded with meaning he couldn't begin to decipher.
So, she still didn't want Iris to know about the appointment.
But she'd told him about it.
"Do you want me to go with you?"
She hesitated.
Of course she didn't want him to go with her. They weren't close. Just because he'd inserted himself at her last appointment didn't mean she needed him.
He was the one who'd had a change of heart over the past few days. He wanted her in his life, even if he could only have her in snatches.
He opened his mouth to retract the stupid question when he heard the soft catch in her breath. "Would you?"
