The walls, the discipline, the need to keep everyone at arm’s length all came undone the second she looked at me the way she did.
Like she saw through me and didn’t care about the years between us, or the rules, or the risk.
I can still feel it if I let myself: the heat of her skin under my palms, the way her breath trembled when I sunk into her nice and slowly.
The quiet after when she’d fallen asleep against me, trusting me enough to drift off against my chest.
That memory’s lived rent-free in my head ever since.
Running into her now, the older, sharper, more confident version of her running a whole shop on her own…I’d been blown away.
Christ, when she said she owned the place, I almost laughed out loud from pure surprise.
Not because it was impossible to picture her doing something like that.
Never that.
Noelle’s always had that kind of drive. Once she set her mind to something, she didn’t stop.
Still, something about her seemed…off.
Not just the initial shock of seeing me again. It was more than that. It was the way her eyes flicked just slightly away whenever I asked a question.
Guarded, sure, but there was something else beneath it. Something heavier she was hiding behind that polite warmth she’s so damn good at putting on.
I climb into my truck, slamming the door harder than I mean to.
The cab is freezing, the leather stiff from the cold. The engine rumbles to life beneath me, a low, steady growl that fills the silence.
I sit there for a long moment, hands gripping the steering wheel, watching the faint plume of my breath rise in front of me.
My thoughts snag on Eli, her boy.
Richard’s mentioned him a handful of times over the years when we’ve talked on the phone, always proud as hell about being a granddad. I’d never pushed too hard for details, but every now and then, I’d ask.
How old is he now?
How’s Noelle holding up?
And every time, Richard would answer the same way he always did.
I’ve always wondered, though. Quietly—privately—if Eli could be one of ours.
The math has never worked cleanly in my head from the timeline Richard’s told me, but it’s not impossible. I’d never said it out loud to the others.
Hell, I never even said it to myself until recently.
But the thought’s been there, tucked away in the back of my mind, surfacing every time Richard mentioned his grandson.
Said Eli came from a one-night stand Noelle had in college right after she went back to campus.
He’d told me with such a detached tone that I believed him.
Or maybe Iwantedto believe him.
Because the alternative would mean that we all did something worse than just crossing a physical line that weekend.
And yet, something in Richard’s voice never sat quite right. He never spoke with the disgust or disapproval you’d expect from a father knowing his best friends slept with her.
