"Fuck!" I turn away, raking my fingers through my hair. I sit down on the edge of the mattress and lean forward to brace my elbows on my knees. "I'm sorry, Lila. I'm so fucking sorry."
There's a long silence, which she then breaks with a quiet sigh.
When the mattress sinks beside me, I look up.
"It's fine," she tells me, her voice suddenly soft and sweet. "I'm just being mean because that was really fucking stressful to watch you and Hale do all that stuff."
"You watched?"
"Obviously. I have your notifications turned on. I know the second you post or go live."
I snort. "So you can be prepared to do damage control at a moment's notice?"
Lila frowns. "Listen, I know you were only trying to help. It's not all bad, anyway. People are already defending you in a bunch of different comment threads. A lot of folks who actually watched live are fact-checking and explaining how it really happened,that you only lost focus for, like, half a second and kids are insanely unpredictable anyway and it's probably more the father's fault than anyone else's..."
"You really don't have to be nice to me right now."
"I want to be nice to you, though. Because you really are a hero, Noah."
I scoff. "I'm a dumbass."
"You're not dumb," she rebukes, her voice growing harsh again. "Don't say that about yourself."
"It's true."
She grabs my forearm and squeezes. "It's not. You just have a tendency to think more with your heart than your head."
"I think with everything but my head, it seems. My heart, my dick..."
Lila laughs. "Yeah, well, me and you both, Dimples."
"Oh, you think with your dick, too?"
"Yeah, and it's absolutely massive, so it's a real problem."
Despite myself, I chuckle. "You're funny. I like you."
"You said that earlier, too."
I lean back on my hands, enjoying the way her gaze flickers down to my flexed biceps. "Yeah, about earlier..."
Lila cringes. "That whole thing about open communication? Does that mean I should tell you that me and Hale—"
"Fucked in his office after we left? Yeah, I assumed." I shrug to indicate that it doesn't really bother me.
Because it doesn't. I've always had an open mind about stuff like this. I just always assumed I'd never actually have the opportunity to explore it as a possibility.
"We didn't..." Lila shakes her head, momentarily scandalized by my bluntness. "We didn't fuck, Noah. We just did other stuff."
"Oh, yeah? Hand stuff? Mouth stuff?"
"Are you twelve years old?"
I grin. I can tell that she's indulging this change in topic for my sake, but I'm too appreciative to question it out loud. "Well, which is it?"
She purses her lips. "Ugh, in the interest of this new transparency clause between us all, he went down on me."
I nod thoughtfully. "Was he good at it?"
