Noah gave me a break from his intense stare and took a drink of his water.
I did the same.
“So…” Noah set his glass down. “A recent thing?” His gaze wasn’t pinned on me, but on his thumb, which was sliding around the rim of his glass in an absentminded but mesmerizing way.
“A breakup.” I admitted, groaning a little. Because, calling it a breakup was like calling World War II a little skirmish. “My fiancé and I—my ex-fiancé… We worked together.”
“Is that why it’s complicated?”
I’d said that, hadn’t I?
“Partly. But you don’t want to hear this…”
He was looking at me again, and something in his expression loosened the tangled knot in my chest. He shrugged and a wayward lock of his hair slipped down, curving around his face.
In some ways, I could totally imagine Noah Grady as a doctor, but he could just as easily be an artist. If his hands weren’t so elegant, I could see him being a lumberjack or a construction worker too. How could one man manage to look hot in so many different ways?
I shook the thought off.
“I’ll leave it up to you but…” His voice was low. “I don’t mind listening.”
“You sure about that?” I didn’t want to come across as desperate, especially since he and I had kind of been going around in circles ever since our flight into Denver.
“Isn’t that what friends do?”
“We’re friends then?”
Noah searched my face for a moment and then dipped his chin. “Of course.”
It was such a simple, matter-of-fact statement, but my chest loosened even more.
As sweet as Babs was, I wouldn’t mind knowing Noah Grady.
As a friend.
Definitely not anything more than that though, because, as I’d already established with Babs, I wasn’t ready for anything more.
Something in me eased just a little, and I gave up the pretense of pretending to be some version of myself that didn’t exist anymore.
“Have you ever thought you were completely fine, only to wake up one day and realize nothing was what you thought it was?” I hadn’t thought through my question.
I was pretty sure he knew it wasn’t just a question.
His lips parted slightly, like I’d caught him off guard, then he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice quieter than before.
But before he could say more, Bodie appeared again.
I ordered a cup of soup—anything to stop the shaking inside—and a half sandwich. Noah ordered a burger and fries.
Sitting here, in a place that felt like a million miles from home, I suddenly desperately wanted to talk to someone about it.
The Incident.
I wanted to talk to someone who didn’t know Leo or our history or the façade of what we’d built together.
And I knew, somehow, that Noah Grady wouldn’t gossip about me. Maybe it was the doctor-patient confidentiality vibes, or maybe it was just his natural disposition. He definitely fell under the category of the strong, silent type.
