I nodded.
“Did you live together?”
“For five and a half years.” I knew where he was going with this.
“So, either way, you were going to be forced to make big changes.” He was just staring at me now, his burger and fries forgotten. “By dumping whatever that was on him, it didn’t give you time to consider all that. It didn’t give you the chance to rationalize what he did, make excuses… Honestly, seems to me your response was pretty healthy.”
I wasn’t sure I was prepared to look at it like that.
But Noah didn’t seem to expect a reply. Instead, he signaled to Bodie for the check.
“But Luna?” he said, low and certain.
“Yeah?”
“You were right to dump him. He’s a fucking bastard.”
I felt it in my chest—sharp and unexpected. Like a jolt of electricity. For a split second, I couldn’t breathe.
Not because I disagreed but hearing him say it—with absolute clarity and zero hesitation—made it real in a way it hadn’t been before. Like I could let go of some of that shame…
And I’m not sure why, but right then, it felt like a weight had shifted. Not gone. But moved.
He stood up before I could say anything else. “We need to get moving,” he added, as if my entire internal world hadn’t just realigned. “And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have to find our own way down the mountain.”
BETWEEN FRIENDS
I was still hearing his voice in my head as we reached the bus.
“You were right to dump him. He’s a fucking bastard.”
I’d replayed it at least a dozen times—his tone, the certainty behind the words. How different it sounded from the thousand other opinions I’d been given since I’d walked off that set.
It sounded like…truth.
And maybe that’s why it hit me so hard.
Thankfully, Noah had been watching the time. I definitely hadn’t been. And when Bodie finally came back, it was too late to ask for separate checks.
Noah paid.
“You can get the next one,” he said, sliding his card back into his wallet like it meant nothing.
But it left me wondering if there would be a next one. If this…whatever this was, didn’t end the second we climbed back on that silver bus.
“You two are cutting it close!” Tay called as we approached.
Noah checked his watch. “We’ve got thirty seconds to spare.”
Tay gave him a look that was half-glare, half-smile. “Get on the bus, Dr. Noah.”
He smirked.
I grinned.
Then I stepped onto the bus…and was immediately hit with a wall of silence. Every single person, mostly women my mother’s age, gray-haired and grinning, with varying degrees of laugh lines and cat-eye readers, was watching us like we were a titillating episode of their favorite soap opera.
And it wasn’t just curiosity.
