“Well, since I’m not Rumpelstiltskin, I’m going to have to pass on stealing your future children. All I want is…” He sighed. “For you to hear me out when I do tell you what I need to tell you. And I’d like us to still be friends.”
Ah, friendship. Somehow, when he was the one pushing it on me, and not the other way around, it didn’t seem like enough. But that was my crush doing the thinking. No more of that. What Noah was asking was absolutely fair. He did value my friendship. He just didn’t want more, and he didn’t want me to push him away again. I’d do my best to keep my promise. “Of course.”
“Thanks.”
Noah picked up speed after turning a corner, and his eyes shot to his rearview mirror. His face blanched.
“What was in the box?”
“Which box?” I asked, turning around to look out his back window. I didn’t see anything missing from the truck bed, but he was already preparing to make a U-turn and head back the way we’d come.
“The blue box.”
“The shoe box?”
“No, it was blue and plastic, with a white lid.”
“The shoe box!” The shoe box I could see had spilled its contents all over the road. I threw off my seatbelt and jumped out the second he pulled over, before he even had the truck in park. I’d meant to ask him to bury the thing deep underneath the heavier boxes, but I’d forgotten. We were parked on the side of a busy residential road with a speed limit nobody followed, and I watched two cars run over my underwear before I even got a good look at what I could salvage.
The shoebox must have popped open when it hit the pavement because the plastic lid was gone and all my undies were tumbling to and fro. I wasn’t as concerned about the underwear, but my second favorite bra was lying out in the middle of the road unscathed, and a car’s headlights were bearing down on it.
“Don’t run it over!” I yelled pointlessly as the car flew by, sending the bra tumbling over to the other side of the road. I darted out to get it, so intent on reaching it I barely noticed the screech of tires before I looked up to see Noah blocking me with his arms outstretched like Superman, and an S.U.V. blaring its horn at us.
“Come on.” Noah put his arm around me and we ran out of the way, to the opposite side of where Noah’s truck was parked. He leaned over and gasped for breath. “I’m—so—sorry,” he panted, “about your stuff, but please don’t ever do that again. I didn’t think I’d reach you. I thought they were going to hit you.”
I clutched my bra to my chest, feeling a way deeper embarrassment than anything my unexpected underwear reveal could do. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I could have gotten us both killed. I didn’t see them.”
Noah nodded, still trying to get his breathing back to normal. And then he dipped down and picked up a pair of my underwear that had managed to make the trek across the road with us. They were one of my prettiest pairs. Black lace, with a little saucy pink bow in the front. I swiped them out of his hands and would have walked straight back into traffic and away from him if he hadn’t stopped me with his arm out.
“Are you insane?”
“I was watching traffic this time.” I really was. I had just planned to run faster than the wind currently tossing my clothes around. Lightning fast. A Sonic ball of speedy embarrassment.
“Look, Jen. I have a sister. I’ve seen underwear before.”
Great. He was totally immune to my underthings. Just like a sister. Message received.
Both lanes cleared, and we crossed together, grabbing up my clothes as we went. Noah got several of my trusty time-of-the-month pairs. The full-coverage, no-nonsense ones that came in a multi-pack. No, I couldn’t look at what he was seeing. It was better not to know.
Once we reached the other side, I kept going towards Noah’s truck, motioning with my head for Noah to follow. “Let’s just go with what we have.” It was too dark and dangerous to keep looking, and the condition we found them in wouldn’t make them worth picking up.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I climbed up onto his tailgate and untied one of the garbage bags secured between two boxes, shoving my haul deep down inside. Noah handed me up what he’d gathered, neither of us speaking. I tied the top back together with the tightest knot I could muster.
When we got back in the truck cab, Noah turned to look at me. “I’m sorry. I wedged that plastic box down between two cardboard boxes, but everything must have shifted around.”
“It’s my fault. I don’t know why I used it. At the time, all I thought about was how it was exactly the right size to fit it all.”
“So, we split the blame fifty-fifty?” Noah asked, holding out his hand for me to shake.
I reached up over the console and shook on it, even though I still felt like it was my fault.
Noah started his truck up. “We should get going. I don’t think Sadie moving in without us there will go over well.”
“True.” I pulled out my phone to see if I had any missed texts from her or Dan, but there weren’t any. Although I wanted to go with the assumption no news was good news, I still worried the rest of the way there. And then I really worried because Dan’s Suburban was parked at the curb.
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
