Chapter 105

Hannah

I tightened my grip on Noah’s arm, my nails digging ever so slightly into his flesh as I yanked him back toward me. He stumbled slightly, an irritated frown creasing his brow as he turned to face me.

“What the hell is your problem?” he snapped, trying to shrug his arm out of my grasp.

With a huff, I held my grip firm on him and led him away to a more secluded spot behind a nearby food truck that appeared to be closed for the day—its doors and windows shut and the interior dark.

Practically pressing the two of us up against the cold metal, I finally whirled to face him and leveled him with a withering glare.

“You want to know what my problem is?” I echoed, arching a challenging eyebrow at him. “Why don’t you tell me what your problem is, Noah? Why are you really here with Zoe?”

He opened his mouth, no doubt to spout off some excuse or another, but I cut him off with a harsh laugh and waved my free hand dismissively. I noticed some people watching, so I quickly softened my gaze into a false smile and stroked his arm, trying to make it appear as though we were just having an intimate conversation. Noah, noticing this, did the same.

“Actually, let me guess,” I said with a sarcastic smile, not giving him room to speak. “You felt bad for Zoe, so you decided to take her out? Did you decide to come here because you knew I’d be here too?” I scoffed, looking away. “As if you haven’t already twisted the knife enough.”

A muscle twitched beneath the taut skin of Noah’s jaw, but he didn’t deny my accusation—of course he wouldn’t. He had always been Zoe’s white knight, rushing to her rescue at the slightest provocation. Even when I had been laying in bed after a nasty fall, he had gone to her. Slept in her bed.

“Maybe I did want to make her feel better,” he growled through grit teeth that looked like nothing more than a gentle smile from afar. “You have been out with her ex-husband, after all. She’s already going through enough, and now you’re the one adding salt to an open wound.”

“Drake and I are just friends,” I said with a huff. I trailed the fingers of my free hand up his chest, admittedly noticing how he shuddered as I did. “We have no interest in each other in that capacity. We never have, and we never will.”

Noah narrowed his eyes at me. “Yeah, well, Zoe doesn’t know that.”

I couldn’t help the growl from rumbling somewhere deep in my throat. “Why do you care what she thinks?”

“Because,” Noah said, “she’s my… friend.”

“Friend.” I scoffed at the obvious lie. “You always put her first, you know?” I retorted, no longer able to keep the exhausted sort of bitterness from seeping into my tone. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe if you had been the one to offer to take me out to try new foods, I wouldn’t have gone out with Drake in the first place?”

Noah bristled at my tone, his nostrils flaring. He leaned over me, pressing his hand into the cool metal above my head—effectively locking me in between his firm body and the food truck. He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear.

“That’s not true, and you know it,” he whispered. “I’ve been nothing but supportive of your recovery, Hannah. I’m the one who’s been there for you every step of the way, whether you realize it or not.”

“Oh, like feeding me a casserole once is enough to consider ‘supportive of my recovery’,” I said, struggling to stifle the urge to shiver beneath his touch. “Viona is the one who has been taking me to my support group. You haven’t even been around long enough to check on me at home—hell, you left me alone with stitches in my fucking head after that fall, and I’m—”

Suddenly, my mouth snapped shut like a puppet’s jaw. I almost divulged the fact that I was pregnant, yet again; Goddess, how long could I keep up this lie before it accidentally slipped out one of these days?

Finally, I waved my hand and said, “You’ve done shit-all to help with my recovery.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed and he pulled back a bit. “What’s really your problem, Hannah?” he asked, momentarily raising his tone but then quickly clearing his throat and lowering his voice so that we wouldn’t be overheard by a passing group of teenagers.

“Look,” he continued, “I apologized for not being there for you when you hit your head, but a child needed me. I thought you might at least understand that.”

I frowned, opening my mouth to bite out a retort, but the words wouldn’t come. Noah was right, at least in that matter; Adam did need someone. And apparently Zoe didn’t see Drake as a viable option. That was her business, and I wouldn’t question the choices she made about her own son.

“Listen. You’ve been acting… weirder than normal since we spent the night at Zoe’s house,” he said. “Just tell me what your issue is.”

I barked out a derisive laugh and shook my head in disbelief. “Fine, I’ll tell you. I know what you did that night, Noah. I saw you go into her room,” I snarled.

His eyes widened in shock, his mouth falling open as he sputtered incoherently. His hand, which had just been twirling the end of a strand of my hair in an attempt to look romantic around all the prying eyes, froze. “I... You... Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”

I shrugged and looped my arm around his neck, pulling him close so that my breath tickled his hairline as I spoke.

“What I saw that night was pretty clear; you going to her room, her calling your name…” I paused, clenching my jaw as I looked away. It was all I could do to fight the tears that were prickling at the backs of my eyes. “...Her hands reaching for you.”

For several breathless moments, Noah just stared at me in complete, utter shock. This close, his cologne blocked out all the other scents of the boardwalk—something that normally would have made my knees buckle. But not tonight. Tonight, it just made me dizzy.

“That’s absurd,” he finally managed to choke out. “I honestly can’t even believe you would think I’d do something like that. You’re my wife.”

“Am I, though?” I challenged, leaning closer so that my lips brushed against his as I spoke. “Because the last time I checked, we’re just ‘unwilling participants in a sham of a marriage’, aren’t we?”

I echoed the cruel words he had flung at me not all that long ago. After letting my lips linger close to his for a second, I leaned back, watching as the blood drained from Noah’s face. For a long, tense moment, he could only stare at me, his jaw working uselessly as a flush of hot red shame crept up his neck.

Suddenly, however, the sound of approaching footsteps broke the charged silence between us. I glanced over Noah’s shoulder to see Drake and Zoe making their way back towards us, Zoe’s arms cradling a new plush toy—a garish, hot pink unicorn this time.

“We’ll continue this discussion later,” I hissed, pressing my hand into his chest and pushing him away. “If I feel like bothering at that point.”

Noah simply grumbled something incoherent under his breath and smoothed down the front of his jacket as he turned around.

Of course, I thought with an inward roll of my eyes as I watched Zoe walk up to us with her new stuffed animal in her arms. Leave it to Zoe to throw a tantrum until someone bought her the shiny new thing she wanted.

As they drew closer, I could see the smug satisfaction painted across Zoe’s features, her chin jutting out defiantly as she clutched her prize to her chest. Drake, on the other hand, looked utterly resigned, his shoulders slumped in weary defeat.

But I didn’t expect what happened next.

“Here,” Zoe said curtly as they reached us, unceremoniously thrusting the stuffed unicorn toward me. “I want you to have this, Hannah.”