Especially now.
He wasn’t friend-zoning himself. He was being a friend.
“Your mom never mentioned your father?”
“Not once. Not by name, anyway.” Alexis licked her lips and continued. “She offered to tell me who he was when I turned eighteen, but it didn’t seem important. He obviously didn’t care about me, so why should I care about him?”
As far as Noah was concerned, that sentiment still applied. The bastard was using one daughter to guilt the other—the one he’d neglected her entire life—into risking her life to save his sorry one.
“What’re you going to do?” he asked after a moment.
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t have to do anything, you know. You’re under no obligation to do what Candi is asking of you.”
She stifled a yawn.
“You okay?”
“I can’t keep my eyes open.”
“Then sleep. Your body is telling you it needs time to recover from the shock.”
She yawned again. Noah took the tea from her hands. “Lie down. Get some sleep.”
“Are you going to leave?” she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder.
Noah dipped his head and kissed the crown of her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Alexis scooted down and rolled onto her side away from him. Ten minutes later, her breathing had slowed to a steady rhythm.
It would be hours before Noah’s did the same.
* * *
Noah couldn’t breathe.
A hot, heavy pressure on his chest was slowly crushing his lungs. He awoke with a choking cough and stared directly into the glowing yellow eyes of the demon himself.
Beefcake.
This was it. This was the moment when he died. Beefcake had seen him sleeping next to Alexis and was finally getting his revenge. The cat stood on his chest, claws digging into his skin through his T-shirt. Hate radiated from his eyes.
“Easy now,” Noah whispered, glancing sideways at where Alexis slept soundly. “Just be cool.”
Beefcake opened his mouth and dropped the remains of a dead mouse on his chest.
“Jesus Christ!” Noah leaped off the bed. Beefcake yowled and dug his claws into Noah’s chest before taking flight like a winged gargoyle. The dead mouse fell to the floor with a quiet thud.
Alexis stirred but didn’t wake. The dead mouse stared up at him with vacant, mournful eyes. Noah was going to have to clean that up before Alexis noticed. He crept from the room and down the hallway to the bathroom. Under the sink, he found a roll of paper towels and a stash of plastic bags. Beefcake growled from the top of the stairs, and Noah fought the urge to flip him off before soft-footing it back to the bedroom.
Holding his breath, he grabbed the rodent with a wad of paper towel and tossed it in the bag. Alexis stirred again, so he froze. Her chest rose and fell evenly with every breath, and in her sleep, her face was as relaxed as he’d ever seen it. He wanted to crawl back in bed with her and wrap his arm around her waist.
Which is why he forced his feet to move. He carried the bag and dead mouse downstairs. The dumpster was just outside the back door, and after tossing it in, he dragged his keys from his pocket. There was no way he was actually going to fall asleep again, so he might as well make use of the time.
He grabbed his backpack, went back inside, and flopped down on the couch. He did a quick search for kidney donation risks. The first result was a FAQ from the Mayo Clinic, so he clicked on it and sat back against the cushions to skim the key points. Thousands of kidney transplants were performed every year in the United States . . . higher rate of success when donated by a living donor . . . minimal risks of long-term health problems for donors . . . recovery of six weeks.
He clicked through several more search results, but all gave the same basic information. Kidney donation was safe with very few risks to the donor, and donations from family members who shared a genetic link could reduce the chances of the recipient’s body rejecting the new organ.
Noah closed his laptop and scrubbed his hands down his face. It was all so clinical. He stared at the ceiling and pictured Alexis upstairs. In bed. Another groan brought him upright, and he lifted the lid on his laptop again. He typed in the name Elliott Vanderpool. It took less than five minutes of research to realize that he had a lot more than abandoning his daughter to answer for.
The bastard was the head of engineering for the aerospace division of one of the country’s biggest defense contractors, BosTech—a company that had been under federal investigation five years ago for failing to properly report defects in its drone navigation systems, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi civilians.
Which meant he was neck-deep in blood.
A man like that didn’t deserve to even breathe Alexis’s name much less ask for a goddamned kidney from her.
CHAPTER SIX
Alexis woke up the next morning feeling like a hollowed-out pumpkin. And not the perky, freshly carved kind either. She was more like a month-old jack-o’-lantern, empty and soft, likely to break into squishy pieces if kicked over.
She’d fallen asleep on top of her comforter, but at some point, Noah must have covered her up before leaving. She couldn’t believe she’d slept all night. It must have been the whiskey.
A meow next to the bed interrupted the pointless direction of her thoughts. Alexis rolled onto her side and stared down at Beefcake. She
