Relief flooded through Noah’s body and she melted into the seat. A smiled eased onto her face. Perfect. It was a joke. Of course, it was a joke. Which meant she would respond in turn and then everything would be dropped. She could go about her business and Alec would probably never bring it up again.
“Having said that,” he continued, just as she opened her mouth to reply, “I can see that something is troubling you. As much as I want to think that I’m the man and even someone who hates me would want to go out with me, I know that that isn’t the case. Wanna talk about it?”
Noah loosed a breath. The crazy part was, she did want to talk about it. She wanted to tell someone what she was going through, everything that had happened between her and Aaron and how she had no idea what to do at this point, but she bit her bottom lip to keep everything inside. She didn’t want to tell Alec. He would probably just tell her that this was her fault. She got into this mess. Now, she had to figure out how to get out of it, and it wasn’t his responsibility to do just that. And he’d be right.
She sighed again, closing her eyes. Her shoulders dropped. She wasn’t even sure how to answer that question. To be honest, she was surprised that Alec hadn’t pestered her for an answer. She was grateful, to be honest. She would have snapped again and again until she was alone and could bask in shame at her actions. She needed to do something, but she wasn’t sure what that was.
“You don’t have to,” he finally said. He pulled into the left lane and turned on his blinker, waiting for the light to turn green. “But considering Zummo doesn’t seem like the sort of guy who lets things go, you might want to consider it.”
Noah blew out a breath, trying not to squirm in her seat. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful. Truly, she didn’t. At the same time, she didn’t want to go and unleash everything onto Alec’s lap, and she didn’t know how to separate things. If she talked about Pat, that would inevitably lead to talking about Aaron, and she definitely did not want to talk about Aaron.
“Do you know him?” she asked instead as Alec began to drive again. The trees on the street were perfectly placed. Irvine was all man-made. Even the lakes weren’t natural, but created. Regardless, it was a picturesque city and it was one of the safest in the nation. Being here made Noah feel safe – until she ran into Pat Zummo. “Zummo, I mean. He talked a lot about you.”
Alec snorted. He rested his wrist on the wheel, like one of those too-cool drivers who didn’t need to grip anything in order to control it. Noah didn’t want to admit it was sexy just because of how arrogant it was, but there was something about Alec doing it that made her reassess her initial assumption.
“Pat Zummo is the kind of guy who thinks he knows everything about everything when, really, he doesn’t know jack shit,” he said. “I mean, he thought you were still with your boyfriend and you’re not, right?”
Noah nearly choked on her own spit. Why would he care about that? Actually, she didn’t want to think about it. Instead, she cleared her throat and tapped her fingers on the passenger door handle, trying to think of something to say that would get her out of talking about Aaron. She didn’t think Alec had any way to bring him up, but Alec was much more clever than Noah remembered.
Damn him.
“What’s going on, Noah?” Alec asked. He pulled into the apartment complex and shut off the car. “Look, I know I’m not your friend. I know I’m probably the last person you would ever want to talk to about this kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?” Noah asked in a low voice.
“You know.” Alec shrugged. “Girl stuff. But not about makeup and tampons and shit. Real stuff. Serious stuff.”
Noah laughed despite herself. Even she was surprised by the way he made her laugh when amusement and joy were the last things on her mind. Not with the looming threat that Pat was going to tell Aaron everything.
“Girls do not talk to each other about tampons,” she said, wiping hair from her face.
“I still made you smile,” he said. He looked away, out the front of the windshield. “I just want you to know I’m here to help. If you need me.”
She looked at him and realized he was being honest. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to make her smile. He wanted to be there for her.
“Thanks,” she said and got out of the car without saying anything else. She wasn’t ready for that, especially from Alec. At least, not right now.
9
Alec
Alec tried not to think about the encounter with Noah for the rest of the day, but it was difficult to do. He tried to pass the time stick handling on the balcony, but that didn’t work because he got bored. He tried to read, but Alec wasn’t a big reader – at least of fiction – which meant that unless he had an article or something else to scan, he was shit out of luck. Jack hadn’t returned home after practice. Alec thought maybe he was either volunteering – something he started to do after getting together with Lily – or at one of his anger management classes. Alec was glad Jack was getting the help he needed, but he couldn’t help being slightly miserable on his own. Or maybe that was because he kept staring at the closed door all day, waiting for Noah to come out.
The issue was, he had no idea what he
