Page 135 of Finding Noah

He closed the door behind him to leave me alone with my thoughts and a thousand new questions.

Genesis 18:23, I thought, staring at the ceiling. It was a Bible verse—I knew that much—but what that verse was, I didn’t have the slightest clue.

I'll look it up when I get out of here.

And I am getting out of here, I promised myself, Meg, our baby. Everyone else that mattered. The Grim Reaper.

But most of all, Benjamin.

“I'm getting out of here, Benny,” I threatened, though he couldn't hear me. “And when I do …”

Sleep took me before I could finish that sentence, and in my dreams, I curled inside my safe space and found myself again.

And there, I found Meg.

CHAPTER THIRTY

THE SAFEST PLACES

AGE TWENTY-ONE

“Isn't it weird that we never really went on a first date?”

I turned to look at Meg, sitting in the passenger seat of my car.

It'd been a few months since that kiss in the parking lot of the police department, and immediately after, we'd settled easily into a relationship that felt old and comfortable. Three months wasn't a long time by any stretch of the imagination, but at this point, I could barely remember my life before her.

Or maybe it was that I didn't want to when this was all I'd ever really wanted.

Sometimes, I could hardly believe she was mine.

“What do you mean?” I asked, pulling into the RCPD parking lot. “We've had a first date.”

“Dinner at your parents' house isn't a first date,” she countered, and I didn't need to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, okay, but then we went out to the diner the next day—”

“That was lunch! We've been doing that since you started working—”

After pulling into my usual spot, I turned and leaned across the car, stretching my arm across the back of her seat and bringing my nose within an inch of Meg's perfect nose.

“Then maybe we've been dating since I started working.”

She scoffed, shifting her gaze from mine. “No, we haven't.”

My eyes dropped to her lips as I nodded, uttering a low grumble. “No, you're right,” I replied. “I think we started dating before that. Maybe as far back as when I was locked in the holding tank and you spent the entire day with me.”

“Oh my God, you're ridiculous.”

She laughed, ready to open the car door and hurry inside, but I snatched her hand, interlacing our fingers, keeping her in place.

Her eyes danced within mine, skating across my face to settle wantonly on my mouth. I would bet she was thinking about what my lips and tongue had done to her in the shower before this car ride to work. I would place money on it, and I would win.

“You were a kid,” she whispered.

“No, I wasn't,” I said with a quirk of my lips. “Not then.”

“Well, we weren't together yet anyway. I was with … um …”