Page 93 of Finding Noah

Unfortunately, regarding this situation …

That made two of us.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

INTUITION IGNORED

I was in the middle of locking up my desk when Patrick approached me the following Friday, a couple of days after Meg and I had gotten into our little disagreement.

From the look on his face, Meg had talked to him, and he didn’t look all that thrilled.

“Hey, kid,” he said, crossing his arms and sitting at the edge of my desk.

“Hey, Paddy,” I muttered, already dreading wherever this conversation was heading.

“Turn that frown upside down.”

I lifted my glare to glower at him. “You here to lecture me?”

“Oh, and what would I be lecturin’ ya about?” He feigned cluelessness, pursing his lips and gripping his chin in his hand.

“I know she talked to you.”

He nodded slowly. “Yep, she sure did.”

I huffed a laugh, shaking my head as I grabbed my messenger bag from the floor and slung it over my shoulder. I rolled my eyes toward my future father-in-law and cocked my head, waiting for the scolding I was certain was heading my way.

Because, see, I was heading up to Massachusetts, and I was going tonight.

I had told Meg about it the night before, told her I only intended on staying for two nights, three at most, depending on what I ended up uncovering while I was up there. I even asked if she’d like to come with me, and she seemed to consider it, until she remembered she had already committed to staying the night at her mom, Christine’s, house on Saturday and attending a bridal shower with her on Sunday—plans that I, too, had forgotten she’d made.

She tried to talk me out of going again, but the lack of strength in her voice told me she knew the battle was futile. I tried to make her feel better by saying I’d be staying with my aunt and her husband in Salem. They knew I was coming, they knew why I was coming—well, sort of—and my plan was to let them always know my whereabouts.

It was my attempt at a compromise—to help Meghan feel at least a little better about me leaving for a few days to find a man I knew nothing about.

Her begrudged resignation had told me she still wasn't satisfied, and her father's presence now confirmed it.

“Kinsey needed to discover herself too,” Patrick finally said, speaking of his wife. “We broke up after she went to college, and that's when I … well, that's when I got together with Meg's mother.”

So, that was what Meg had told her father. That I needed to go away and, what, find myself?

Thinking about it now, I couldn't say it was far from the truth. Because that was, in a way, what I was doing, wasn't it? Finding that piece of my past to mend the fractures in my shattered soul.

“You're young,” he went on, crossing his arms over his chest. “You love my daughter—I have no doubt about that—and you'll come back to her—”

“I was never not coming back,” I interrupted. “God, Patrick, I'm leaving for three, four days. We're not talking about years here.”

He furrowed his brow and nodded. “No, no, I know that. All I'm sayin', Noah, is that I understand. Everything moved a little fast with you kids, and if you need to go and think for a couple of days, get away and clear your head, then …” He shrugged. “As long as I have your word that you'll come back, that you're not gonna leave and break her heart, then I stand by ya.”

I blinked off toward the department's coffee station.

Meg had brought in a box of doughnuts from Patty's Cakes earlier that day. A coffee machine sat beside that box, along with an assortment of both caffeinated and decaffeinated flavored coffees. It was something Meg had taken charge of a while back, after she got sick of the instant shit her dad kept stocked. It was a welcome addition to the place, and I had been so proud of her for turning something so crappy into something at least most of us looked forward to utilizing every day.

That her father thought I needed time to reassess my relationship with her was almost enough to force every last drop of air from my lungs.

She was all I'd wanted since I had been thirteen fucking years old, for fuck's sake, and that hadn't changed. Not even for a second.

But if that was what he needed to believe to back me up, to be on my side, then …