Page 51 of Midnight Ink

He lifts off the bed, squeezing my shoulder as he passes me to disappear into the bathroom, and I walk to the bed, slowly sinking down onto its creaking frame. At least it seems soft.

I check my phone and think about messaging Jamie. I almost let fear win, but I need to do this. With my phone shaking in my hand, I call, and wait while it rings. What I don’t expect is the voice that picks up. “Jamie’s in the bathroom right now so I’ll do this fast, but I am very disappointed in you.”

“Noah, please, I’m⁠—”

“Since Jamie won’t say this, I will. If you ever speak to him like that again, you will never see him again. I won’t let him believe again, even for a second, that he’s responsible for that accident, and shame on you, Ian.” His anger shocks me, but it shouldn’t. Noah loves my friend more than anything.

“I know, please, I just want to talk to him⁠—”

“No. Not right now. You hurt him. Worse than you probably realize or he’ll even tell you. I know you’re hurting, but I don’t do the ‘hurt people, hurt people’ thing. Get your shit together before you call him again.”

Then he hangs up.

A muscle flickers in my cheek. I draw a breath and try to hold it, the emotion I was barely holding back in the bathroom threatening to surface. I know I deserve this. I just wanted to talk to him. I lower the phone slowly, setting it on my nightstand. The room feels smaller. I feel smaller. Pathetic.

My throat works. My hands tremble and I’m barely holding it together. Unlike before at the shop, I have nothing to distract me from this feeling. Nothing to do but think about this. To sit with it.

I’m such a dick.

I can’t fix this with a simple sorry. I won’t blame him if he never wants to see me again, but I have to apologize to him somehow. I want to tell him I didn’t mean it. He just wanted to take his sister home. I understand why he was so afraid for her that night. We all loved Luci, but when she drank, she drank. Jamie was always worried about her when she got like that.

They were inseparable. Yin and Yang. I know he’d change a thousand things about that night if he could. Luci was his person.

She would’ve loved Noah.

I blink back the heat squeezing in my eyes, and I swallow thick and hard. I’m barely holding it together. I’m not upset he’s not speaking to me—I wouldn’t speak to me either—I’m upset that I hurt him. The shame in that feels so sharp. My friend’s taken so many steps to get better, and to think I might have unraveled all that progress with my careless words . . . I can’t deal with that.

“You okay?”

I look up. “Yeah. Just uh, called Jamie.”

“Oh, shit.” He turns the light off and climbs into bed. It’s only about eight but I know we’re both exhausted. The mattress dips as he settles his weight under the covers. There’s space between us, but I can feel his heat. His scent lingers here. Clean and sweet. “How did that go?”

He shifts and his bare leg brushes mine.

I roll onto my side and face him. The moonlight shines into the room brightening the space around us, and I watch him, his eyes open as he watches me back. “Noah answered.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. I need to make it up to Jamie.” I swallow.

“Today was a shit day.” He laughs softly.

“That it was. Do you think we’ll be safe here?”

He thinks for a moment. “We’re close to the ocean, but I’m not going to stress unless the people who live here do. We’ll get through it.” I almost flinch when his hand cups my face. Warm and soft, his thumb brushes my jaw.

I swallow and close my eyes, feeling the rough pads of his fingers. It’s been so long since someone has touched me. I haven’t had sex since Maddox died. I’ve tried, but it always feels wrong.

This is different, though. He feels different. Not wrong, just different.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“For what?”

“For being you,” I say quietly and open my eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.”

“Yes you would.”