When in Rome(51)

“Yes!” Jeanine says with wide, excited eyes. Gossip seems to be her lifeblood. “Had the man so bewitched after her summer in town cleaning up her deceased uncle’s house and selling it that when it was time for her to leave, Noah up and moved to New York with her! It was a real Hallmark movie. But then when he had to come back for his grandma she didn’t come with him and—”

Noah lifts his hands from the table. “I’m right here, you know? Can hear everything you’re saying.”

Jeanine whips her head toward Noah. “Why haven’t you told her?”

“Because it’s none of her business. We practically just met.” Poor Noah. He’s exasperated.

Suddenly, a man who is on the other side of the booth behind me leans around, draping his arm over the back so he can address me and Jeanine better. “Don’t feel bad. He doesn’t like to discuss it with anyone. That woman broke his heart and he’s not been the same since.”

“Oh good Lord,” says Noah, propping his elbows on the table and pressing his face into his hands.

“You know what, Phil? I agree. I don’t think he used to be this surly until he came back from New York.” Jeanine helps herself to the seat beside me so I have to slide over in the booth to make room. “Now, darling, I’m rooting for you. But I think the fact that you’re a famous singer is going to hinder things a bit, because of the long-distance hurdle. Don’t give up. Noah’s worth it and you won’t find a better man than him.” It’s sweet the way this town adores him.

“Yep, okay. I’m going to go pour that coffee since you’re clearly not going to do your job today.”

“So we can keep talking about you?” Jeanine asks him with pleading eyes.

“Wouldn’t dare stop you.” Noah slides out of the booth and I watch all six foot three of him unfold from the table. I would put a stop to all this, but…I don’t want to. It’s sort of fun watching him squirm while also getting to learn all his deep dark secrets. Plus, he just gave us permission. There’s no backing out now.

“Oh, honey, will you pour me a cup while you’re at it!” the waitress says over her shoulder while still looking at Phil.

“Yep,” Noah grumbles. “Cream and sugar?”

“Just a tad.”

Noah goes behind the diner’s counter and starts pouring coffees. A few people at the bar seem to need a top-off, too, so he does it. I stare at him, unable to take my eyes off his handsome face as Jeanine and Phil keep prattling on beside me. His forearms flex with every tilt of the coffeepot. Occasionally his mouth slants into a single-dimpled grin at something someone says to him. I feel my heart tumble off a ledge it shouldn’t have been on in the first place.

“I wish I could wring that woman’s neck for treating him like she did. Heaven help me if she ever sets foot in this town again,” says Jeanine.

“But you’re not going to do that to him, are you?” Phil asks me. “You’re going to treat our Noah right?”

“Uh—” But now I’m lost. They seem to think Noah and I are more than we are. “Really. We’re just friends. A step above strangers, really.”

They both make pish posh gestures like the fact that I met Noah only a few days ago is just semantics. “I know a good couple when I see one,” says Jeanine, cinching up her ponytail to make it perkier.

“Mark my words, you two have something between you. Just don’t go cheating on him like his ex-fiancée did and that alone will make you miles better than her.”

I blink in Noah’s direction, who’s just finished serving up a plate of pancakes to someone at the bar. He was engaged? Lived in New York? Was cheated on? There’s so much I don’t know about him, and I feel that lack of knowledge keenly now. I want to know him. Every nook and cranny of him. I want to study him like I’m cramming for an end-of-the-year exam. But there’s a very real chance he’ll never let me know him.

We make eye contact and he doesn’t smile at first, but the longer he looks at me, his lips start to rise in the corners like he just can’t help himself. And all at once, I think maybe my chances aren’t hopeless after all.





Chapter 20


    Noah


“So I guess you’re going to want to hear the whole sob story now?” I ask Amelia after we leave the diner and are alone again.

She looks up at me with a smirk. “You sound like you’re resigning yourself to a root canal.”

“About the same pain level.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but it falls a little flat. Or maybe a little too on the nose. Because thinking back to Merritt hurts every time. In hindsight, I see myself eagerly following that woman off to New York, truly believing that our little summertime fling was real, and I cringe.

As Jeanine pointed out in the diner, Merritt came to town to take care of her uncle’s property after he died. It was her first time in town, and being the only lawyer in her family, her parents thought it would be best to send her to sell off his property and tie up all the other loose ends that come along with a family member dying. Well, that and because her mom and uncle had a bad falling-out before Merritt was born and never spoke again. I thought Merritt seemed pretty lonely in town while handling all that business on her own, so I offered her company. I spent my afternoons helping her box up his house and then that turned into her spending nights at my place.