by Noelle Adams
But at four o’clock, she started getting little tingles of foreboding.
She would have thought he’d have called by now. If he was feeling anything close to what she was feeling, he would have called.
She talked herself out of the concern, though, as she returned her purchases to her apartment.
She couldn’t sit around and wait. It was too torturous, and she was too antsy and nervous. So she walked a block down to a local gourmet store and picked out some good olive oil, some spices, and some olives she really liked.
She was on her way back when her phone buzzed. She’d pulled it out excitedly before she realized it was a text and not a phone call.
Her heart dropped like a stone when she realized the text was from Noah.
He was texting her. Not calling her.
That wasn’t what they’d talked about. That wasn’t what he’d promised.
A knot was growing in her throat and her gut as she pulled up the text to read it. She knew it was bad, even as she tried to convince herself she was overreacting.
Had fun last night. Thanks for helping with Nan.
That was what he’d said. That was all he’d said.
He’d had fun.
It was terrible. Dreadful. It felt like a brush-off.
Determined to be reasonable, though, she hooked her shopping bag over her forearm so she could tap out a reply.
Me too. Ginny said Nan’s doing better. How are you?
She waited a few seconds before the reply came.
Fine. Busy. See you around.
It wasn’t her imagination. Noah was blowing her off.
He’d had sex with her last night, and maybe he’d had a few minutes of wanting it to be more than just that.
But in the morning light, those stray feelings had dissipated, and now he wanted to make sure she understood what had happened.
Nothing had happened.
Nothing at all.
She stood on the sidewalk in downtown Blacksburg and shook as a wave of crushing disappointment overwhelmed her.
Noah didn’t want her after all.
She always chose the wrong man.
One day, she was going to have to learn her lesson.
It took her a minute to control her emotions, but she finally took a few deep breaths and tapped out, OK see you. Then she slid her phone back into her purse.
It was done. Resolved. No more lingering questions.
She’d made a mistake with Noah, and it hurt like hell. But it wasn’t going to hurt forever.
She was back on her Man-Fast.
Maybe this time the lesson would really stick.
***
Noah sat behind the steering wheel of his grandmother’s car and watched as Emma put her phone back into her purse and kept walking toward her apartment.
He’d seen the succession of emotions on her face. The surprise. The disappointment. The pain. The resolution.
It hurt more than he’d known his heart could hurt to know how he’d crushed her. But it hurt even more to realize that she was going to get over it.
She was going to move on, go on with her life, find a guy who wanted to commit to her.
She’d get married, have children, live a happy life without him.
And he’d still be alone.
He’d made his decision, though. Losing Emma was better than losing everyone he loved.
He watched as she walked up her front steps and disappeared into her building.
He could call her up, tell her he was sorry, explain that the only thing he wanted was to be with her, admit that he was in his car outside.
Everything would be different then.
He didn’t.
He sat in the car and waited, but Emma didn’t come back out.
Seven
A week later, on Saturday morning, Emma was back in Tea for Two. Her friends spent most of their time here now, so she’d been hanging out here a lot in the last week too.
Ryan was present as well this morning, so they were sitting at the same table. Patrick was working in his office for a few hours, even though it was Saturday, and Noah hadn’t made an appearance.
She’d seen Noah a couple of times in the last week, and she’d assured herself she’d acted cool and unconcerned.
What happened had happened. It had really hurt. But she wasn’t going to be foolish and dwell on it, and she definitely wasn’t going to let anyone see how wounded she actually felt.
“You want one?” Ryan asked, gesturing toward his plate of beignets. He had sugar on his mouth, which he wiped off with a napkin.
Emma hesitated at the sight of the warm, brown pastries dusted with sugar.
Ryan picked one up and waved it at her. “They’re really good.”
“I know they’re good,” Emma said. “Everything Carol bakes is good. I’ve just already had a lot of sweets this week.”
She’d felt like she’d needed them for emotional purposes, but she didn’t want to go crazy. She wasn’t like Ginny—who could eat anything she wanted and still stay slim. Emma actually had to be careful.
But the beignet looked and smelled so good, and Ryan’s taunting her with it was so funny that she finally nodded and reached out for it.
When she took her first bite, she sighed in pleasure.
Ryan was licking the sugar off his fingers. He must have seen her watching him because he quirked his mouth up and said, “You’re thinking about where my hand has been recently, aren’t you? I promise I wash my hands all the time.”
She laughed. Ryan was a large animal vet. He worked for the Animal Science department at Virginia Tech, and she preferred not to think about what he did with his hands all day. “I really wasn’t. I was just thinking about how messy the sugar is.”
“It’s worth it.” His eyes roamed around the small shop with what looked like satisfaction. “Pretty good crowd here this morning.”
“It really is. It might still level off some more after a couple of weeks. New places always get more traffic. But it can level off a lot, and they’ll still be in decent shape financially.” Every time she came in, Emma automatically took account of the number of customers and what they were eating and did some quick math in her head. Every time, she was happy about the result of her calculations.
“I’m so relieved,” Ryan admitted. “I’ve been kind of worried about it. It’s such a risk to open a place like this.”
“I know. But they’ve done all their homework and are making smart decisions. Carol and Ginny are both pretty smart.”
“I know they are.”
Emma had finished her beignet, and she was trying not to eye the two remaining on Ryan’s plate too lustfully. She sighed and glanced at the front door when the bell jangled. Two middle-aged women who looked like they were out shopping or doing errands this morning.
She wondered if Noah would stop by today. He came by fairly often, to say hi or hang out for a while.
Emma recognized that he must really be trying to be a better friend and brother. Despite the way he’d blown her off last weekend, he was making an effort.
She was glad. It wasn’t good for him to isolate himself the way he’d been doing for so long. And she’d like to see him more connected.
She couldn’t really hate him the way she might want to. She’d known him too long. She understood him too well.
She could see exactly what happened from his point of view. She still felt hurt and used, but she was sure he hadn’t set out to treat her badly.
Things like that just happened sometimes. And people were who they’d always been.
Noah would probably never commit to a woman.
And Emma would probably always choose the men who didn’t really want her, the ones who would never choose her.
“You okay?” Ryan asked, breaking into her reflections.
She gave him the perky smile she’d been using all week to mask her mood. “Yes. Of course. Just lost in my own thoughts.”
Ryan’s blue eye
s were studying her more closely than usual. “You sure? You seem kind of… down. You have all week.”
For just a moment, she felt a flush of mortification—thinking that Ryan knew what had happened between her and Noah and was feeling sorry for her. But she checked his expression and concluded that he really had no idea.
He’d just noticed something off about her. He was a nice guy. He liked her. He was merely checking in.
“I’m really fine,” she told him with a more genuine smile.
“If your Man-Fast is bringing you down, then you should give up on it. No need to hold onto an idea if it isn’t working for you.”
“It is working.” That was an outright lie, since she hadn’t even made it two weeks before having sex with Noah in the back of a car. But since she hadn’t really given her Man-Fast a fair shake, she was convinced it could still work. “It’s not about that.”
“Okay.” He accepted her word without question, and then gave her a little smile. Reaching over, he stroked her jaw with his thumb. “I like to see you smile for real, and I haven’t seen it much this week.”
His words and gesture were slightly flirtatious, but Emma knew they didn’t mean anything except Ryan liked her and she was of the female persuasion.
She smiled back at him. “How’s this one?”
“Much better.”
Emma had heard in the back of her mind the bell jangle on the entrance a minute ago, and now she was aware of some kind of presence there.
She turned to look and felt her stomach drop when she saw Noah standing at the front of the shop, staring at her and Ryan.
Determined not to let anyone know how unsettling she still found being around him, she pushed down her first response and gave Noah what she hoped was a cool, casual smile—as if she was acknowledging his existence but didn’t care about it that much.
His eyes had narrowed, and he didn’t look happy. Hot as hell in jeans and a black T-shirt, with bristles on his jaw that proved he hadn’t shaved that morning, but not at all happy.
Ryan had seen him too now. “Hey, Noah! Come on over.”
Noah walked toward them, still not smiling. “Am I interrupting something here?” he asked, an edge to his voice.
Emma and Ryan shared a look that was slightly confused, as if both of them were trying to process Noah’s strangely forbidding tone. Then Ryan grinned and said, “Of course not. We were just hanging out and eating beignets. What’s up your ass this morning?”
With an instinctive understanding, Emma suddenly knew what was bothering Noah. He’d seen Ryan smiling at her in that flirtatious way, stroking her face with his thumb.
And he was all annoyed about it.
Annoyed.
By Ryan’s innocent, friendly flirting.
When just last weekend, Noah had fucked her and then blown her off as if she was nothing.
Emma was so angry at this realization that she had trouble not snapping her teeth at him.
What the hell was wrong with the man? Did he really think she existed just to worship at his feet, whether he really wanted her or not?
Schooling her expression, Emma moved over to the other side of the table, next to Ryan, and gestured Noah into the seat she’d vacated. “You’re welcome to hang out too if you want. But you’ll have to get your own beignets. Ryan’s only sharing with me.”
She was sitting a lot closer to Ryan than she normally would have, and she reached over to take one of the remaining beignets from his plate, smiling up at him as she took a bite and then licked the sugar off her lips.
Ryan, as laidback and good-natured as always, evidently found nothing strange about her behavior. He grinned and moved his plate out of her reach. “Did I say you could have that one?”
“No. But I took it anyway. And maybe I’ll have the other one too.” They had a little scuffle over the remaining beignet, both of them laughing, while Noah looked on, a low-level snarl on his face.
Having proven her point, Emma finally gave up the scuffle and moved her chair slightly away from Ryan.
“Hey, are you free for dinner tonight?” Ryan said, turning back to Noah and evidently completely oblivious to any undercurrents. “Carol is having everyone over to her place. You’ll come too, won’t you?”
Noah blinked. “Uh, yeah. I guess I can. Everyone?”
“Sure. Me and Emma and Ginny and Patrick. Everyone.”
Noah glanced over at Emma briefly and then looked away. “Okay. I’ll be there too.”
“Good deal.”
Emma was getting the feeling that Ryan was about ready to up and leave, and she didn’t want to be left alone at the table with Noah. So she stood up, saying, “I’m going to check things out in the kitchen.”
She touched Ryan’s shoulder as she left to let him know she appreciated him, and she didn’t look at Noah at all.
When she went to the back, Ginny was sitting in a chair, staring down at her tablet.
“Hey,” Emma said, sitting down beside her.
Ginny looked up with a frown. “What was going on out there?”
“What do you mean? It’s a pretty good crowd.”
“I mean with you. Do you have a thing for Ryan now?” Ginny looked confused, unhappy.
Emma’s mouth dropped open. “No! Of course not.”
Ginny’s face relaxed slightly. “Oh. Okay.” Her brows were still drawn together.
Emma realized her friend had seen her foolish behavior, and she was suddenly embarrassed about it. She sighed and slumped forward. “I was just trying to prove I wasn’t still upset about Noah,” she admitted.
Ginny’s expression softened even more with understanding and sympathy. “Oh. Shit, I’m sorry. He was really an ass with you.”
“I don’t think he meant to be.”
“I know he didn’t. But still…” Ginny shook her head. “I’m so mad at him about it.”
“You shouldn’t be mad. It was… upsetting, but it’s not the end of the world. I can see how it happened. I really can.”
“You’re really a good person, you know.”
“I don’t always feel like one.”
“Well, of course not. Who does? But a lot of girls wouldn’t take this thing with Noah so well.” She paused. “Just don’t go flirting with Ryan in retaliation. The poor doofus might take you seriously.”
Emma laughed. “He’d never do anything of the kind. The most he’d ever do with me is pat me on the head.” She noticed a lingering expression on Ginny’s face, and it made her gasp. “You don’t still have leftover feelings, do you? From all the way back in college?”
“No!” Ginny straightened up. “Of course not. That’s ancient history. I just… Don’t flirt with him, even if he flirts with you.”
“I won’t. It was just a temporary pettiness that I shall now dutifully rise above.”
“Good for you. You’re supposed to be on a Man-Fast anyway.”
“Right,” Emma said. “The Man-Fast.”
She’d almost forgotten.
***
That evening, Noah had come to the rather depressing conclusion that Emma hadn’t been as into him as he’d thought, as he’d wanted.
She’d completely gotten over him in a week.
Earlier that week, he’d thought maybe she was putting on a brave face so she wouldn’t look too upset or depressed, but by the time dinner was over on Saturday night, he could no longer hold on to that tentative hope.
She couldn’t be faking. She looked natural, casual, happy even.
Whatever had happened between them last weekend had obviously meant a lot more to him than it had to her.
It wasn’t a good thought.
In fact, it made Noah want to pummel something.
He still felt terrible about everything—about how he’d acted, about how he hadn’t been able to control himself, about how he’d dismissed her so heartlessly after their night together. He couldn’t stop dwelling on it. Torturing himself with the memory of their earth-shattering sex
in the car and the tender way he’d felt afterwards. And then torturing himself even more by pulling up their text messages from the following afternoon and replaying in his mind Emma’s face as she’d realized he wasn’t going to call her.
He’d been miserable all week, unable to get her out of his head. Unable to get his body to stop responding to the thought of her, the sight of her.
And here she was, perfectly happy—as if nothing had ever happened between them.
He realized he probably deserved it, but still… It would have been nice if she hadn’t been able to get over it quite so easily.
They’d hung out at Carol’s apartment—in one of the newer apartment complexes on the outskirts of town—most of the evening. At about eleven, things seemed to be wrapping up, and he was thinking about leaving so he wouldn’t have to be tortured by the sight of Emma’s pretty, laughing face anymore or her lush, little body in her jeans and sleeveless white top.
“I think I’m going to take off,” he said, standing up from the couch where he’d been sitting and trying not to let his eyes stray over to Emma yet again.
“So soon?” Carol was at the dining table, playing Scrabble with Patrick.
“Soon? I’ve been here for hours.”
“I’m ready to go too,” Emma said. She’d been sitting next to Ryan on the floor—which Noah wasn’t at all happy about—but now she stretched out her legs and stood. “You ready soon, Patrick?”
Patrick glanced over at her, but he was clearly more focused on the game than he was on his sister’s readiness to leave. “I’m winning.”
“You are not winning,” Carol objected.
Emma gave a little groan. “Well, how much longer do you have in the game?”
“I don’t know.” Patrick looked up from his tiles again. “Hey, if you’re leaving, Noah, can you drop Emma off at home? It shouldn’t be too far out of your way.”
Noah’s heart did a ridiculous little clench. “Uh—”
“It is out of his way,” Emma put in quickly. “I can just wait until the game is over.”
“Why should you? I don’t know how long it will be. Noah, do you mind?”
Noah looked at his friend and then over at Emma. It was perfectly clear to him that Patrick had absolutely no idea what had happened between Noah and his sister.
