Unrequited(71)

Basically I was sitting on my fat thumbs doing nothing.

I shook myself before I started to drown in my own self-pity.

"I always wondered why you stopped fixing that up." Noah handed me a cup of coffee and sat down in a patio chair.

"Wasn't the right time."

"Now is?"

"Yup." I flipped a brick a few times, slathered it with mud, and set it on the structure. I repeated the action in silence. Noah didn't say another word. We listened to the birds chirping and a light breeze rustling the leaves in the woods. The emerging sunlight was at the front of the east-facing house, and the back of the house looked dark, the pool water calm. The breeze was blocked by the trees.

It was early, yet Noah was always moving. He had a hundred things going at one time, trying to juggle his emerging professional fighting career with his classes and his business. I wondered if he would keel over from a heart attack like my dad if he didn't slow down.

"You know the movie Love Actually?"

"Sure, best Christmas movie ever." I didn't mind admitting it. Adam and I watched it religiously every year, debating over the characters' actions. Did Mark, the videographer, violate the bro code for sharing the wedding video with his best friend's wife to declare his love? Yes, and we concluded that Mark made the video for the sole purpose of spanking his monkey. "Mark probably used a cum sock."

Noah spit out his coffee as he laughed. "Really? Not a tissue guy?"

"No way. He was clearly into mementos."

Noah set down his mug. "True or false, Karen should have left Henry."

I shrugged. That one hit close to home. "Karen was a saint, right? But maybe too selfless." My mind spun toward Winter.

"Can we at least agree that the only worthwhile couple were the sex doubles?"

"Yes." I reached out and slapped my palm against Noah's open hand.

"How about Sarah and Karl?"

"What about them?"

"Do you think Sarah is stupid for abandoning Karl for her brother every time?"

I could see where he was leading me now. "Ivy is not an institutionalized man."

Noah kicked out his legs and reached down for his mug. "I always thought Karl could have been more supportive and waited for Sarah."

"Maybe Karl was done with being last."

Noah shrugged. "First, last. Are you keeping count?"

You're first wife to me.

I ran the back of my hand over my mouth, feeling unaccountably parched. I'd told Winter time and again that she was first to me, but when I told her I needed her, wasn't I doing the very same thing I accused Ivy of doing—asking Winter to subsume her own needs and wants and desires in favor of making me happy?

How was that putting her first? I’d wanted her in my life on my terms.

"Is she worth waiting for?" Noah asked.

Just thinking of her made me feel like part of me was cut away. Until I had her with me, I'd only be half a person. Somewhere on the other side of the city, my heart was walking around, drawing up tattoos and trying to hold herself together. "Without a doubt."

"Then wait for her, or you'll regret it forever." Noah knew what he was walking about. He’d written to his girlfriend for four years when he was deployed to Afghanistan and then came to Central College a couple years later to win her back. He knew all about waiting.

"Was it hard for you?" I asked Noah, uncomfortably. No guy liked to talk about sex unless it was how much he was getting and how hard he was putting it to his partner.

"To go without?" Noah asked.

I nodded.

"Not at first. When we first started writing, Grace was pretty young, and I just thought of her as someone back home who actually gave a shit but not much more. But when she started writing about Lana dating, I realized that Grace wasn't a schoolgirl. By the time I started thinking about her that way, I was still deployed. I'd had a few hookups on leave, but that's about as satisfying as pissing. The same kind of relief. I'm not sure I was even very good at it." Noah smiled ruefully. "When I got out, I had a few more hookups, but by then I started feeling guilty both about sleeping with girls I had no real interest in outside the bedroom and what I'd tell Grace when we got together. Because we were going to get together." Noah's voice held no doubt, only firm conviction. It was obviously what had carried him through nearly six years of separation.

He laughed a little then, something rare for him. Noah was a serious, driven guy. The complete opposite of his joking best friend, Bo. "Then when I got here to Central, waiting was a bitch. I wanted to carry Grace off and never let her see the light of day until I'd imprinted on her. If that's the way you feel about Winter, then I'm sorry you'll suffer, but in the end it'll be worth it."