Noah when things got hairy between us. I shut down and acted like I was fine, but I wasn’t. I was cut deep, bleeding from the stab wounds inflicted by him and Dessie. He’ll never know though because telling him only hurts him and I love him far too much to do that.
My phone rings and his beautiful face fills my screen. I smile, despite the situation. “Hello, handsome.”
“Hey, babe,” he says. “My dad just got here. How’s Quinn?”
“There’s been an issue.”
“Are you okay?” I’m always his first concern no matter what.
“I’m fine. I’m at Quinn’s. It seems that…” I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment. “Nola had something to do with Alicia being here.”
The silence is deafening until Liam lets out a roar of some sort. “Noah?”
“I’m here, Harrison just called and spoke to my dad.”
“This is bad,” I say.
“Very much. Where’s Quinn?”
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “I don’t know. My mom took him somewhere to talk.”
“I’m coming to you, Peyton. Sit tight and try not to worry. I knew I shouldn’t have let you leave with your mom.”
At Noah’s words, tears slip from my eyes. “It’s hard, Noah. I love my brother so much and I’ve never seen him like this. He’s hurting.”
“Everything will be okay, I promise. I love you, P. I’ll be there shortly.”
“I love you, please hurry. I don’t want to be alone.”
It turns out that I’m not alone. As soon as we hang up, there’s pounding on the door, followed by some yelling. If I hadn’t been expecting Nola to show up, I’d be scared out of my mind right now.
“Quinn, open up. We need to talk. Please, Quinn.”
I open the door and stare down Nola, with a tear-streaked face. I want to rage. I want to grab her by the neck and ask her what the hell she was thinking. Instead, I hold onto the doorknob, squeezing it until the pain sets in.
“Elle—” she says. The need to roll my eyes is great. I refrain. It’s a common mistake but one that is making things worse for Nola at the moment.
“It’s Peyton.”
“Oh, the nice one.” I tilt my head to the side as if I’m asking her if she really just said something so rude. She closes her eyes and wipes angrily at her face. “I’m sorry, that was incredibly rude of me.”
Instead of placating her, I tell her how things are in my family. “Listen, when it comes to my family, I’m as wicked as the next person. My brother, he doesn’t want to see you. In fact…” I reach down and hand her the bag of clothes. “I believe these are yours. He says you don’t have a key, so I don’t need to ask for that back. I suggest you run along back to the Tuckers because you’re not wanted here.”
“Wait, please?”
I sigh, and this time I do roll my eyes.
“Please tell Quinn that I love him. All I lied about was my name and who I was, not because I was hiding anything from him, it was because I was hiding from myself. I can’t explain Sofia and Alicia, other than I went to school with Sofia and we were roommates and I thought best friends. She talked about him all the time.”
“So, you knew who he was?” I cross my arms over my chest. “You knew who my entire family was and pretended like you didn’t.”
“Yes and no.”
“It can’t be both.”
“Yes, I know, but Sofia—”
“What is she doing here?”