My eyes widen a fraction. “You know about all that?”
“Of course, I do,” he scoffs. “I’m not fucking blind. The guy is in love with her.”
“So… you’re cool with them if they were to start dating?” I ask, dropping down onto the couch and pulling my legs up under me to get comfortable as Noah finds the discarded ‘Fifty Shades Freed’ movie I was going to watch earlier, though I don’t recall how it ended up here. Maybe I dropped it when he chased me through the house.
I watch as he walks over to the DVD player and gets it all set up. “No,” he tells me as he waits for it to power on. “But if she had to date someone around here, I’d prefer it to be him.”
“Why? Because he’s a good guy?”
“No,” he scoffs again. “So I can keep a close eye on them.”
“You don’t think he’s a good guy?”
“He is,” he tells me, slipping the DVD in. “But he’s not good enough for my sister. Nobody is.”
Seeing this protective side of him is doing all sorts of things to me, but the topic also reminds me of another guy who wasn’t good enough for her. “You know, Spencer asked me out yesterday.”
“What? Spencer?” he grunts as his head whips around to take me in. “What were you doing hanging out with him?”
“I wasn’t hanging out with him,” I say, wondering why the topic brings such an attitude out of him. “He texted.”
Booming laughter rips from deep within him. “He texted?” he confirms. “The guy couldn’t even find the balls to ask you face to face?”
“What’s your issue with him?”
“I don’t have an issue,” he shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong. The guy’s a loser and into some shady shit-”
I cut him off with a scoff. “Says the tatted-up douchebag who’s into illegal racing and keeps disappearing with his best friend all the time.”
Noah pauses for a second before a slow smile spreads across his face. “Have you been keeping tabs on me, Spitfire?”
I shrug my shoulders. “You wish. I can’t help it that I’m observant,” I tell him. “What is it you guys are up to anyway?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he questions with a sparkle in his eyes, completely giving him away. I mean, I knew he was doing something shady, but this pretty much confirms it.
“I knew it,” I call out. “You’re doing something illegal, aren’t you? What is it? Drugs? Hookers? Oh, my God. You’re a pimp, aren’t you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he laughs.
“Who’s a shitty liar now?” I challenge him, knowing deep down that whatever he’s into, it couldn’t be too bad. Or at least, I hope it’s not. I glance away as a million question fly through my mind, each and every one of them wondering what he’s gotten himself into. “Just… whatever it is. Don’t get yourself caught. Orange isn’t your color.”
He studies me for a moment before slowly nodding and moving towards me. “It’s killing you, isn’t it?” he questions lowly. “Not knowing.”
I roll my eyes and scoff. “You think you have that much of an effect on me?”
Noah drops down onto the couch beside me, instantly putting his arms up around the back of the couch, inviting me in. “I know I do,” he grins, somehow making me feel at ease with the fact that he’s into illegal shit, though, something tells me he’s not the kind of guy to do anything too shady, he’s also not the kind of guy to get caught. “As for Spencer, I hope you said ‘no’. I don’t like to share.”
“You realize I’m not a toy, right?” I question. “And I’m not yours.”
That grin full of cocky confidence spreads across his face as we ignore the opening of the movie. “Yeah, Spitfire,” he murmurs. “You are.”
I narrow my eyes on him, trying to play off the way he makes me feel. “We’ll see about that.”
With that, I drop back onto the couch, trying to ignore the way my body seems to lean into his with a desperate need to be held.
We watch the movie and get about halfway through when I realize I haven’t been watching any of it. I couldn’t tell a soul what’s been happening on the screen right before me. All I can think about is how I could so easily fall for Noah if I’m not careful, and I know that he said that liking a girl like me is scary as hell for him, but falling for a guy like Noah is terrifying for me.
He could hurt me in ways that Jackson could never have dreamed of. This is something different and it’s making me realize that maybe the way I felt for Jackson was just some stupid school girl crush. Something that needed to be ticked off my bucket list.