Leaning against the desk, he smiles warmly at the woman. “How are ya, Penny?”
It’s amazing how her demeanor changes in the presence of a man. “Hey, Mikey. I’m good. Just been workin’ a lot, ya know?”
Mikey nods, and Penny glances at me somewhat timidly. “This woman is trying to tell me she’s engaged to Noah.”
“Wait…” Mikey waves a finger between me and Penny. “You mean you didn’t know about Lennon? Brad didn’t tell you?”
Penny shakes her head and opens her mouth to respond, but Mikey cuts her off with a fake disappointed sigh.
“I guess I’m not really surprised,” he says. “He hasn’t been around much lately, what with his new job and all. How’s that going for him, anyway?”
“Good,” she says, looking back toward me, clearly wanting to redirect the conversation.
“Good.” Mikey nods. “That’s good. Well,” he says, clapping a hand on the desk, “I’ll take Lennon down to Noah’s room before I go, if it’s all right with you.”
Plopping down in her seat, Penny huffs. “Fine.”
With a hand pressed to my back, Mikey guides me down the hall.
“Thank you,” I whisper when I’m certain we’re out of earshot.
“Are you kidding me? Noah should be thanking you. He’s been turning down Penny since the third grade, and now maybe she’ll get off of his back for good.”
“Well, then…” I puff out my chest. “I’m glad I was able to help. But I’ll be honest; I thought for sure I lied to the wrong person. I was really worried there for a second.”
“This is a small town, Lennon. The kind where everybody knows everybody, everybody thinks they know everything, and you can’t piss without it ending up in the paper or on Facebook. It’ll do you good to remember that.”
“Does that mean—”
“Yup.” He nods before I even finish. “Penny has probably already posted about it, tweeted it, Snapchatted it, and found a way to put it up on Instagram.”
“Great.” I stare at the hospital door. “Now Noah’s really going to hate me, and we don’t even know each other.”
“Nah. Noah’s pretty laid back.”
I look up at him, cocking a brow.
“Okay, he’s uptight, but he’ll see the humor in it,” he says, opening the door before quietly adding, “I think.”
A man in a long, white coat is standing in the room, waving his hands as he talks to Noah, who is stretched out on the bed, his jeans and T-shirt now replaced by a green hospital gown. Noah’s eyes widen when he notices me walking into the room behind Mikey.
“What is she doing here?” he says, cutting off the doctor.
“She’s your fiancée; where else would she be?”
We all turn toward the snide voice. Penny. Go figure, she must’ve followed us. She flits around the room. Doing what? No clue. Probably just being nosy.
“Fiancée?” Noah looks from Penny to Mikey and narrows his eyes when they land on me.
I’m going to go straight to hell.
“It’s okay,” I soothe, sitting on the bed next to him. Smiling down, I brush his hair off of his forehead. It’s soft, and I let my fingers linger longer than necessary as I imagine what it would be like to belong to this man—to be able to touch him whenever I wanted, run my fingers through his shaggy hair, kiss him. The thoughts in my mind have no business being there, but I can’t help but wish for every single one.
Feeling the weight of silence, I clear my throat. “I told her.” I glance at Penny, who is frowning. “And she’s not going to say anything, are you, Penny? Because we haven’t officially announced it yet.”
Her eyes widen, guilt splattered across her face. “Uh…”
“I’m so lost,” Noah mumbles, running a hand over his ruggedly handsome face. “Maybe I did hit my head, doc.”