“A nice restaurant. I know my shirt from last night needs to be washed, but I’ve got another nice shirt in here somewhere. Your choice of where to eat and don’t worry about the money. You deserve something nice.”
“No, I don’t.” I really, really don’t.
His hands pause on the zipper as he glances at me, and my heart thrashes once against my rib cage. He is going to go nuclear with a hundred percent chance of radiation fallout.
“I want to do this,” he says. “Besides, we need to talk.”
The crackling of the zipper starts again. I jump to my feet and charge Noah like a linebacker in the Super Bowl, only I weigh a hundred and twenty and barely cause Noah’s hair to blow in the breeze. “Stop!”
I wrench his hands off his suitcase, and Noah grabs on to my fingers. “What are you doing?”
“I am so sorry.” My foot taps against the floor, and I shiver because this is so freaking bad. “I’m sorry. But you texted Mrs. Collins, and you told her that my mom called and then she texted me and I was so angry because that’s something my dad would have done, and I don’t want to be dating my dad. I mean, he’s a control freak and you’re not, so why would you contact her? And I was so angry that I did this and now I wish I didn’t do this, and I’m sorry.”
His dark eyes dart around my face. “Mrs. Collins told you that I texted her?”
“She told me that you told her.” A flash of anger and hurt strikes me like a lightning bolt, and I yank my hands away, remembering why I’ve done this. “How could you? It’s my decision if I want to talk to Mrs. Collins about my mom. Not yours.”
“I didn’t tell her,” he says.
“But if you didn’t...” Blood rushes out of my head, leaving me light-headed. I suck in a breath of air, but it stays in my mouth. “...and my dad didn’t...”
“Baby, you need to sit down.”
Little lights appear in my vision, and for a second, I think they’re pretty. A high-pitched ringing drowns out all other sounds...all other sounds but one.
“Fuck!”
Noah
With my knuckles, I rub the back of my head and when I inhale, the air contains a full dose of chlorine. I chuckle because what the fuck else is there to do?
“I am so sorry.” Echo stands beside me with her arms wrapped tight around her waist and stares at me with the most pathetic puppy dog eyes. After she realized that her mother, not me, had contacted Mrs. Collins, Echo hyperventilated. Scared the shit out of me, but after I sat her down and gave her some water, she returned to breathing normally.
Can’t exactly be mad at someone when you’re happy they’re okay, plus this...well...Echo’s got balls. “My boxer shorts are in the filter.”
She slams her eyes shut, and I extend an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to me. “It’s all good, baby. No harm, no foul...assuming management hasn’t figured it out, otherwise we’ll be staying in the tent tonight.”
Every article of clothing I own is floating at the top of or has sunk to the bottom of a small indoor rectangular pool. Our voices carry in the closed-in room, and because one thing today is going right, it’s completely empty except for us.
She groans and drops her forehead into my chest. “I threw your clothes in the pool and hot tub. You have got to be angry.”
Hot tub. Hadn’t caught that one yet. Sure enough, my button-down shirt drifts at the top. “Damn.”
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles again into the fabric of my lone dry shirt. “Are you mad?”
Am I mad? I step back from Echo and pop my neck to the right. I’m not happy, but am I mad? The filter ejects a pair of my socks. Son of a bitch.
I bend my knees, and in a swift motion sweep Echo off her feet and toss her into the pool. Water splashes up and soaks part of my shirt and jeans, but at this point, I don’t care.
I crouch by the edge and watch as Echo kicks up from the bottom. Her red hair wildly fans out in the water, and as she breaks through to the surface, it slicks back against her head. She coughs, then drags in her first gulp of air. Damn if my siren doesn’t look sexy all wet and disheveled.
“Feel better?” she half chokes out.
“I’m not mad,” I respond.
“You forgot to add anymore.”
“My bad. Anymore.”
Echo laughs, and I smile along with her before releasing a long breath. The past couple of days have been like dragging Echo through glass in the middle of a firefight. If I’d known throwing her in a pool would erase the tension, I would have done it earlier. Guess there’s something to be said for baptism.
With some effort, Echo slides off her shoes and throws them onto the concrete. Then she peels off the sweater, also lobbing that to the side. I make a mental note to steal it when she’s not looking.
“I really am sorry.” She treads water in the middle of the pool, and I hate the shadow that crosses her face. “I didn’t stop to think that my mom would contact Mrs. Collins. I’m so used to Mom being gone, you know? It’s just...I don’t know.” She slaps the water with her hand. “Crap, Noah. I don’t know about any of this.”
“I get it.”
“Do you?” It’s there in her expression, the same desperation that mirrors the craziness clawing at my insides.
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’m sorry,” she says again. There’s a white silence in the closed-in room, and it makes her apology seem solemn. “For this. For all of it.”