CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sadie

For the first time in years and years, Noah and I were in a car together.

It brought back a lot. Sure, we were driving down I-95 to Brooklyn, but memories of steamy windows, hands under shirts, lush kissing, panting breath, the way he knew exactly how I—

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes! Why? Jeesh.”

“You just squeaked.”

“Did I? I don’t think so. Must’ve been the truck.”

This was going to be a long ride.

Why were we going to New York together, you ask?

I was delivering a painting to Janice, the interior decorator. This one was a “huge painting with those big flowers that look like vaginas. It’s a lesbian couple, so don’t hold back.”

When I called her to ask about the delivery, Janice had been more frantic than her usual self. “Can you come down and hang it yourself? This whole job is going to shit. It’s a brownstone, and it needs custom work, and the guy who was supposed to make the window seat on the staircase landing just bailed, and I’m telling you, no one is available unless you book a year in advance these days, and they discontinued the wallpaper the owners loved and I’m pulling my hair out.”

“Sure, I’ll come,” I said. Janice had probably forgotten that I was here in Connecticut with my dad, but I could use a day in the city. I hadn’t spent any time there except to dump Alexander a few weeks ago, and I’d been in a state, obviously. It would be good for the soul, as it always was. There was nothing like a spring day in Brooklyn.

An idea popped into my head. “Hey, Janice, I might know someone who can make a window seat.”

“Really? Oh, Sadie. That would be miraculous.”

“I’ll call you back.” I hung up, then looked at my dog. “Don’t judge,” I said. “It’s only business.” She wagged kindly, her eyes suggesting I wasn’t fooling anyone.

Noah had put in the beam so my house was no longer in danger of falling in on itself. He’d also put in the picture windows, and it was amazing how it changed the look of the house, both from the outside and the inside. Sure, it was still a bit crooked, but Noah said if I put on a new roof, it could be fixed. The thing about house renovation, I was learning, was that the more you did, the more you wanted to do. The huge vagina flower painting (sorry, Georgia O’Keeffe) would put some money in the bank.

A big butcher block island with stools would let you eat while staring out at the salt marsh. Maybe Noah could put in a spiral staircase, like Juliet’s. Maybe he could make the entire northern wall a bookcase.

Maybe I just wanted to spend more time with Noah.

I was still recovering from Alexander’s cheating and lying, granted. I had loved him, or the him I thought he was. Then there were the feelings of stupidity and humiliation, of being less than, because he needed three girlfriends, not just me. I’d thought I found a man who loved me without that sense of . . . expectation Noah always had. Like, until I lived life the way Noah wanted me to—that was, move to Stoningham and start popping out babies—I was a disappointment.

Alexander had taken me exactly as I was. He’d been generous, fun, not unintelligent, easygoing. All he needed was two other women to make his life complete.

Oh, the fuckery of it all.

At any rate, I’d called Noah, told him two wealthy brownstone owners needed a window seat pronto, did he want a quick job in the city? Much to my surprise, he said yes.

When I arrived at his house this morning, he’d been passing off Marcus to Mickey in the front yard, daffodils blooming, sun shining on his hair.

“Girlfriend!” sang Mickey. “How you doing? Damn, you’re so stinkin’ cute. I could be gay for you.”

“You are gay, you tease. Hi, Marcus.” The baby smiled at me, and my ovaries spontaneously frothed over with eggs.

“Want to hold him?”

“We need to get on the road,” Noah said at the same moment I said, “God, yes.”

Mickey smiled and passed me her son. The warm, wriggly weight of him, his sturdy little legs kicking, and yes, people, the smell of his head . . . God. “Hello, gorgeous,” I said. His lashes were so long and silky, and his cheeks were fat and pink and delicious.

“Dwah!” he said, taking a fistful of my hair and tugging. “Baba!”

“He’s a genius!” I said to the parents.

Noah was smiling. Just a little, and probably at his son.

“Please, please, let’s get together,” Mickey said. “I want to see your goofy little house and drink wine.”

“Done,” said I.

“You’re nursing,” Noah said.

“Oh, am I, Noah? I forgot that my breasts are as big as watermelons and my nipples look like saucers and milk spurts out of me every time this baby smiles.” She rolled her eyes. “Mansplainer. Shame on you! I’ll pump that night and chuck it. Jeez. The nursing police here, Sadie.”

“He’s horrible. I’m sorry for all you endure.” She grinned. I liked her so much.

“We do need to go, Sadie,” Noah said.

I kissed the baby’s head—oh! The soft spot! So dear!—and handed him back to Mickey. “I’ll call you.”

“You better. Bye, Noah! Marcus, wave bye to Daddy!” She held up his fat fist and jiggled it.

Noah leaned in and kissed his child. “I love you,” he said, and my ovaries frothed again. “See you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

Which brought us to my current horndog state, sitting in Noah’s truck, his tools and some walnut planks in the back, the smell of wood and coffee the best foreplay I could think of. “I brought pastries from Sweetie Pies,” I said. “Want something?”

“Sure.”

I handed him a chocolate croissant and watched as he ate it, his jaw moving hypnotically. Would it be inappropriate to brush the crumbs out of his lap?

“Who’s watching your dog today?” he asked.

“What? Nothing! Oh. My nieces.” I took a calming breath and chose a cheese and raspberry Danish to get my mind off Noah’s lap.

“How are they?”

“They’re good. Brianna got her period and is officially a horrible adolescent, and Sloane is a little behind in school, but they’re awesome.”

He smiled, and I had to look out the window to avoid wrapping myself around him like an octopus.

When we got to the brownstone, all was chaos, as it tended to be with Janice. Movers were bringing in furniture, painters were finishing up, and she pounced on me, despite the fact that I was carrying the huge wonkin’ vagina flower painting wrapped in brown paper.

“Let me see it! Let’s get it inside. Up those stairs, second door on the right.”

Noah followed with his toolbox.

“You must be Noah, thank you for coming, you’re an angel, you really are, I hope you’re good enough to do this right because I don’t really have a choice right now. Unwrap the painting, Sadie, let’s have a look!”

I glanced at Noah with a smile. Hopefully Janice hadn’t offended him with her run-on sentences and half praise. He smiled back.

Unwrapping the painting carefully, I leaned it against the bed. “What do you think?”

“Oh, Sadie! It’s beautiful! You signed it, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Look how it matches the comforter!”

I suppressed a sigh. This was my bread and butter, after all.

The painting was a close-up of lilies, that most vaginal of all flowers, and sweet peas (labia), and I was rather proud of it. The lesbian couple could go to town under that painting. Unlike the “swirly” or “scribbly” paintings I often did, this one had taken more work and time. Sure, it was an O’Keeffe knockoff, but it was beautiful, and not just an imitation. Oil this time, with more texture and detail than the great Georgia. Her style with a tiny bit of my own.

“It’s really pretty, Sadie,” Noah said, staring at the painting, his head tilted the slightest bit. “Very . . . detailed.” Then his dark eyes cut to me with a slight smile, and I felt my skin prickle with a blush. There was a bed right behind me. Just sayin’.

“Okay, hang it up, and Noah? It’s Noah, right? Let’s get you started on the window seat. You got the pictures I sent you, right? Can you match that? Did you bring wood?”

Yes, Noah, did you bring wood? God. I was ridiculous.

I hung the painting, chatted with the movers, wandered through the brownstone. What a lucky couple! I’d always been a Manhattanite, Brooklyn being too hip for me, but damn. The building was a block off Prospect Park on a street with fully leafed-out maples. All the windows were open, and the sun shone through the stained glass window on the landing, making it appear that Noah worked in a church.

He did look like an angel. Or maybe Joseph, Jesus’s dad. The carpenter dad, not the God dad. Or with that black, unruly hair, scruffy beard and olive skin, maybe Jesus himself.

“Stop looking at me,” he said without looking at me.

“Need a helper?” I asked.

“Sure. Sit there and don’t touch or do anything.” He cut me a look, and I felt it in my stomach. He had a black elastic on his wrist and, in a practiced movement I remembered well, pulled his hair back into a short ponytail to keep it out of his eyes as he worked. A few curls escaped.

Heathcliff hair. Jon Snow hair. Darcy hair. Damn you, Noah, I thought. You’ve only gotten better. Watching him work, his movements sure and confident, it hit me again that my wild boy was a man. A father, and who could be a better father than Noah?

“How’s your dad?” he asked, picking up on paternal vibes.

“He’s doing well,” I said. “He’s trying to talk, and write. I mean, he held a pen the other day, but he didn’t write anything. Still, he held it the right way. Mom said he said ‘horse’ the other day. And maybe ‘dog.’ He definitely responds to Pepper.”

“Good. He likes Marcus, too.”

“Everyone loves that baby.”

No response. He ran his hand over the walnut panel, which he’d already varnished. Lucky panel. “Pass me the hollow ground planer blade.”

“I heard the words, but they mean nothing to me.”

A flash of a smile. “Maybe you can walk around the block a couple times, hm?”

“Are you saying I’m in the way?”

“Yes. You’re in the way, Sadie.” His eyes met mine. “Take a walk, Special.”

Time stopped. That name. It sliced into my heart like a burning arrow.

“How’s it going here?” Janice said, racing up the stairs, her arms full of pillows. “Will you be finished by three, do you think? They’re having a housewarming party! Tonight! It’s just crazy! I have to stage the whole house, get fresh flowers and make all the beds and hang the towels and put this damn cow statue somewhere, what was I thinking when I ordered it, oh, and guess who doesn’t like fake orchids? My lesbians, that’s who!”

Good for the lesbians. “Can I help?” I asked. “I’m just in Noah’s way, and I’m great at making beds and such.”

“You’re an angel, Sadie! An angel! Noah, three o’clock?”

“No problem,” he said, looking back down at his work.

By three o’clock, the house was more or less in order, Noah was finished, Janice was thrilled with the window seat and now on her phone, yelling at someone. She handed us two envelopes, mouthed, Angels! and waved goodbye.

We walked out of the brownstone, despite the fact that I’d sort of been hoping to meet the owners and be invited to the party and end up snogging Noah on a pile of coats somewhere.

Noah opened his envelope. “Holy shit,” he said. “This is twenty percent more than my estimate.”

“She pays a rush fee. She’s a little crazy, but she’s kind of wonderful, too.”

“I should work here more often.”

Words I would’ve killed to hear once upon a time. I let it go, but the casual way he said it scraped my heart. “Well, now that she’s seen your work, she may well call you again.”

“Thanks for the referral, Sadie.”

“Of course.”

“You gonna see your boyfriend tonight?” he asked as we walked toward the truck.

“Oh. No. We broke up. He had a girl in every port, as the old saying goes. Or two ports, anyway.”

Noah stopped in his tracks. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“You heartbroken?”

For someone with the kind of verbal diarrhea I had, it was oddly hard to talk about this. Because it was him. Noah, the real breaker of hearts. “A little bit. I feel pretty dumb.”

“Because you didn’t know?”

“Yeah.” Naive, dopey, innocent Sadie.

“Because you trusted him to be honest.”

“Yep.”

“That’s not dumb, Sadie. That’s just . . . you. You believe in people.”

The wind rustled the maple leaves, which were so green and fresh they glowed. “Thanks, Noah.”

“You want me to beat him up for you?”

I laughed. “Nah. He’s a soft yacht salesman. You’re a badass carpenter. It would hardly be fair.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up. “Well, then. You wanna eat? I’m starving.”

“You mean here? In this horrible city you hate?”

“I don’t hate Brooklyn. Brooklyn’s nice.”

“Jump on the bandwagon, why don’t you? Sure, let’s go eat some street meat. It smells incredible.”

And so we got a couple gyros on Seventh Avenue and took them up to Prospect Park to eat while we sat on a bench overlooking the grassy field. When we were done, I said, “Come on, wild boy. Let me show you the botanical gardens. You think you like Brooklyn now, just wait. It’s the perfect day for it.”

And it was. Late April, the cherry trees so fat and fluffy with pink blossoms, a few drifting down into Noah’s hair, which I left for effect. What the lad didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Thousands upon thousands of flowers were in bloom, and Canada geese strutted about, their little goslings following in quick, darting movements. The constant noise of traffic and music that defined the city was silent here, and the smell of grass and flowers combined in the perfect perfume. Ahead of us was a guide dog, a Golden retriever, and I thought of Pepper. Would she like the city? Probably not at all, given what she was used to, romping on the shores of the tidal river, going for swims in the Sound, rolling in dead seagull whenever possible. Maybe she’d transition to pigeons. The thought made me wince. The pavement in New York could get so hot that . . .

Okay, no. I wasn’t going to worry about that right now. My father was getting better, and I’d be in Stoningham till the end of summer, and it wasn’t even May. People had dogs in New York. Pepper would be fine.

And I was with Noah, whose hair had escaped the elastic. Women looked at him, and so did a few men—he was cooler than cool because he wasn’t trying at all. Levi’s and work boots that actually saw work, a worn flannel shirt over a dark green T-shirt devoid of ironic sayings or rock band names. He was authentic, and that was something rare in this part of Brooklyn, especially among men our age.

“This is so beautiful,” Noah said as we walked under an archway of entwined cherry blossoms. “I can see why you love this part of the city. There’s a lot more to it than cement and noise.”

My heart hurt. “True,” I whispered.

“I’m glad we’re friends again.”

“Me too, Noah. I missed you.” There it was, my heart on a plate, waiting for him.

He nodded. “Same.”

A man of few words. We looked at each other a long minute. “Okay,” he said briskly. “What’s in that glass place there?”

“A whole lotta fun, that’s what,” I said, a little relieved. “Off we go!”

The conservatory was fun, a creative array of biospheres to explore. I tucked the hurt away, not saying anything about how things could’ve been if only he’d been a little more open-minded back then, and just . . . relaxed.

But Noah knew me. He could practically read my mind, and I could read his. We weren’t going to have a summer romance. At the end of the day, I’d be coming back here, and he had a child and a full life in Stoningham, and if we broke each other’s hearts again, it would be unbearable.

For just this day, we’d be friends again, like we’d been before we ever started dating, when just being together and talking was as uncomplicated and easy and as natural as breathing. For this day, I’d pretend not to be in love with him, because there was simply nowhere to go with that without leading to hurt. I’d cut off my hand before I hurt Noah Sebastian Pelletier again.

We ended up eating dinner at a little Italian restaurant and drove home late. I fell asleep at some point and woke up as we pulled off the highway to Stoningham.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No need to be sorry.”

“This was a great day.”

“It was.”

I guess the chatty part of it had ended, though. Noah didn’t say anything else as we drove through town, past the now-closed shops and restaurants. I thought about asking him to drop me off at my parents’ so I could check on my dad, but it was almost eleven.

Pepper had been returned, and as soon as we pulled into my driveway, I heard her happy barking. Noah got out, too, and a warm tingle began low in my stomach, spreading to my arms and legs.

If he kissed me, if he wanted to stay, I’d be helpless to say no, given the lust factor, the love, the everything he was.

He walked me up to the porch. “How’s the roof?” he asked.

“Still leaking in a hard rain.”

“I’ll try to come over one day this week. There’s a storm due about Wednesday.”

“That’s okay. I’ll get to it.”

“Why does the image of you on a ladder make me think of ambulances? Save your mother the worry. Let me do it.”

Pepper was going crazy inside, so I opened the door and let her out. She waggled at me, licking my hands, and I bent down to pet her. She repeated the action on Noah with a little leg hump attempt. Like owner, like dog. “Off you go, girl,” he said, sending her down the steps with a gentle shove.

“Want . . . coffee? Or water? I have water.”

“I’m good.” The wind blew then, and he pushed my hair back, his fingers sliding against my scalp. I closed my eyes for just a second. Then I was in his arms, and he was hugging me . . . not kissing, but a full-on, all-enveloping hug that made me feel so good, so safe and so . . . loved. I could feel his heart slamming against my chest. He smelled like home. Felt so perfect. I hugged him back for all I was worth, feeling his solid muscle, his collarbone against my cheek.

“I better go,” he whispered.

“Okay.” Neither of us let go. For a second, he hugged me that much closer, and every inch of me wanted him.

Then he stepped back, took a shaky breath and said, “Okay. Bye.”

And that was that. A second later, he started up his truck and backed out, and I stood there, watching him leave.

Story of my life.