Chasing Noah: A Look to the Future

02: Baby Mama

"My fans are going crazy over this picture I posted of you yesterday," Noah laughed, tossing me his phone. I was stretched out on a lounger, Lee drooling in his sleep on the lounger next to me. I picked up the phone and inspected the picture, satisfied with how I looked, but also itching to see the comments. Noah read my face and snatched the phone back from me. "They're all talking about how hot you are. I had to delete some comments from guys saying that they were going to crash our wedding."

His smirk made me blush as he leant down to press his lips to my temple. I put my shades back on as Noah joined Rachel further down the beach. Letting myself relax back into the chair, I turned my head to look at a now alert Lee. He had probably woken up when Noah brought up the wedding. He had been acting weird whenever it came up in conversation ever since we got here. Just over a week ago, Noah and I joined the rest of the family at the resort and from that moment, my best friends hadn't said so much as one word to each other. Unless Mrs Flynn forced them to, in which case they mumbled something that we couldn't hear and went their separate ways.

I had tried on more than one occasion to talk to Noah about it, but it seemed like every time that we were alone, he was either whisking me away to some surprise or trying to convince me to do a destination wedding. Each time my response was: 'It's common courtesy to give guests two years notice for a destination wedding. I can't wait that long.' Which was completely true. We had already been engaged over two years. I wasn't going to wait another two to marry this man.

So I had to take matters into my own hands.

"Lee Flynn, what the fuck did you do?"

~~~

"You cheated on her," I whispered, dropping my towel on the ground beside me. Lee and I had wandered back to mine and Noah's room, obviously needing some space to talk. And thank god we had left because if Noah found out what he did to Rachel, he would have turned him inside out. I had to admit, I was having a hard time not doing it myself.

I was still standing in my bathing suit, so I searched through my suitcase for something to throw on. Lee remained silent, leaving me to stew over what he had just told me.

Lee was a good person. He didn't cheat, and he certainly did not hurt a girl like Rachel. They had been through their share of issues, but I didn't think it was nearly bad enough for Lee to be unfaithful to the girl that he loved. After Noah and I went through all that stuff the first year he was away at Harvard, the idea of him cheating on me became a big issue. But we talked and we both agreed that if we ever wanted out of this relationship, we would tell the other. Because neither of us would survive that kind of betrayal.

It made me sick to look at Lee and imagine him doing that to Rachel.

And yet, I had to put all judgment aside because Lee was also my best friend. And he would have only done this if he was hurting or if he wasn't happy. It just sucked that he had done this instead of just talking to someone about how he was feeling, even if it wasn't Rachel.

"You cheated on her," I said again, my mind going a million miles a minute. To be honest, I was still trying to completely understand what this meant. "Does she know?"

I assumed that Rachel knew about all this; that was the only thing that would explain how cold they've been to each other this past week. But if she knew, then what the hell was she doing in Hawaii? If this was me, and Noah had hurt me like this, I would never want to look at his face again. Once again, I was reminded of how strong Rachel truly was.

"Yeah. The girl's from L.A., and Rachel saw a text she sent me..." he trailed off. I could practically see the guilt radiating off of him. He didn't want to hurt Rachel, and he clearly knew that he had made a mistake. There was no point it making him feel worse about it.