Sapphire

Chapter 25

Noah was gonna kiss her.

If she hadn't said that bullshit about not being scared, he probably would have done it. Angrily, too.

Good thing he didn't. This was Shay we were talking about, for fuck's sake. Yeah, she was hot now but that meant nothing.

Frustrated, Noah stormed downstairs to the kitchen, where Val was standing at the counter. She held a blue mug of steaming coffee in her hand and had just put the glass to her lips when she saw him come in. Dropping her arm again, she furrowed her perfectly groomed brows in concern.

"Is Shay upstairs?" Val inquired.

Noah pursed his lips and nodded, still making a beeline for the underground room. He pushed the button after Val stood back from the counter and waited for it to move.

"What happened between you two?"

Nothing. Honestly, nothing happened. She left, she came back, and now here they were. Sometimes, Noah didn't even know why he was mad. He just was.

"She's just different, that's all." He said instead. Then he stormed downstairs and closed the hatch behind him.

Stripping off his T-shirt, he went to the rack full of weights. Grabbing two fifty pound dumbbells, he started a round of bicep curls. He only glanced briefly at his reflection, realizing that he had lost some muscle since Shay had come back. He still had a six pack and thick arms, but he saw a tiny bit of body fat on his lower stomach that hadn't been there in years.

"Hey." Noah turned to see Summer at the landing of the stairs, making her way over to him with a half smile on her face. "Val told me you were down here."

"Yep."

"Want a sparring partner?" Summer offered. "It might help."

"I'm fine."

"Val's not gonna give you a mission if you stay this angry." Summer crossed her arms in front of her small chest, looking at him like a mother trying to stop a her child from throwing a tantrum.

Noah heaved a sigh and dropped the weights back on the rack. "Fine."

After throwing on gloves and getting into the ring, Noah thought back to how he was when Shay first left. Summer was there for that, too, coming down here with him whenever he had a moment of weakness. Val put him on leave cause he was too 'emotional', and for the longest time, he denied that Shay's disappearance had anything to do with it. She wasn't the reason he went back to the streets, looking for fights. She wasn't the reason he ran himself into the ground, not stopping until both of his feet were bleeding and raw. She wasn't the reason he closed himself off, too angry and heartbroken to talk to anyone.

Admitting she had anything to do with it would be admitting that he cared about her. And that was never going to happen.

She already left once. Who's to say it won't happen again?

***

The library was the same as she remembered it. Full of books, quiet, and as far from the rest of the house as could be. The same grey couch sat in the middle with square tables on either side. Stacks of dusty hardcovers sat on every available surface, cluttering the room that was apparently never used. She picked up a book from one of the side tables, wiping the thin layer of sediment off of the cover before thumbing through the pages. Then she turned to the shelves, looking for one of her favorite authors.

Picking up a book by Tom Clancy, she sat on the couch and started reading.

She stayed there until her rumbling stomach distracted her enough to leave the world she was immersed with and take care of one of her most basic needs. The thing with reading was that it's easy to get lost, forgetting about food, your to-do list, or anything of else of importance. Maybe that's why she liked it so much.