Just to know somebody cared...to know that somebody loved me...to know I was needed.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jean skirt and shuffled toward the house. Luke’s engine growled as he peeled away from the curb. I could have been hours late, and Dad wouldn’t have known.
“I’m not sure he’s the one for you.” Aires appeared from the open garage and wiped the grease off his hands with a blue rag. Home from the Marines for a short break, Aires once again was messing with his Corvette.
I glanced down at myself, searching for the outward sign that Luke and I had been fighting again. He had cheapened a romantic evening by pressuring me to do it and...well...I said no. “Did Dad take Ashley out again?”
With Aires home, Mom had been around more, and Ashley didn’t like the reminder that we had been a family before she weaseled into our lives.
“Nice abrupt change in subject and yes, Dad took Ashley out.” Aires threw the rag into the garage. “Do I need to beat the hell out of Luke?”
“Everything’s fine—”
“Echo.” Aires cut me off and gestured at his cheek while he stared at mine. “Tear tracks. They taught us to be observant at basic.”
My lips turned down, and moisture pricked the corners of my eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t have to be complicated all the time. Sometimes it can be simple.”
The world felt heavy, and it seemed like I was the only one shouldering the burden. “I don’t think simple exists.”
“It does.” Aires inclined his head to the backyard. “Hear there’s going to be a meteor shower tonight. Want to watch with me?”
Spend the remainder of the night with my brother after my moronic boyfriend broke my heart? I couldn’t imagine anything better. “Are you going to tell your stupid stories again?”
Mom’s stories, but told with so much more flare and zest.
He smiled as he pulled me into a fake headlock. “Don’t hate, Echo. Don’t hate.”
The fire snaps, and it jolts me from the memory, causing me to jump. A burning ember launches into the air and becomes one more light in the night sky. Noah’s arms tighten around me, and his thighs exert pressure against mine. It’s as if he thinks he can squeeze away the pain.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s all good, baby. Sometimes we don’t choose the memories, but they choose us.”
That’s the one thing we understand—becoming lost.
“I’m tired of living in the past.” I’m tired of it dictating my future.
“Mrs. Collins likes going there,” Noah mutters.
She does, but it’s because it’s where Noah and I seem to wallow. “Can we pretend for tonight that we don’t have pasts?”
I warily glance at Noah, and he’s mirroring the same look. “What does that mean?”
It means it’s exhausting being the daughter, the sister, the girl with the scars... “I’m so defined by everyone else’s actions that...that I don’t know. I’m Echo, right? And you’re Noah.”
Raised eyebrow on Noah’s part. “Uh-huh.”
The chains strangling me unlock, and I practically float. I’m heading in the right direction, even though Noah’s convinced that I’ve bought a plane ticket to crazy.
“So I like to paint, and you like architecture, and let’s pretend that none of that has anything to do with our pasts. Like...we’re together because I love you and you love me and there is no other worry in the world.”
Noah gives me an amused grin. “You want us to pretend we’re who we are now. I need to define role-playing for you. If we’re going there, I’ve got a few ideas.”
A strange adrenaline rush of embarrassment and lust overheats my body. “Not role-playing.”
His shoulders shake as he laughs. I lightly smack his arm and settle back into his chest. “You’re impossible.”
“Damn straight.” Noah runs a finger down my arm. “Seriously, I get it. No more heavy stuff for tonight. I can deal with that.”
That’s exactly it, yet not. I scan the camp, and beyond the fires in the distance only total blackness exists. But when the sun shines in the morning, it’ll be a wonderland of sights: the mountains covered in green trees, the flowers creating a palette an artist would die for. Lying in that field today, I forgot my problems, and it felt amazing.
Frogs and crickets perform a symphony, and the smell of the pine wood burning in the flames tickles my nose. Noah and I are a thousand miles away from every push and pull and worry of the real world.
“I wish life could be like this forever,” I say. “We’d be okay then. We’d forever be okay.”
Noah kisses the bend of my neck, and I sharply inhale with the divine sensation.
“I could build you a house,” he whispers. “I thought about it while I watched you paint.”
I suck in the corner of my bottom lip. Is he saying this because he’s simply playing along with the idea that we’re unattached to anyone or anything but each other for the night? “Where?”
He points to where the mountains lie. “Up there. I can see you sitting on our front porch, completely entranced with the land below. You’d have all the inspiration you’d need and never have to leave our home.”
Our home. A thrill circles in my chest. “So I stay home and you...” I drop the statement, curious how he’d answer.
“Stay home with you.” Oh, God, his deep voice vibrates down to my soul.
“One of us has to make money. I’m assuming houses on mountains, especially those in national forests, are pricey.”
With a pop, more embers fly into the sky, and the fire begins to fade. Noah releases me, and cold air rushes to my back. He edges close to the fire and uses a long stick to stir the flames. “Didn’t you know? You bank millions off your paintings, and I run my architecture firm from home.”
My smile spreads from ear to ear, and I love how Noah’s chocolate-brown eyes dance when he peers at me from over his shoulder. I’m especially in love with the game we’re playing. It makes life, as Aires had told me, seem less complicated.
“Will we have pets?” I bite back the question regarding kids. While this might be a fun fantasy, imagining being responsible for something like that is terrifying.
“Sure.” Noah stays near the fire on one bent knee and occasionally pokes it to keep the dwindling flames alive. “I had a dog once.”
“What type?”
“A mix of some sort. Part Lab, part something smaller than Lab. Its paws were too big for its body, so it skidded across the kitchen floor.”
“Is that what you want?”
“If we’re going to live alone on a mountain, we need a guard dog. A German shepherd. Something like that.”
“Guard dog?” Not what I had in mind for the fantasy. “We need something cute and cuddly.” I squish my fingers in the air as if I have the little puff ball in my hands. “It can sleep in our bed.”
“No fucking way, Echo. I’m not sharing my bed with a dog.”
There’s something indescribably titillating about Noah taking this theoretical glimpse into our future so seriously. While I couldn’t care less if a dog sleeps in the bed I’d share with Noah, I can’t help but tease him. “But it’ll be our baby. We can’t let it stay on the cold floor.”
“I’ll buy it a pillow,” he says way too slowly.
I giggle and scoot to the end of the blanket to be near him. Placing my toes behind the heel of my other foot, I kick off my shoes, one after another. Then I peel off my socks and nudge Noah’s butt with my toes.
Noah eyes my foot then flashes a wicked grin. “Trying to tell me something, baby?”
I shrug. Maybe. “So we’ll have a front porch?”
“Wraparound.” Noah falls back to sit beside me and grabs my bar
e feet to put on his lap. “With a porch swing facing the west so we can watch the sunset every night.”
I blink and survey Noah as if it’s the first time I’ve seen him. He’s in the same clothes as when we left: black T-shirt, jeans, black boots. The bottom of the cross tattooed on his biceps peeks out from under his sleeve. The firelight dances across his face, and his hair hangs over his eyes. Noah’s just as beautiful as the time I sat next to him in the school’s main office all those months ago, but the words he just said—those aren’t from the boy that asked me to smoke pot with him the night of Michael Blair’s party.
Noah traces the small bones on the top of my foot, and I’m amazed how the simple touch races up my veins to private areas.
“Um.” Clear thoughts, clear thoughts. “One story? Two?”
“One and a half.” He won’t meet my eyes, and I’m okay with it. He’s permitting me into his typically guarded thoughts. “Rustic cabin style, but with all the amenities. Wide-open floor plan. Living room, large kitchen, stairs up the side that go to the loft that’ll hold our bedroom.”
“You’ve really mulled this over, haven’t you?”
Noah continues to draw his fingers along the top of my toes and stays silent. The fire cracks, and only a dim flame remains. He exhales as if he’s jumping off a cliff. “I’ve already drawn the plans.”
Noah
Echo tilts her head, and her red curls tumble over her shoulder. I love how she looks in the firelight. The flickering flames create a soft glow around her and highlight her green eyes. “You drew plans for a house for me?”
I have a hard time meeting her gaze, so I stare at the red center of the fire. “Yeah.”
“When did you do it?”
I meant to give it to her as a graduation present, but chickened out. “Few weeks ago.”
Echo’s feet rock in my lap. “That’s...”
Pathetic. Stupid.
“...the best thing anyone has ever done for me.”
My eyes snap to hers, and the peaceful smile playing on her lips is all I need. “It’s just a floor plan.”
Echo slides her feet off my lap and sits up on her knees next to me. “Do you have it with you?”
Tell her no. “Yeah.”
I shove a stick at the hot coals at the bottom of the fire, and they dissolve into white ash. A few months back, Echo drew pictures of my parents and she was desperate to stop me when I flipped the page to see what she had done. I thought she was acting stupid for trying to steal the sketch pad from me, but now I understand her anxiety.
“Can I see it?” she asks.
I toss the stick into the flames as the fire is done for the night. “It’s in my pack. Back pocket in a folder.”
Echo jumps to her feet. “Are you coming?”
“Let me put this out, and I’ll join you in a few.” Because if she hates it, I’ll notice, and that would break my fucking heart.
“I can help,” she says.
“I promised you wouldn’t do a thing.”
She angles her body in the direction of the restroom. “It’s not a big deal. I can tote some water from—”
“Gave my word, and you’re going to let me keep it.”
Echo rolls her eyes and ignores my statement as she reaches for an empty water jug. She asked for it. In a swift motion, I bend over and ease her over my shoulder. Echo squeals as her feet dangle near my chest. I unzip the netting of the tent and slip Echo in. Her curls cover her face, and the sound of her laughter soothes my weary soul.
“Stay put.”
Her laughter continues to dance over my skin. “And if I don’t?”
There’s a seductive tease in her voice that causes me to drop my head and moan. I glance over my shoulder, and Echo’s giving me that hooded look. Fuck me. “Then I’ll be forced to kiss you into compliance.”
Her eyes fall to my lips. “Good luck with that.”
Moments like this are how I learned early in the trip to keep two jugs of water nearby. Without responding, I leave the tent and pour water over the dying flames. I then kick enough dirt over it that archeologists won’t be able to find the remains. I’ve got issues with unattended fires.
Echo zips up the inside flap, which means she’s getting ready for bed. A click and the inside of the tent glows like a hot-air balloon. I strain to hear her unzip my pack, but I’ve got no clue if she’s opened it or not.
I stand near the fire pit, occasionally kicking more dirt over it to satisfy that itch beneath my skin.
Echo wanted to pretend that we had no past for the night, and I tell her that I dream of our future. That drawing could freak her out. It could cause her to realize that I’m not playing about the two of us, because I’m not. I need her in my life.
Content the fire’s out, I enter the tent and my breath catches in my throat. Echo sits in the middle of the blankets and pillows. She’s in a black tank top, lace bra and a pair of boy shorts. I’ve seen her in less, I’ve seen her in more, but it’s the first time I’ve been greeted this way this early. It’s not lost on me, that she’s chosen tonight.
In her hands are the plans I designed for our house, and I swear to God there are tears in her eyes.
Her lower lip trembles. “You really aren’t going to leave me, are you?”
Echo
Noah hesitates at the entrance, and his eyes widen. Oh, heck, wrong thing to say. Exact wrong thing to say. In my possession is the most beautiful gift anyone has ever given me, and I’m pushing him.
Oh, holy freaking crap. I’m pushing Noah Hutchins.
Noah Hutchins.
The guy who doesn’t do commitments. The guy who doesn’t fall in love. The guy that somehow broke both those rules and ended up with me, and now I’m being pathetic and saying things like... “I mean, you know, this is a house and you drew it out on a piece of paper, and it looks great and stuff.”
My palms disintegrate from dry to clammy and I worry I’ll smear the pencil marks if I hold the design much longer, but at the same time, I crave to never let go.
Noah zips up the flap, and the two of us are very, very alone. The same tingle from when we enter a hotel room skips through my veins and I shiver.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
I shake my head, but that doesn’t prevent Noah from joining me on top of the mound of blankets, sleeping bags and pillows, and laying an arm around my shoulder. His fingertips slightly graze the bare skin of my shoulder, and I become hyperaware: of him, of his touch, of the paper on the verge of bending in my hands.
“You like it?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” I barely breathe out and stare at the squares on the page again. It’s a layout. More math than art, but in my mind I can see what his logic attempts to tell me. Twelve feet one way, ten feet another, and he’s created a room with indentations that indicate outcrops for floor-to-ceiling windows. “A lot.”
Noah slips the paper from my grasp and places it on top of his pack. My foot begins to sway against the blankets in my own silent, internal rhythm. That feeling that everything is twisted and messed up and that I’ve somehow lost control, and that I’m on the verge of losing everything worthwhile in my life...all of that builds inside me.
“Echo,” Noah says in that deep voice I’ve only heard him use with me. Unable to stop myself, I turn to him. That’s the type of voice someone uses when they’re calling you home.
Noah tilts his head, a sign indicating he’s going to tell the truth. Knowing that the truth more often hurts than helps, I have to fight to keep from closing my eyes. My heart picks up speed. He’s pausing, and if Noah Hutchins does anything it’s full throttle and without fear.
“Echo...I will never leave you.”
The tears that had formed when I looked at Noah’s vision of our future
threaten to return, and I rapidly blink. “Being with you, it’s the only time when the noises stop. When the chaos ends.” Being with him, loving him...is simple. “I love you.”
* * *
My fingers shake as I reach for the bottom of my tank. I’ve never undressed in front of Noah before. He’s taken my clothes off, sometimes with a little assistance on my part. Noah has always been the confident one, and I’ve always been more than happy to let him set our course.
But not tonight. Not now. Not when he’s opened himself up and showed me that this trip isn’t just about me or just about him, but about us. With a deep breath, I gather the material of my tank over my head, and my curls bounce against the bare skin of my shoulders and back.
Noah freezes, sort of like he went into shock. The right side of my mouth twitches. Mark the date, world. I stunned the great Noah Hutchins.
His eyes spark as his gaze dips to my cleavage, and this gives me courage. I shift forward and slip my hands under his shirt, brushing my fingers against the muscles of his abdomen. Noah sharply inhales and, in seconds, his shirt is off and thrown into the corner of the tent.
I love his naked chest, and I decide to play. Biting my bottom lip, hoping to contain the smile, I nudge Noah’s shoulder, indicating for him to lie down. He flashes his wicked grin and reclines back, except he snags his hand around my wrist and tugs me with him.
I laugh as I come face-to-face with him. My body on top of his and when I wiggle, I close my eyes, liking the pleasure of intimate parts touching. My hips squirm and with the movement, Noah immediately kisses my lips while knotting his fingers in my hair.
There’s no subtlety in our kiss. All of the passion, all of the longing, all of the emotion rush out of us like water hurtling toward a cliff. It’s fast and raw and out of control. My mouth opens, and Noah consumes every part of me. He turns his head and with a strong grip on my hair, he urges me to tilt mine so that he can kiss me more deeply.