He felt good. He felt good enough. Certainly for himself, and maybe even for Kristina.
And given how he’d felt not that many months ago, that was really something.
No, that was everything.
The absolute last thing that Kristina wanted to do was go to a wedding. Any wedding. But especially the wedding of Joshua Cortez.
Because that would mean seeing Noah again. And that would no doubt pick at the very thin scab that had been trying to form over her broken heart.
Kristina hadn’t seen Noah since the night he’d walked out of her apartment. Or, more correctly, since the day she’d asked him to leave. Ten weeks ago. Okay, ten weeks and one day ago, but who was counting?
Still lying in bed, she pulled the covers over her head and wished it was acceptable for a twenty-five-year-old woman to hide from the world that way. But she couldn’t do that to the Cortezes, who had been a surrogate family to her since she’d been a small child. More than that, because of the severity of her father’s mental illness, they’d sometimes been more of a family to her than her own family had the capacity to be.
No way could she skip the wedding of their oldest son.
She faked a pitiful cough.
Nope. That wouldn’t fly either.
“Stay stroganoff, Kris,” she murmured to the empty room. Right. So. Okay.
On a groan, she threw off the covers and climbed out of bed.
Her gaze went right to the long bag hanging on the back of her closet door. Kate had insisted that Kristina needed armor to protect herself from He who shall not be named—Kate’s newest nickname for Noah. Kristina supposed that was a step up from the bastard though possibly a step down from that guy, but either way, her armor of choice was made of crepe de Chine. She removed the bag covering the sleeveless, floral, asymmetrical maxi dress. A teal and yellow print, almost like a watercolor, ran over the white silk. Paired with some gorgeous yellow heels, Kristina felt like a million bucks wearing it.
And she was going to need that feeling to make it through this day. She was sure of it.
As she got ready, Kate sent her a steady stream of funny memes around the theme You can do it.
One read, If Nicolas Cage can still get work, you can do anything!
The next had a picture of a cat staring at itself in a mirror. The caption read, Carl, you’re going to get out there and do it. This time you’re going to catch that red dot.
Another had a particularly sexy picture of Ryan Gosling and said, Hey girl, good luck today. I believe in you. Kristina made that one the background on her phone.
All too soon, she was on her way to the church. Of course, when she wouldn’t have minded a delay, she caught every green light and hit no traffic at all.
Talk about your bad luck.
“Okay,” she murmured to herself, walking up to the church door. “Big girl panties are now on.”
Inside, the usher, a Cortez cousin Kristina knew, led her to one of the front rows with the Cortez family. Noah was nowhere to be seen yet. She distracted herself by skimming over the beautifully engraved program until a murmur passed over the guests. When she looked up, Josh was standing at the top of the aisle. And Noah stood right next to him.
Seeing him again stole her breath and brought rushing forth every single emotion she’d been trying to repress these past months. Love. Sadness. Desire. Grief. Worry.
But mostly love.
Noah found her in the crowd and their gazes collided. Then locked tight. Kristina couldn’t force herself to look away. Seeing him after all this time was like water to a wanderer in the desert. Necessary. Life-giving. Absolutely and utterly undeniable.
The wedding march started, the warm, echoing tones of the pipe organ filling the church. Everyone rose, breaking Kristina’s connection with Noah. Kristina rose, too.
And, oh, Maria was such a beautiful bride. Not just because of the gorgeous beaded gown or the glittering jewelry or the hand-crafted lace on the veil, but because of the amazing joy radiating from her face.
The ceremony itself was a total blur.
Kristina was incapable of paying attention to anything besides Noah. And, holy crap, how he’d changed. He’d picked up weight, and the fine black fabric of the tuxedo jacket fit his noticeably bigger physique like a glove, the cut perfectly accentuating the breadth of his shoulders and the trimness of his waist. His face had filled out, and the dark circles were gone, replaced with a healthy-looking tan that said he’d spent time in the sun.
But it was his eyes where she most saw the change. They weren’t flat anymore. They were bright and full of life.
Silently, she sent up a few words of thanks. Noah was doing better, and Kristina couldn’t have been happier for that. Maybe she could finally let go of her worry, if not any of the other things she felt for him.
Another thought snuck in behind those—he’d gotten better without her. And that probably hurt more than it should.
When the ceremony ended, Kristina didn’t think twice. She cut through the crowd to a side door and made her way to her car. No way in hell was she walking through the receiving line because the best man would undoubtedly be part of it.
Instead, she drove to the hotel where the reception was taking place and waited in the air conditioning of her car until other guests began arriving. Soon, cars poured into the lot and wedding attendees streamed into the hotel lobby, and Kristina finally joined them in the ballroom.
It was a lovely space. Big framed mirrors lined three walls, and the fourth was nearly floor to ceiling windows with occasional doors that opened onto what looked like gardens beyond. Jeweled chandeliers hung from the ceiling and towering floral centerpieces decorated the tables in shades of bright pink and dark orange and golden yellow.
It was beautiful. Magical. A space in which any bride would be happy to celebrate her wedding and the start of a new life with the man she loved. So of course Kristina found herself fighting back tears.
No. There would be no crying here. Armor. Big-girl panties. Ryan Gosling. Right.
Assigned seating placed her at Noah’s parents’ table, and Kristina resolved herself to be normal, to just get through it. At least the wedding party had its own table on a raised dais, which saved her from any chance of having to sit with Noah.
The meal was lovely, and Kristina enjoyed it and the Cortez’s company as much as she could. Kristina smiled and clapped in all the right places. When the couple cut the cake. When Maria smeared icing on Josh’s lips. When Maria and Josh shared their first dance. And when the couple danced with their parents. Each moment was special and joyous, but she didn’t have to ask why each also set off a pang in her chest, just left of center.
Noah.
She tried to keep her eyes from straying his way, but every so often she found herself looking at him up at the head table. He was rugged masculinity personified, and more gorgeous than she even remembered. How that was possible, she didn’t know. But it was true.
It was torture.
The minute they asked all the single ladies to come to the dance floor for the throwing of the bride’s bouquet, Kristina excused herself for the bathroom.
Because. No.
No freaking way.
She hid out in there as long as she thought she could. But it wasn’t long enough. Because when she walked out of the bathroom, she nearly walked right into Noah.
Who was clearly waiting for her.
“Noah,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Kristina. You look amazing. That dress…” He shook his head. “Gorgeous.”
Up close, she could really tell how much bigger he was. God, he was stunning. “You look good, too.”
“Will you take a walk with me?” he asked.
Alone? That seemed like a bad idea. A very very no good terribly bad idea. “Uh…”
“Please?” The vulnerability on his face made him impossible to resist.
“Sure,” she finally said, both because a part of he
r really wanted to, and because there was no sense torturing herself by putting the inevitable reunion off for another minute.
He offered her his arm, and she threaded hers around. She almost sighed when he tucked her arm in close to his side, forcing her to walk even closer to him. And, damn it all, but nearly three months of being apart had done absolutely nothing to quell her desire for him. Touching him rushed heat through her veins, sending her heart flying and her pulse racing.
Noah guided her along the marble-floored hallway that ringed the ballroom and led to a set of glass doors opening onto the gardens. A warm breeze sent her skirt fluttering around her legs as Noah led them to a secluded spot where a white bench sat under a trellis heavy with fragrant lavender wisteria.
The utter romance of the secluded little spot turned her stomach inside out.
A wrapped gift sat on the bench.
“Sit with me?” Noah asked.
“Okay,” she said, her voice shaky as she joined him on the narrow bench. Narrow enough that their thighs touched.
Noah held the deep rectangular box in his hands. Colorful whimsical wrapping paper with a cupcake design covered the gift, and a bright pink bow sat on top.
Anticipation built up inside her. Why had he brought her out here? And what was the present for? When he didn’t say anything else, she fumbled for something to say herself. Their inability to communicate, the one thing she’d always taken for granted, broke another piece of her mangled heart.
“So, um—” she said.
“Kris—” he began at the same time.
They chuckled, the sound awkward and tense. Two words that had never once described them before.
Her shoulders fell. “How are you, Noah?”
He gave a single nod, the clean-cut profile of his face so freaking attractive she had to look away. “Actually, that’s why I brought you out here. Here,” he said, holding out the box. “This is for you.”
For her? The last time he’d given her a present, it had been ice cream. And that had hurt so much that she’d left the cooler sitting untouched on her table until the smell of the long-melted confection necessitated that she throw the whole thing away. “Noah, I don’t think I should—”
“Please, Kristina. It’s not what you think.”
She had no idea what she thought, so she took the box with shaking hands and carefully unwrapped it.
“I wrapped it myself,” he said.
She glanced at him, and found just the hint of a smirk around his lips. “Shut up,” she said. That brought out a little smile. And the echo of their old banter, and all the loss it represented, made her need to look away again.
Layers of white tissue paper filled the box. She set it on the ground, and pulled out the first solid-feeling object. Carefully, Kristina unwrapped it.
What she found in the middle rushed tears to her eyes.
Noah’s mask.
“Oh, God, Noah. It’s…amazing.” And it was. But it was also the most heart-wrenching thing she’d ever seen.
Crisscrossing red slashes marred the left side of the face, and patches of duct tape covered the left eye, left side of the mouth, and wrapped around the left ear. The head on the left side was fragmented and broken, and in three places pieces of the “skull” were missing. He’d secured paper on the underside, and in each of those empty spots he’d written the word, “Gone.”
Instinctively, Kristina grabbed Noah’s hand and pulled it into her lap. She squeezed his fingers so tight she was probably hurting him, but she couldn’t sit there and look at this tortured self-portrait without holding some part of him.
The right side of the face, the side on which Noah retained his sight and hearing, had a smooth surface, but the way he’d done the eye made it appear empty. Cracks from the broken side of the skull stretched across the forehead, thinner on the right side, but drawn as if they were threatening to break apart. The lips were a bluish-red, as if the mask had been deprived of oxygen. On the cheekbone was a small, rectangular tattoo—a black-and-white American flag.
She couldn’t stop staring at the mask and trying to imagine exactly what emotions he felt inside that translated to this.
She clutched his hand against her heart. “I don’t know what to say, Noah. Except that I am honored that you shared this with me.”
A single tear drop escaped her eye. Noah caught it with the fingers of his free hand. “Don’t cry.” He reached in and drew something else out of the box, then handed it to her.
“Oh, God, there’s more?” she asked, having to let his hand go to take the second item. Noah just nodded. She placed the first mask in her lap and began unwrapping.
Another mask.
A significantly different mask.
The slashes still covered the left side, but were much paler, as if they’d faded. The duct tape was gone from the mouth. The skull was broken and cracked as it had been in the first one, but a layer of gauze wrapped around it, as if the wound had been treated.
And was healing.
She heaved a shaky breath.
On the right side, the eye stared pointedly at her, the flatness gone. The lips were a normal, pale red all the way across. The tattoo remained below the eye, but another joined it.
Below the flag sat three block letters: WFC.
What that meant, she didn’t know, but it was obviously important to Noah. Important enough that he saw it as defining him the same way the flag did.
Kristina placed both masks on top of the tissue sitting on her lap and looked at them side by side. Swallowing around the knot of emotion in her throat, she managed, “Both of these are you?”
“Yeah. I started this one the day I told you I didn’t love you,” he said, pointing to the first mask. Kristina’s gaze cut to his face. “I was in such a low place that day, Kristina. Almost the lowest of my life. I was every bit as fucked-up as I said, and I told myself it wouldn’t be right to burden you with that when I was completely sure it would never change. That’s why I pushed you away, and I'm sorry for it. I regret it every single day.”
“Noah—”
“Please let me finish,” he said, his dark eyes serious and intense. She nodded. “My lowest point actually came a week later, after I came to your apartment that night to apologize. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” she whispered, a shiver racing over her skin.
“That next day was the worst day of my life. And, in a way, the best. Because it was the day I decided I had to try to heal, or I would end up killing myself.”
A sob tried to rip up Kristina’s throat, but she forced it down, her breathing audibly catching. She grasped his hand again, wishing she had the power to hold him to this world with the sheer force of her will alone.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her gaze dropping to the first mask.
Fingers gently lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t be. If you’d let me back into your life that night, I might’ve thought I could keep right on doing the same thing. It wasn’t working then, and it never would’ve worked. That’s why I kept falling apart. You saved my life, Kristina. You, and Moses and Mack from the fight club. Hell, you don’t even know about the fight club, do you?”
She shook her head, just glad that he’d found something that’d helped him.
“I’ll tell you. If you want, that is. But, for now, I just need you to know. You pushed me to examine myself and make a choice. And I chose to live, to fight. And that’s what I’ve been doing the past couple of months.”
Sadness and cautious hope rushed through her like a flash flood. The things he’d been going through all this time…
“And…how’s it going?” she asked.
“Good. Slow. I’m a work in progress, of course. But I’ve been working hard, trying to get myself ready to see you today. Two weeks ago, I started on the second mask. Because I wanted you to know.”
“That you’ve changed?”
“Yes, in part,” he said. He gently pulled his hand free,
stood up, and faced her.
One by one, he unbuttoned his dress shirt until he’d created a gap in the middle of the buttons. He pulled the left side open, exposing the absolutely cut muscle of his chest and abdomen.
A new tattoo sat across his heart.
IT ALL
STARTS
WITH YOU
He held out a hand, inviting her to stand. She carefully placed the masks on the bench and accepted his grasp. Noah pulled her closer until he pressed her palm flat over the ink. He held her hand there with his.
“This tattoo is about me, because I had to fix myself before I could do or have or be anything else. But this tattoo is also about you, because you were my reason, my inspiration, my hope against hope.”
Kristina’s heart suddenly thundered inside her chest. Her brain struggled to make sense of everything he was saying. And her heart wasn’t the only one going a little crazy, because beneath her fingers, his drummed out a fast, hard beat. “Hope for what?”
His eyes went almost soft as he peered down at her. “You have every reason to hate me, every reason to want me to stay away. I’m not all better, and maybe I never will be. But if you could forgive me for the way I treated you or, God, I know this is hoping too much, but maybe even think of some way I might get to be a part of your life, even if infrequently, it would mean the world to me—”
“I don’t hate you, Noah. I never hated you,” she rushed out, her mind spinning. “And there’s nothing to forgive. I’m proud of you. So proud of you. It takes a strong, strong person to do what you’ve done. I’m just…” She shook her head, emotion clogging her throat. “…really proud. And, as far as being in my life—”
“I know that I’ve hurt you. After using you and lashing out at you, I wouldn’t disrespect you by hoping for more than friendship now. And God knows I don’t want to do another thing to hurt you—”
Kristina cupped his face in her free hand. “Noah, what are you saying?” she asked, her head and heart a confused, hopeful, scared mess.
He pressed her hand more firmly to his skin. “I just wanted to apologize for the way I treated you. And thank you for your part in helping me get better. And…and to tell you that I lied. I lied that night when I told you I didn’t love you. Jesus, every word out of my mouth during that conversation was a lie, and I’m so damn sorry. But I—”