: Chapter 19

“what about this one?”

Parker looks up from my bed, where he’s scrolling through TikTok, wrinkling his nose at the dress his boyfriend, Vaughn, holds against me. “I don’t like the color.”

“You bought me this for my birthday,” I remark dryly.

“Did I?” His brow knits. “There’s no doubt in my mind that my mother must have picked that out for me. You know I have no eye for this shit. Hence”—he gestures in the general direction of his boyfriend—“I brought backup.”

I huff as I push Vaughn aside to go back to my closet. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”

“Not all queer people have good taste,” Parker snorts. “Don’t put me in a box. We can’t all be Tan France.”

“Oh, he’s got style,” Vaughn says. “I should get you on that show.”

“I’m not straight,” Parker answers. “Clearly.”

“Babe, if it gets you out of Levi’s, I’m willing to be flexible,” his boyfriend laughs.

Parker rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath as Vaughn winks in my direction. He reaches past me then to grab something from the back of my closet. “Oh, this one is nice.”

“I haven’t worn that since college,” I say with a frown. I take the black number from him, giving the plunging neckline a once-over. “I don’t even know if I own a bra that would work with this.”

Vaughn waggles his eyebrows. “You could always just go without.”

“And let her nipples say hello to everyone they pass?” Parker looks at us incredulously. “It’s snowing outside.”

“Please don’t talk about my nipples,” I toss his way before pulling my shirt over my head.

Parker makes a disgruntled sound. “Just because I’m not interested in your goods doesn’t mean I need to see them all the time.”

“You’ve seen me naked a million times,” I laugh. “I assume you view my body as one does abstract art or something.”

Parker cocks an eyebrow. “Did you just refer to your body as art?”

“She’s not wrong,” Vaughn says as he zips me up.

I shoot Parker a smug grin. “At least one of you has taste.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Parker says, clucking his tongue. “She’ll become more insufferable than she already is.”

“You love me,” I say as I blow him a kiss.

Vaughn pushes me out of the closet so I can look myself over in the mirror.

“Oh, I think this is the one,” he says appreciatively as I turn this way and that. “And I really can’t see your nipples with that fabric.”

“Tragedy,” Parker mutters. “Dr. Alpha will be so disappointed.”

“I’ll let him see them after,” I deadpan. “Don’t worry.”

Parker makes a face. “Gross.”

The dress really look good, admittedly. The snug, black fabric clings to my hips in a flattering way and the low neckline paired with the soft curls Vaughn coaxed into my hair give me a really sexy vibe. It’s a far cry from scrubs and white coats, that’s for sure.

I bite my lower lip. “You think he’ll like it?”

“You let the guy cart you off to a sex cabin for days on end, and you’re worried how he’ll like your dress?”

I shoot a glare over my shoulder at Parker. “This is different.”

“You’re going to marry Dr. Alpha, aren’t you?”

My stomach flutters dangerously, and I turn away so that neither of them can see the way my cheeks flush. “It’s not like that. We’re just going on a date.”

“Mhm,” Parker says, sounding unconvinced. “Only you could hook up with the biggest asshole we’ve ever met and turn him into a house husband.”

“Maybe her vagina is magical,” Vaughn muses.

Now making a face. “No talking about my vagina either.”

I give myself another once-over, pressing my hands to my stomach to try and calm the nerves still fluttering around inside. I’ve been on a lot of dates this year alone, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so . . . anxious about one. I can’t even pin down all my feelings on the matter; I think I’m equal parts excited and nervous as hell. Which really is silly, considering all Noah and I have done, but something about tonight feels more real than anything else that’s happened between us.

I have to bite my lip just to keep from smiling at the memory.

Parker’s voice brings me back to the present. “What time is he picking you up?”

“He’s supposed to be here at six.”

“You’re cutting it kind of close, aren’t you?”

“Relax,” I tell him. “No one is ever on time anym—”

The sound of my doorbell makes me jolt. There’s no good reason for me to panic, but I look back at Parker with wide eyes, my gaze flicking from him to Vaughn as I duck to scoop up my shoes. “You guys need to hide.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t want him to know I needed to get ready for a date!” I slip one shoe on, hopping a little. “I’m trying for ‘put together’ here.”

“Clearly, you’re doing a great job,” Parker chuckles.

Vaughn tugs him up from my bed. “Come on, babe. We can hide.”

Parker looks around my small studio apartment.

“Where do you propose we do that?”

Vaughn gestures to the open door on the other side of my bed. “The bathroom?”

“If you think we’re just going to shove ourselves into her bathroom—”

Vaughn tugs his arm again. “Be good, and I’ll make it up to you later.”

I watch my best friend’s face flush pink, from his cheeks to his ears all the way up to his hairline. “Fine,” he mumbles. “We’ll let ourselves out.”

“No sex in my bed,” I chide with a laugh.

“Ugh,” Parker groans. “We’re not going to—”

The doorbell rings again, and I shoo them away as Vaughn pulls Parker into my bathroom. I pat my hair as I take one last look in the mirror hanging off the back of my closet, smoothing my hands down my dress after and telling myself that I have nothing to be nervous about. This is just a normal date, and Noah has already seen of me.

Doesn’t mean my hand isn’t shaking a little when I reach for my doorknob seconds later.

I don’t know what’s more overwhelming, the sight of Noah or the scent of him. His suppressants have been a thing of the past for a while now, and the full blast of his fresh, clean aroma is dizzying in the best way. It rouses memories of his hands on me and his body covering me, and I have to swallow around a growing lump in my throat as I take in his dark jeans and his soft, black sweater that looks suspiciously like cashmere.

“Well.” I flash him a smile as I look between us, noticing how similarly dressed we are. “Clearly, one of us is going to have to change.”

Noah’s eyes traveling down the length of my body feels like an actual weight, feeling every slow inch as if he’s sliding his finger along my skin. “I hope it’s not going to be you,” he says quietly.

A little shiver passes through me, and I hear a soft sound from behind me that sounds a lot like a snort. I grab my coat quickly, stepping out into the hall and closing the door behind me to join Noah. “You look too good in that sweater for it to be you, so I guess we’re going to be couple.”

My heart rate kicks up when I realize what I’ve said; it’s definitely too soon to be calling us an actual or anything, and just saying the words makes that lump in my throat swell a little larger.

Noah seems completely unfazed, though, reaching to thread his fingers through mine before he brings my hand to his mouth to press a kiss against my knuckles.

“I don’t mind,” he says in that same quiet tone.

He tugs me along like we didn’t just have an honest-to-God —and I trail behind him, trying to remember what words are.

I’m afraid that if Noah doesn’t do something annoying—like mention model trains on this date—I might be in real trouble of not minding myself.

“you’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?”

It’s a mild night, for Denver; the temperature is just warm enough that Noah and I are able to walk the sidewalks downtown without shivering in our coats. He’s still holding my hand, something that is definitely new for us, but since I haven’t made any sort of move to extricate my fingers, I have to assume that I like it.

“You’ll see in a second,” Noah chuckles.

“I think now would be a good time to tell you I don’t like surprises,” I grumble.

“Even a good surprise?”

“That’s the thing, how does anyone ever know? Someone says, ‘Oh, it’s a surprise,’ and we’re just supposed to take them at face value that they’re going to, I don’t know, throw us a surprise party instead of stealing our kidney.”

Noah’s eyebrow arches even as his lips twitch. “I have ready access to the tools, I suppose.”

“Wow. You’re just going to admit it, huh? This whole thing was all an elaborate setup to get a kidney,” I tsk. “There’s probably no Albuquerque job. Just some bad guys you got mixed up with in the black market who—”

We come to a halt after rounding a corner, and nestled under a covered pavilion lined with well-manicured shrubbery are several rows of small food trucks, lined up in a square shape with tables put out in the center of everything.

I quirk a brow at Noah, who’s still smiling softly. “Remember when I said I wasn’t a cheap date?”

“I think you’ll make an exception,” he says confidently.

“What is this?”

“Local food-vendor market. They do this every other weekend. All the cuisines are different, but there’s usually a theme for what menus they offer.”

“A theme?”

“Mhm.” I feel his thumb trace across the back of my hand, and I think to myself that I might let him feed me out of the dumpster if he keeps doing that. “Can you guess what tonight’s theme is?”

I’m still distracted by the slow back and forth of his thumb. “Um . . . Taco Tuesday?”

“It’s Friday,” he laughs.

“Just spill. I told you, surprises are bleh.”

Noah tugs my hand again, and I fall into step beside him as he casually tells me, “It’s soup night.”

“You’re fucking joking.”

Noah barks out a laugh, and the sound of it makes my chest feel funny. It might be the first time I’ve ever heard him laugh like that. “I am not.”

“Oh my God.” I might actually be bouncing up and down. “I’m getting one of everything. Can I get one of everything? Do they have mini sizes? I want to try it all.”

Noah looks incredibly pleased with himself, and let’s face it, he should be, pulling my hand to his mouth again to brush his lips across the back in a move that is quickly becoming addictive. “You can get whatever you want.”

“All right,” I warn, trying not to sound as breathless as his innocent kiss makes me feel. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Noah just continues to smile, never letting go of my hand.

there are eleven little cups of soup at our table. Eleven. I should probably be embarrassed by that, but I just can’t find it in myself to feel anything other than giddy excitement. There’s miso, pho, taco, and even some gazpacho I’d been chomping at the bit over—and Noah seems content to let me try each one, taking my overexaggerated moans and delighted sounds in stride as he nurses his own bowl of minestrone and sneaks the occasional bite of something I force him to try.

“I had no idea this was a thing,” I say eventually, after he recounts a difficult stent he put in the day before. “How did I not know this was a thing?”

“It’s fairly new,” Noah tells me, licking his spoon clean in a move that makes me feel too warm. I blame the outdoor heaters they have set up under the pavilion. “They only started doing it a couple of months ago.”

“Careful,” I tease. “That sounds dangerously like fate.”

Noah smiles as he scoops up another bite. “And we know how you feel about that.”

“Hey, just because it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good coincidence.”

“So, you . . . like this?” I look up to catch the nervous flicker in Noah’s gaze, watching him eye me warily as if he’s unsure. “I know you said you weren’t a cheap date, but this just felt like something—”

I reach across our little table to cover his hand with mine—partly to reassure him and partly because I am quickly becoming addicted to the weight of it—giving him what I hope is a reassuring grin.

“I love it,” I tell him earnestly.

Noah’s shoulders look visibly less tense after hearing this. “Good. I would hate to end up as one of your regaling horror stories.”

“Hey, you’ve gone an entire hour without once mentioning the gym or crypto—so I’d say you’re already leagues above any of the other dates I’ve been on this year.”

“Good,” he says again. “I wanted . . .” He peers down into his bowl, looking a little embarrassed. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

That heavy thing in my chest that’s taken up residence ever since our time at the cabin throbs as if to make sure I haven’t forgotten about it, and I take a second to appreciate just how Noah is—something I never thought I’d be thinking when it came to the Boogeyman of Denver General. But he is, I decide. And not only on the outside. It scares the hell out of me, but it also makes me feel warm in a way I never have before.

“It is,” I tell him. “It’s perfect.”

His smile is slow and shy, and on someone his size, it should look ridiculous. Instead, it makes my stomach flutter. I have to break eye contact before my heart beats out of my chest, focusing on the French onion I’m currently working on to distract myself.

“Does any of this feel weird to you?”

Noah cocks his head slightly. “How do you mean?”

“It’s just . . .” I stir my spoon aimlessly, still not looking at him. “I mean, with the whole arrangement we made, and then after all the things we’ve done . . .” I do look up then when the scent of him suddenly thickens, and I can see a flash in his gaze that tells me that at this very second he’s thinking about of the things we’ve done. It makes me press my thighs together a little tighter under the table. “I just worry that this is all going to blow up in our faces.”

Noah doesn’t answer for a moment, looking thoughtful. Then he clears his throat. “I suppose in some ways, it is weird.”

“Oh.” I feel myself deflate a little. “Right.”

“But,” he adds quickly, letting his fingers slide against my open palm until his middle finger can trace barely-there circles on my wrist. “I’m finding I like a little weird.”

My lips curl in a grin. “Yeah?”

“Mackenzie, I—” He looks mildly embarrassed again, but he manages to hold my gaze. “I’m finding there isn’t much I like where you’re involved.”

That hot, weighted thing inside me might as well be ballooning to fill up all the nooks and crannies of my chest now, and it feels dangerous, allowing myself to bask in it, to take even a moment to revel in the sensation. Maybe it is dangerous, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it, anyway.

“Same,” I say lamely. “I mean—you too.”

His smile really should be illegal, I think idly. I’m almost grateful that he only seems to bring it out when he’s around me; if everyone else knew how good he looks when he smiles, I might have some healthy competition gunning for me.

“I was thinking,” Noah says, breaking through my pathetic thoughts. “We’re both off this weekend.”

My pulse picks up. “Yeah?”

“It’s just . . . last weekend.” He clears his throat. “We didn’t have a lot of time to just . . . be, I guess.”

Images flash through my mind, ones of me begging and him thoroughly giving. I press my thighs a little tighter against each other. “We didn’t.”

“I was just thinking . . . If you wanted, that is. No pressure if you don’t, but I was considering how much closer my place is to downtown, and I thought that if you didn’t have plans—which you might, and that’s completely okay—but if you didn’t, I thought—”

A giant of a man who looks like he does and smells like he does should not be this when he’s floundering. “Spit it out, Noah.”

“You could spend the weekend at my place,” he says in a rush. “If you wanted. Just to . . . spend some more time together. See what’s here.”

“It almost sounds like you’re trying to lock me in your bedroom and have your way with me,” I tease.

His eyes darken slightly, his throat bobbing with a swallow. “Among other things,” he tells me slowly, looking half-surprised that he’s said the words. “But . . . I just wanted to spend more time with you.”

My chest might actually burst with the way it continues to swell. I have to bring my bowl to my mouth and sip down the last bits of my soup just to hide the giddy grin on my face, collecting myself for a moment before setting it back on the table and lifting one shoulder in a shrug.

“I’m game if you are,” I tell him, showing much less excitement than I’m feeling in some last-ditch effort to play it cool.

Noah looks relieved, his lips rolling as he wets them and drawing my eye to the movement. At this moment, I can almost imagine myself chucking every last bit of the soup still waiting for me to try in the nearby garbage can just so I can get out of here faster and back to Noah’s bedroom.

I realize then that I might be in real trouble.