Noah (8 page)

“Yeah?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath but the words that came out were not what she wanted to say. “Be careful.”

“Okay. You, too. Stay out of the rain. It’s bad out there.”

She hung up feeling like the biggest coward and
as the temperature dipped even lower, she
called Nellie.

“Hey,” Nellie was sounding more and more cheerful these days.

She and Rick were speaking more now. Though she still hadn’t decided what she was going to do about the marriage, she wasn’t nearly as depressed as she’d been when it first happened.

After asking her about
how
she’d been doing and Nellie filling her in on her latest conversation with Rick, which didn’t offer anything new, she got to her real reason for call
ing
.
She’d already told her about the awkward way she found out how much younger
Noah
was. Nellie didn’t seem to agree
with
Veronica
about how inappropriate it would be to do anything social with him out of the gym.

“
Veronica
,
you act like you’ve never had lunch or gone to a movie with
a
male friend
,
” had been Nellie’s response to
Veronica
’s mortification over having invited an
nineteen
-year-old to have a drink with her.

Ever since Nellie had assured and reassured
Veronica
that continuing her workouts with him was perfectly acceptable. Only Nellie couldn’t know because
Veronica
had
yet to admit it
even
to herself that she enjoyed her time around
Noah
a little too much. She was sure it was nothing more than loneliness and right now, he was hands down the best
and
only company she could count on, on a nightly basis. With nothing else going on in her life how could she
not
look forward to seeing him?

“I didn’t work out today.”

“Why?” Nellie knew she hadn’t missed a day since she’d gone back and she was more than ecstatic about the amount of weight
Veronica
had already
lost.

“
Noah
wasn’t there yesterday and he just called to tell me
he
wouldn’t be again. I would’ve gone in anyway but the storm is so bad I figured why chance it
?
Maybe I’ll work out a little here at home instead.”

“Why hasn’t he been there?”

Veronica
was counting on her asking that. “His roof is all messed up and he’s spent the last few days working on it. He’s sleeping at the gym until his roof is fixed, but with the storm not letting up that m
ight
take some time.”

“The gym?” Nellie sounded as incredulous as she felt when she first heard about it.

“Yeah, I guess he has no place else to stay.”

“Is that place even heated? It’s been freezing these last couple of nights.”

Veronica
felt her stomach knot up as she walked by one of the extra rooms in her
heated
h
om
e with the comfortable bed
.
“No, it’s not. But he said he’d take extra blankets.”

“Oh man
,
that’s gotta be brutal. Poor guy.”

“I know right?”

“Yeah, doesn’t he have family he can stay with?”

And the knot grew even bigger, making
Veronica
chew her nail in indecision. “No, I don’t think he does. He mentioned having foster parents once but I’m guessing he’s too old to have any now. Nel…” God, she couldn’t even bring herself to say it.

“What?”

“I uh… was thinking of asking him if he would want to stay in one of the extra rooms here
at
my place…you know just until his roof is fixed
. Y
ou think that would be too weird?”

Nellie was quiet for a moment, and
Veronica
almost wished she’d say yes. It would make her feel so much better, that she was in this big warm house with extra rooms but it would be just too inappropriate for her to even offer. “I don’t think so
,
Veronica
. They say it’s only supposed to get colder in the next week. I mean if he thinks it’s weird
,
he can just say no right? It’s not like you’re offering
your
bed, he’d have his own private bedroom.”

Just the thought of her offering him her bed heated her face. “It’s too late tonight. Maybe I’ll mention
it
tomorrow when he calls. He’s supposed to call to let me know
if he’s
going to make it to the gym or not.
”

Nellie agreed and it was settled. She’d mention it to him the next time she spoke to him. 

That night she hardly slept. Every bolt of lightning that lit up her room, followed by the thunder that shook her windows made her feel worse and worse. Even with her heater on a timer, there were moments when she shivered under her blankets.

The next day she
chided
herself all day. There was no way she’d back down from bringing it up that evening when he called. The worst thing that could happen
(
and maybe it’d be a good thing
)
was
he’d pass on her offer. But at least then she’d have a clear consci
ence
and she’d be able to sleep.
Y
awn
ing
most of the day because of the lack of sleep she’d gotten
,
gave her
all the more reason she had to
at least make the
offer. She
wasn’t going
through
another night like last night
again.

When her phone finally rang early that evening, her heart jumped to her throat. She took a deep breath before answering and felt that familiar stir in her belly when she heard his voice again. “
Veronica
?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll be there tonight.”

Feeling a tiny bit of disappointment she asked, “Oh, did you get your roof fixed?”

“No. I decided to just wait until these storms pass. This one is supposed to be done by the end of the week but there’s another one blowing in next week. I’m just gonna have to wait it out. Even once the storm
s let up
it’ll be a while before I can go back there. So I figure I may as well keep working. Lord knows I’m gonna need the money.”

“Oh.”

This changed things. When she first considered having him stay at her place, she thought it would be for just a few nights. That alone was nerve wracking
but now he was talking
over
a week, maybe more. “Okay so I might be a little late. I didn’t think you’d be going in. I need to get ready.”

She hoped he didn’t put too much thought into the fact that she hadn’t planned on going in unless he was there. Tonight was about as rainy as Monday had been when she happily drove there
in the
rain and all for her workout—with him.
T
hinking
that
he w
ouldn’t be there
tonight
s
he just hadn’t
felt like going in tonight
.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, this was beginning to feel dangerously close to a crush—a crush on her much younger trainer—just another reason why she really should think through offering her place up to him.

Immediately after hanging up with him she called Nellie. She explained how the situation had changed and again waited for Nellie to discourage her from doing it.
O
f
course,
she did just the opposite. “Wow. I feel so bad for him. Fixing a bad roof is no easy feat and this is just the beginning of winter. Maybe you can offer to rent the room out to him, since it’s possible he’ll be there a while.”  

Feeling her insides tighten,
Veronica
took a deep breath. “I don’t know about all that, Nellie. I wasn’t looking for a roommate. I just felt bad for him.”

“You
should
feel bad for him. Winter just started and he’s homeless.”

Leave it to Nellie
make it
sound so terrible. “Well, when you
put it
like that, Nel. Geez.”

She heard Nellie giggle. “Just think. You’ll have a new roomie
in time
for the holidays.”

Veronica
rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t said yes yet.”

“Oh
,
I think he will.” Nellie sounded too pleased. If
Veronica
didn’t know any better she was probably relieved that just maybe
Veronica
wouldn’t be alone
during
the first holiday season since her mom died. Not that last year had been very pleasant with her mom
so sick.

She’d already been so incredibly nervous about bringing up her offer to
Noah
over the phone. Now not only would she be offering him a place to stay in his time of need, she was practically asking him to move in with her and she’d
be
doing it in person.
Super
!

There was something about
Veronica
tonight.
Noah
couldn’t put a finger on it but she was acting a little different
ly
. After all this time training her, they’d finally met a happy medium. The first few days after his age
revelation
had been a little weird but they’d gotten past it.

He still couldn’t get over how good she sounded on the phone. He’d
been struck by
her voice from day one, but hearing her over the phone had been something else. When she walked in
tonight,
his hear
t
had taken on a different beat. It was crazy. It had only been two days since he’d last seen her but he actually thought he might’ve missed her. If he hadn’t been so busy moving all his soggy shit out of that garage and trying to patch the roof up in the
pour
ing rain maybe he would’ve noticed more. 

She was a little too thoughtful tonight. A few times, he had to ask her the same thing twice because she
’d been
so
preoccupied
.

Done with her run on the treadmill she stood off to the side
,
draining her bottled water into her mouth. This had
become
one of his favorite moments of her workout. The way she sucked that bottle with such thirst could make a grown man blush. He watched and enjoyed until she was done.

She’d lost close to thirty
-
five pounds now and they
’d
started
working on toning
—her arms—her legs. Her stomach was nearly flat and she’d soon be sporting a six pack
if she kept this up. He actually hoped she didn’t lose much more. The curves on her were one of the first things he noticed
most
when she finally showed up wearing something that allowed him to see what she’d been hiding under all those layers of sweats. He’d hardly been able to contain himself and he was pretty sure she caught him gaping a few times. He’d since learned to be more discreet
, but there’d been too many times, especially when she bent over to stretch that she’d awakened certain parts of his body and he’d had to excuse himself to
cool down
.

While watching
Veronica
drain water bottle
s
was one of his favorite
parts
of her
workout,
it was also bittersweet. It meant they were done for the night. Working her out had slowly become the highlight
of his day. He didn’t even realize it until he missed their workout session last night. He’d planned on missing it all week but after his day was over last night and he lay on the air mattress
instead of
thinking about the chaos going on in his life all he could think of
was
hearing
Veronica
’s voice on the phone and how much he regretted having missed their workout.