“Yeah, we’ll talk then.”
Noel bent over and kissed his cheek. “I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgive you, always. I love you.”
He barely registered the door closing before he passed out. He woke up hours later, his mouth dry and tasting like ass. He grimaced as he blinked his eyes open, the sun streaming in through his open blinds.
“God, what the fuck,” he muttered.
He rolled off the couch and hit the floor hard, groaning as his head thundered like a thousand hoofbeats clippity-clopping across his skull. Something wet and sticky covered the front of his shirt and he took it off, dropping it to the floor.
Nick climbed to his feet and clumsily made his way to the bathroom, where he threw up everything fermented in his stomach. Once he’d rinsed the taste of bad choices and regret out of his mouth, he brushed his teeth and took a shower.
He almost felt like a new man, except for the throbbing headache still dogging him.
Nick gathered up the jeans and shirt he’d fallen asleep in and did a load of laundry. After a quick breakfast, he went back to bed. It was Sunday, anyway. Nothing for him to do except…
Nick woke up in a cold sweat and checked his phone. Nick was supposed to help out at the tree farm this morning. His mom would have his head on a pike.
At a little after two, he rolled up to his parents’ place and snuck in through the back of the tent, hoping to avoid detection.
“Where have you been all day?” Merry teased.
“Sleeping off a nasty hangover.”
“You went drinking last night?” She frowned. “What happened with Noel?”
“She broke up with me.”
Merry slapped her hands on her hips. “What did you do?”
“I should have listened to you.”
“Oh no…did you kiss Amber?”
“God no, of course not. She tried to kiss me and I shoved her off.”
“And Noel saw?”
“No, but I told her. She wasn’t even pissed about that.”
Merry frowned. “What was she mad about then?”
“Me asking her about helping out Amber in the first place.”
“Well, she’s not wrong.”
“Yeah, but I should be allowed to help someone who needs me. That’s being a good neighbor.”
Merry’s eyebrows jumped in disbelief. “Unless it is your crazy, hot ex-girlfriend who picked on your current girlfriend through her adolescence. Then you tell her to fuck off.”
Nick sighed. “Well, I did eventually tell her something along those lines, but it was too late.”
“Aw, don’t stress, big brother.” Merry hugged Nick hard. “Noel will come around. She loves you.”
“Like a friend, you mean?”
“No, I mean that she adores your ass and she’ll show up at your door soon holding a single red rose and say, ‘It’s you.’”
“What?”
“Not your thing? All right, she’ll walk up to you in a crowded place and whisper, ‘I always believed in you…I just didn’t believe in me.’”
Nick blinked at her.
“Oh for the love of Target, never mind! Pop culture is lost on you, my friend!” Merry shook her head. “All I’m trying to say is she’ll show up with some big romantic gesture you won’t understand but still love. You’ll kiss, fall into each other’s arms and live happily ever after.”
“You do understand what reality is, right?”
“Reality TV, yeah. For sure.”
She walked away from him and he dragged ass the rest of the day, avoiding his mother’s watchful eye and managed to get the hell out of there without a lecture. He followed his sisters down to the basement to practice, watching the stairs anxiously for Noel.
Soft footpads sounded on the stairs and his mother popped her head out.
“Hey, Nick. Noel’s feeling under the weather and I was hoping you could drop by a container of my healing chicken noodle soup.”
“Um, sure.” Nick wasn’t sure how Noel would feel about him swinging by her place, especially considering he was ass deep in love with her. He should find a way to stay away from her until his broken heart healed, but they were too intertwined in each other’s lives for that to happen. The Christmas Concert. The guys. Even family gatherings were unavoidable.
He’d planned on leaving the soup on the mat and texting her it was there, but he knocked instead. She answered it wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, only her face sticking out. Her nose and cheeks were flushed and her eyes watery with fever.