Rare - Briar Prescott Page 0,26
all those hot dogs and popcorn and Gladys’s cookies are always the size of plates.” He chuckled. “Sorry. Stupid suggestion. I guess we better—”
“I could eat,” Alex interrupted. Noah raised his brows at him as if to ask, “Really?” so Alex backtracked a bit. “Maybe not a whole roast or anything, but I could go for an ice cream. Or, I don’t know, pie or something.”
He didn’t care, really. Alex was pretty sure he couldn’t eat another bite, but Noah asking him could only mean one thing—that Noah didn’t want the afternoon to end yet. So if Alex had to stuff down some ice cream in order to spend more time with Noah, he’d totally do it.
Noah looked relieved at Alex’s enthusiasm. “Great! Umm, there’s a café just off the main street. They have homemade ice cream.”
“Lead the way,” Alex said.
They headed away from the high school, and it took them only about five minutes to reach the center of the town. Alex had to admit, in the daylight, with tourists milling around and colorful pots of flowers hanging on the lampposts, Riverton looked downright idyllic.
“So how long have you lived here?” Alex asked Noah after they’d placed their orders and had sat down with their ice cream cones in hand. The back of the little café had a garden of sorts with a couple of benches and chairs for the customers, so that was where they’d ended up.
Alex tried to concentrate on anything else than the way Noah licked his ice cream, but no matter how hard Alex tried, his thoughts were anything but platonic.
Noah bit the edge of the cone and chewed thoughtfully. “About seven years, I think? We used to live in Seattle.”
That was definitely surprising. Alex had figured Noah for a small-town boy, through and through. Noah seemed to read Alex’s mind by the way his lips twitched. “Surprised?”
“Kind of. That must have been some change. No offense, this place looks nice enough and all, but I couldn’t imagine moving here from Seattle.”
“Well, my dad died, and we have family in the area, so I guess Mom thought it’d be easier. It probably was, too. My grandparents were here to help. My mom’s a scientist. She studies ancient languages. Translates texts from ancient Greek and Latin. She mostly works from home, but from time to time she travels to give guest lectures and such, so she needed somebody to look after me, and Gran and Pops live right next door. Plus, both my grandparents are retired college professors, so they took on a big chunk of my homeschooling duties.”
Alex winced. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“It was a long time ago.” There was a faraway look in Noah’s eyes, like he was remembering the man. “I did something stupid after,” he continued after a few seconds. Noah threw Alex sideway glances every once in a while, like he was not entirely sure if he should be telling this to Alex. “My mom got all overprotective after Dad died, plus, there was all this tension between the two of us. My dad was always the peacekeeper of the family, and with him gone… Anyway, things happened, and I snuck out one day. I don’t even remember what I was planning to do. Probably buy candy or something stupid like that. Long story short, I got mugged. It was the classic wrong place, wrong time scenario, but I got shoved around a bit, which scared the crap out of Mom, so she relocated us.”
It was stupid to feel freaked-out about an incident that had happened about a decade ago, but Alex definitely felt hollow for a moment there. He wasn’t even going try and explain it to himself. He was starting to think that the way he felt around Noah had very little to do with logic.
“Do you miss it?”
Noah shrugged before he nodded. “It’s hard to explain. I guess I miss the independence I would have had there. Here, everybody knows everybody, so it kind of feels like my every move is monitored.” He blew out a breath. “It’s stupid. I’ve imagined this life for myself that I would have had somewhere else, and I regret that I don’t have a chance to live it. And it’s not like it even matters. I’d probably have the same life in Seattle.” Noah shook his head and let out a self-deprecating snort of laughter. “I don’t know why I’m telling this to you.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to say things to a