Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,100
have a lot to tell her. After he kissed the shit out of her and begged for forgiveness, of course.
But the woman who appeared in the doorframe was not Alexis.
Noah’s mouth dropped open. “Mom?”
“Good,” she said, hands on her hips. “You’re not dead.”
Mack winced. “Sorry, Mrs. Logan. We should’ve texted you again to let you know he was breathing.”
Noah gaped at him. “You called my mother?”
“Dude, you looked really fucking pathetic. We were afraid this was going to be a bigger job than we could handle on our own.”
“You were right,” his mom said. “Will one of you go out to my car and bring in all the food I brought and also my suitcase?”
“Suitcase?” Noah dragged his hand down his face. “Mom, I’m fine. The guys are morons. You didn’t have to come.”
“I got it, Mrs. Logan,” Colton said. He winked for good measure, but it had little effect on her. She rolled her eyes instead.
“The rest of you make yourselves scarce for a few minutes. I need to talk to my son.”
Nothing could make a man of any age move faster than that tone of voice from a mother. The guys vacated the room in five seconds flat.
“Have you been icing your cheek?” she asked, crossing the room to stand in front of him. She didn’t give him time to answer. “Of course you haven’t.”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, jumping over his words like he hadn’t even spoken them. “We’re going to get you cleaned up, get some food into you, and then you’re going to tell me the truth about Alexis. And then we’re going to figure out how to fix it.”
He’d be lying if he said his chest didn’t flood with warm relief at her words, her presence, and her unmitigated confidence that he could be redeemed. Sometimes a man still needed his mother. This was one of those times. Didn’t make it any less embarrassing, though.
She smiled and cupped her hands around his jaw. “You’re so much like him, you know.”
“Like who?” If she said Marsh, he was going to throw himself into traffic.
“Your father.” Her hands smoothed over his unruly hair. “So tough on the outside, but inside you’re nothing but gooey goodness.”
A snort of laughter from the hallway was followed quickly by the sound of a fist hitting an arm. Followed immediately by a heavily accented, “Ow, why you hit me?”
Noah pinched his nose.
“He was so, so proud of you,” she continued. “He used to watch you doing your homework and just shake his head. He’d always say, How did a guy like me create a brain like that? You were the light of his life.”
Pressure began to build in Noah’s chest again. “Mom, I—I miss him.”
Her face softened into a smile that spoke of regret but also hope. “I know you do.”
“I’m afraid I’m forgetting him.”
“Oh, Noah . . .”
“I don’t remember what we did the day before he deployed the last time. I don’t remember what we said to each other when he left. I don’t remember . . . I don’t even remember the sound of his voice some days. I’ve wasted so much time being mad and never dealing with the anger that I’ve started to forget the good things, the things that mattered.”
“You haven’t forgotten. It’s all still right here.” She rested her hand over his heart. “You just have to clear away all that bad stuff to let the good stuff out.”
This time, the noise from the hallway was an unmistakable sniffle.
His mother smiled. “You have some very good friends.”
“They have their moments, but right now I kind of want to hurt them.”
She patted his chest. “Let’s get some food into you to soak up that whiskey.”
He watched her walk toward the hallway. “Mom?”
She turned.
“About Marsh.”
“What about him?”
“You should call him. He was pretty devastated when you kicked him out.”
His mom tilted her head quizzically. “Are you defending him?”
“I think I finally understand him.” He suddenly understood a lot. Like how wrong he’d been when reading that damn book. All along, he couldn’t relate to AJ because Noah thought he was too much like Elliott. A selfish asshole who abandoned his kid. But he’d been reading the story all wrong. Elliott wasn’t AJ. Noah was. A scared, broken man who was so terrified of losing the things that mattered to him that he instead lashed out and pushed those things away. He’d been trying to make up for his past mistakes with