It was all I could do not to throw myself against his chest and sob.
He took his phone out. “Can I show you some pictures?”
“Sure.”
He opened his gallery and showed me a middle-aged couple. “These are my parents. You may not know this, but I’d cut off contact with them. I had dinner with them three days ago. It went better than I’d expected. Someone I adore told me that I should give people second chances, so I decided to start there. I think I’m going to try and find a way for them to be in my life.”
I couldn’t believe that had happened. I’d never thought Noah would try to repair things with his parents, but I was so glad that he had, because I knew he’d missed them.
The next one was of a fence being put up around his house. “My neighbor Gladys told me that she was going to let me have a fence for my yard. My dog tends to run away, and now I won’t have to worry. She told me that I would be, and I quote, ‘a doddering fool’ if I didn’t fix things with the woman I love. That my girlfriend was the only reason she was doing any of this and that I needed to man up and make things right.”
Gladys was the absolute best, and she was getting free dog grooming for the rest of her life. I was also going to buy Sunshine a dozen teddy bears.
The picture he showed me next was him with a mother and daughter. “Reina set up a quick charity auction, and I agreed to take a picture with the highest bidder. It’s not how I want my charity to grow, but a very smart woman told me to stop being so precious about this fame thing and use it to help other people.”
My heart swelled at the idea that he had taken my words to heart that way and was going to help a lot more people moving forward.
The next screen showed a guy in his midtwenties with a buzz cut and in combat fatigues. “This is Ferguson. He’s my other battle buddy, and he and I talked recently because I was having some issues in my love life. He told me I was stupid to throw away the only real happiness I’ve ever known. That I tended toward the dramatic and could be oversensitive. And that as my friend, while I had a right to my feelings, he thought I was overreacting and was a total idiot. That I had been given multiple do-overs in my life and I should do the same for the woman I love. That the army had trained me to fight for the things I believed in and cared about.”
I was going to name my firstborn child after Ferguson. After I found out his first name.
The next picture was of a house surrounded by greenery. “I bought this ranch just outside town. It won’t be much more of a commute than I’m doing now. It means I don’t really need the fence at my old house, but this one sits on twenty acres. It has a barn and a lot of pens. It’s the perfect place for an animal rescue, don’t you think? If I can find someone who would want to marry me and live there with me. And have babies, both the fur and human kind.”
Joy engulfed my heart. “Oh, Noah.” I was choked up, and my chin was trembling. That was my dream. He had bought my dream.
He put his phone down. “Juliet, I told you I’d always have your back, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to throw my arms around his neck, but it was difficult to reach him with this armrest between us. “You have nothing to apologize for. I know why you were upset. You were protecting yourself.”
He leaned in to kiss me on the tip of my nose, in that way that I now recognized as a signal to me of how much he cared. “I should have been protecting you. I promise you that I’ll try not to fall into that overly-sensitive-artist stereotype and will talk to you about everything. I will always give you the benefit of the doubt, because I know how much you love me. You’re my whole world and it’s like . . . everything is just gray without you.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I swear I won’t ever