“When did you stop thinking it would always be me and you?” she clarified. He gazed at her, thoughtful, his lips pursed, his eyes solemn.
“Maybe . . . I never did,” he confessed. “I just assumed you would always be there. I’ve taken you for granted, haven’t I?”
“That’s what friends are for. Taking each other for granted and not keeping score,” she said, trying not to cry all over again.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Exactly. And do you know what a gift that is? To feel so safe and so certain of a person that you are able—able—to take them for granted? Most people go their whole lives afraid to be who they are, afraid to be real and vulnerable and human, because they are sure the people they care about will walk away. And that fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In an effort to be perfect, to be loved, they hold it all in. And when they finally lose control—as they inevitably will—they self-destruct. They overdose. They cut themselves. They lash out and physically hurt someone else. Their response is magnified a hundred times because they are dealing with a well of suppressed reactions.”
“You sound like a psychologist,” she whispered, teasing, trying to release some of the pressure on her heart and failing miserably.
“That’s because I am one. But right now, I’m not speaking as Dr. Andelin. I’m Noah, Mer’s best friend, and you need to listen to me.”
She nodded, and he took a deep breath.
“I never feel that way with you. I never feel like I’m holding it all in, and that when you discover the real Noah you’ll cut me out of your life. You know me. I know you. There’s always been a place in my heart that was exclusively yours. A small, private corner . . . all yours. You’ve never let me down, Mer. Never. You’re right. You have been my safe place. My constant. All my life, you’ve cultivated and cared for that little part, that little piece of me that was yours. And I think—I hope—I’ve done the same for you. For more than twenty years, Noah and Mercedes—our friendship—has endured.”
“Things are different now,” she said, aching.
“Yes. They are,” he breathed, and he lifted her chin, pressing his forehead to hers. “If I kiss you, will I lose you?” he whispered, and she groaned, inexplicably angry.
“Why are you asking me? Why don’t you just take what you want? Why don’t you just kiss me? Why do I have to give you permission and guarantees and sign a freaking form before you—” Her rant was swept aside by the brush of his lips. He was gentle and tentative, holding her face in his hands, pulling her shuddering breath into his throat, and giving it back to her. For several heartbeats, his mouth moved with hers, no urgency, no pressure, no pain.
In the sweetness of his kiss she remembered the boy he’d been, the girl she’d been, and the tears and the years began to flood her mind and spill from her eyes. His kiss was an extension of the man—kind and careful, giving without thought of gain, and she gloried in the sensation, even as her heart raged, wanting more from him. She had always wanted more from him, and it was time she admitted it. It was time she took it.
“You’re crying again. Why are you crying, Mer?” he murmured against her mouth, and she could taste his frustration. She liked the flavor. It was sharp and tangy, and she licked his lower lip, tugging it between her teeth, hungry for it. She wrapped her hands in his lapels and jerked him against her, desperate to make him understand.
His response was immediate, burying his hands in her hair and taking her darting tongue into his mouth like he’d been waiting all day to taste her. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her up and into his body until her feet left the ground and her heart was pressed against his, beating in perfect time. The roof of her mouth tingled, her breasts swelled, and her lips grew deliciously raw from the scrape of his beard and the fervor of his response. He kissed her like he wanted more too. He kissed her like it wasn’t enough to just hold her anymore, like it wasn’t enough to just laugh anymore, to just talk anymore, to just be friends anymore. And it gave her courage.
She freed her mouth and braced her hands on either side of his face, breathless, but needing to confess her feelings before her nerve failed her.
“I haven’t pushed you away. I’ve been holding on for dear life! I don’t know how to show you how I feel. I don’t know how to tell you that I need you. That I want you. That I want you to want me. I don’t want to just be your best friend anymore, Noah. I want to be your lover. Your partner. I want it all. Not the small part or the private corner. I want the whole damn thing, all of you. And I want to give you all of me.”
“Thank God,” he breathed, his eyes clinging to hers. Then he was kissing her again, whispering against her lips. “How long? How long have you felt this way?”
“All of my life,” she answered, each word punctuated with a press of her lips. Noah drew back, surprised.
“Come on, Mer,” he scoffed. “You were interested in every guy but me.”
“That’s funny, Noah. Very funny. I was never interested in anyone else but you.”
He didn’t gasp, but she felt it. She felt his disbelief, his surprise. And his eyes screamed his skepticism. She pushed against his shoulders, and he set her on her feet.
“You were my Noah. Mine.” She thumped her chest, so adamant that he reached out to steady her as she wobbled on her too-tall heels. “You were my best friend. And I wasn’t going to mess us up. You were the most important part of my life, and I was my best self when I was with you. But Cora loved you too . . . and when I held back, she stepped forward. She staked her claim. So I shut it off—all those feelings—and I locked them up tight.”
“Before I left for basic training, I tried to tell you how I felt. I tried to show you how I felt. But you . . . you didn’t act like you wanted the same thing,” Noah stammered, still disbelieving.
“I never wanted anyone else, Noah. But you loved me because I was strong. I was steady. And having your love and your affection was too important to ruin it with sex and jealousy and childish love triangles. I knew that if I gave up all claim on your body, I could keep your heart. That was the part that mattered most to me.”
His eyes were bright, and he swallowed like the words in his throat were too big to say. He hugged her fiercely, lifting her off her feet once more, the way he always had, the way she hoped he always would. “You are so wise. How did you get to be so wise?” he whispered.
“I’m an idiot,” she whispered back. “And a coward. I have been so afraid to lose you that I almost let you go. Again.”
“You are the smartest woman I know. The very best woman I know. And I do love you because you’re strong and you’re steady. But those aren’t the only reasons. Those were never the only reasons.”
He brushed his lips over hers, convincing and caressing, and her eyes fluttered closed.
“Mer?”
“Yeah?” She didn’t want to talk anymore. She wanted to kiss him.
“I didn’t have a date. I lied. I was trying to make you jealous.”
“What?” she gasped, but his mouth returned, kissing her with all the frantic devotion she was feeling, and she forgave him immediately.
“Do you love me, Noah?” she panted.
“You know I do,” he murmured against her mouth.
Frustrated laughter bubbled up from her chest, and she pinched him, pulling back slightly so she could clarify.
“Are you in love with me, Noah?”
“I’m in love with you, Mer. Madly. Deeply. Head over heels in love with you.”
“I’m in love with you too,” she whispered, freed. Ebullient. “I always have been. I always will be.”
Epilogue
Loving Mercedes wasn’t like falling off a cliff. It wasn’t even the heart-clench of a missed step. It wasn’t a jerk or a jostle. It wasn’t tripping or tumbling at all. It was the slow climb of a lifetime of moments, the line upon line, day after day kind of love. And it was deeper and more durable for it. You would think with a love like that there wouldn’t be passion, there wouldn’t be heat, but there was. It sizzled and crackled between them like a sparkler in July, constantly surprising him.
Once Mercedes was in, she was all in, just like he knew she would be. One weekend, toward the end of August, they left Gia with Heather for a few days and boarded a plane. They didn’t tell anyone where they were going or what they had planned. No invitations or announcements were sent out. They were married on a beach in Mexico—a place neither of them had ever been, despite Mercedes’s heritage. It was just the two of them, barefoot and hand in hand, making promises to each other and looking to the future. He’d teased Mercedes about being a barefoot angel, and she’d started singing “A la Puerta del Cielo” and dancing in the surf, kicking up the water in her white dress, her dark hair streaming behind her.
Alma had been shocked when they told her. Hurt. She had wanted to see her only child get married. She’d wanted their ceremony to be in a church with a priest. She’d wanted to give them a huge celebration.
“You deserve it, Mercedes! Why start your marriage this way, running off like you are ashamed? Like you need to hide? Gia should have been there, at the very least.”
Mercedes had put her arms around her mother and, in a language Noah didn’t speak, told her the love story of two old friends who needed a chance to look ahead without the distractions of the past
“We needed it to be about Noah and Mercedes, Mami. Not the three amigos,” Mercedes explained. “Entiendes?”
Alma shook her head. “No. No entiendo,” she whispered.
“We needed it to be about the future. Not the past. Our lives have always revolved around everyone else. And that’s okay. But I wanted our wedding day to be about us. I didn’t want to think about Cora, or Shelly, or Abuela or even Papi—though I felt their presence. I didn’t want my wedding day to be a reminder of what had come before. For once, I needed it to be about the two of us—me and Noah—and nothing else.”
Mercedes and Alma had cried, and Noah had cried too. He didn’t understand the language but he knew the reasons, and he’d felt every word.
Mercedes and Alma moved into the townhome with him and Gia, but he’d immediately put it up for sale. They needed a house where they could start fresh, a home big enough for Alma and Cuddy and Heather too when she wanted to visit. A home with room to grow.
Noah found empty office space not far from Montlake with a 5000 square foot loft situated above it, and he took Mercedes with him to look it over. He suggested they purchase the office space and turn it into a salon and day spa—MeLo—and live in the loft.
“It’s so much money . . . and we’d have to totally remodel it, top to bottom. Right now it’s just open space,” Mercedes had sputtered.