When in Rome
: Chapter 26

I’ve been in the flower shop with Annie for a few hours when the door flies open and Noah steps inside. The door bangs back against one of the displays, nearly knocking it over. Annie and I jump, and Mabel—who is gathering bouquets for her B and B—squeals.

Noah winces. “Sorry about that.” A rare color of red sweeps over his cheekbones. “I didn’t mean to make such a dramatic entrance.”

Mabel shoves a finger in his direction. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Don’t bother trying to make me kick the bucket early, because I love you but I’m not leaving you the inn in my will. It’s going to my niece.”

Noah gingerly closes the door behind him. “I don’t want your inn, Mabel.”

She scoffs. “Well, you would if you knew what’s good for you! Honey, there’s all kinds of money sitting in that inn. And I don’t mean tied up in the equity, I mean hidden in the floors!”

Noah frowns. “That’s not good. You shouldn’t store money in the floorboards, Mabel. What happens if there’s a fire?”

I don’t particularly love the way he looks at me when he says that. It was a tiny fire, okay? Minuscule, really. I had already put it out when the fire department arrived. They just helped me get all the smoke out of the house. But anyway, lesson learned. Don’t leave a pancake in the pan while you’re mixing up another batch.

Mabel puts her hands on her ample hips. “And who’s gonna do that? Are you planning to start a fire, Noah? If you need money, just tell me. I can work out some window-washing days with you so you don’t have to go doing nefarious acts for attention.”

Noah looks dumbfounded. And then distraught. And then back to dumbfounded. “No…Mabel…I don’t need money. And how would starting a fire even…” He shakes his head and lifts his hands up. “You know what? Never mind.”

Noah sends Annie a look, and in a split second, she is rushing over to the meddling old woman. “Mabel, let’s get those bouquets finished up for you. I’ll help.” The two continue picking flowers around the store and Noah finally walks over to where I’m standing behind the counter, looking like a real workingwoman.

“Hi,” he says, in his quiet, rumbly way. His voice isn’t necessarily deep, but it has a grit to it that just feels good to hear. I need to plug my ears. I’m trying to distance myself from him, and not imagine him whispering in my ear while I’m soaking in a bubble bath with his fingers tracing a quiet line over my skin—even softer than the caress of his voice. Shoot, now I’m picturing that. And it doesn’t help that he has his hat off today, giving me the full effect of his startling woodsy eyes. I’m drowning in a lush evergreen forest.

“Hello,” I reply, pulling my mind out of that fantasy bubble bath. “Are you here to buy flowers?”

He darts his eyes away, heavy lashes blinking. “Nope.”

I watch as he delicately runs his finger over a velvety petal from a long-stem flower beside the counter, and it makes me shiver given my last fantasy of him. “Did you need to talk to Annie?”

Again, I’m met with a no.

“Going to the market then?”

He shifts on his feet and shakes his head. “I’m good on groceries.”

Goodness, Noah is always cryptic, but this is too much. And awkward. He’s standing there practically vibrating with nervous energy and in return it’s making me nervous. I’m starting to sweat. I’m one more anxious minute away from getting pit stains on my shirt.

Why is he just standing here? Why won’t he say more?

I’m not the only one who notices. Mabel sighs deeply from across the room and practically yells, “Bless it, child! He’s here for you! Now go ahead and ask the lady out, Noah, so we can all be finished with this barrel of awkwardness.”

My face flames. I’m sure it looks like I’ve just dipped it into a vat of tomato juice. Noah smirks lightly, eyes crinkling in the corners. “I’m taking off early and going fishing. It was on your list so I thought I’d come by and see if you want to come with me?”

Spend the afternoon with Noah? I don’t know. I was trying to spend the day away from him so this thing we’ve had humming between us would hopefully die down. It’s why I’m planning to spend the day with James tomorrow, too. I thought Noah and I were on the same page—that he would want me to stay away from him given he spent the night at James’s house last night. But looking into Noah’s eyes, I go weak. I may be confused, but I couldn’t say no to him even if I tried.

But of course I have to annoy him first.

I bend slightly to rest my elbows on the counter, propping my chin on the backs of my knuckles. “Why? You miss me?”

He rolls his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Absolutely not. Just trying to live up to the title of Mr. Hospitality.”

“You did miss me. You were just sulking around the shop because you don’t know what to do without me being all up in your life anymore.”

“Are you coming or not?”

I move around the counter to stand by him, blinking up at him like a coy Disney princess. “Was it so lonely without me?”

He starts pushing me by my lower back toward the door. Looks like I’m going with him then. “It was a hell of a lot more peaceful than it is now.”

“Just admit you missed me!” I’m giving a half-hearted attempt to put on the brakes, but he keeps pushing me right along with him, touching my back like he’s done this a thousand times. Like the warmth of his hand seeping through my shirt doesn’t send a current across my skin. Like I wouldn’t willingly go with him anywhere he wanted.

“Annie, I’m taking this spoiled pop star off your hands for the rest of the day.”

“Annabell! Make him admit he missed me!” I say, over my shoulder. My quick glance shows me a smiling Annie and smirking Mabel before Noah closes the door behind us.

“Quiet, you,” says Noah, pausing to look down at me when we make it out to the curb. I’m bubbling with laughter that I can’t contain even if I wanted to. It’s the kind of happy laughter that slows you down, makes you want to anchor your hands on your thighs just so you don’t fall to the ground.

Noah’s eyes drop to my mouth. They linger there for a full in and out breath, before his lashes rise back up to my eyes. “I missed you.”

My laughter stops.

My heart skips.

My lips part.

But before I can respond, he adds, “But you’re still a pain in my ass.”

How does he manage to say that in a way that makes me feel like I’m back in that fantasy bubble bath?

When I was younger, there was an oak tree in my front yard. It was enormous. In the summer, my favorite thing to do was sit at its base, lean my back against it, and listen to music. Sometimes I’d take my guitar out and play, writing songs and soaking in every last drop of sunshine. Nothing bad could touch me under that oak tree with the sun brushing my skin. No place in this world has ever been able to recapture that feeling of absolute soul-cuddling peace.

Until now.

My arm is hanging out the window of Noah’s truck, and my old friend Sunshine is rekindling our past love and kissing my exposed skin. The wind is twirling my hair all around my face, and at my side is Noah—hand draped casually over the steering wheel. A soft grin on his perfect chiseled face. And when I say perfect, I don’t mean classically perfect. Noah isn’t a pretty boy by any means. His face is tan and scruffy. Freckles down the bridge of his nose from too much sun and not enough sunscreen. He has a random little scar above his eyebrow and another above his lip. I imagine he got them in a fight as a boy. Someone called his best friend a mean name and he stepped in. But the unique concoction of rugged scars and long thick eyelashes framing bright green eyes—it should be illegal. Right up there with crystal meth.

Except for the wind, we’ve been driving in silence, me quickly sneaking peeks of Noah over my shoulder when I’m sure he’s not looking. Normally I like the quiet between us. But right now, I feel fidgety—which seems like it would be at war with the peace I’ve been feeling, but it’s not. They go hand in hand. It’s the very feeling of calm and serenity that lets me know something is unmistakably different. Noah has struck a chord inside me and it’s quivering. I need to bounce my knee. Gather my hair up in a ponytail. Check my phone, see that it still has zero bars of service, and turn it off again.

Noah notices, but his only reaction is a slight raise of his eyebrow. He knows that if I want to talk about it, I will. He’s not a man who needs constant reassuring—what I used to think was grumpy is really just him being earnest.

And that’s exactly why I’m dying in here with my body alone with his body. And my body wants to make him pull over so I can climb onto his body. Did I not just remind myself last night to stop pursuing my attraction to Noah? To not explore why I hang on his every intentionally spoken word. I decided to stay away from him. Far, far away. Put up a damn fortress between us. But now here I am, eyes tracing the lines of his face like a map I’m memorizing.

We need some music to fill this silence.

Reaching forward, I push the dial on his radio. It’s static—making me wonder if he even listens to music—so I turn it to the nearest station. It’s country. An old George Strait song fills the air and rides the breeze perfectly. I’m not really a fan of country music, but I have to admit that something about it pairs perfectly with golden sunshine and a warm day. I shut my eyes and let my head sink back against the headrest, enjoying the moment of stillness.

Over these last few days, I feel parts of me coming alive again. Like when you’ve been sitting on your foot too long and then finally walk around. It’s tingly and uncomfortable at first, but then you shake it back to life and can move normally again.

Our comfy moment suddenly slices in half when a different song comes on and changes the whole vibe of this drive. It’s a song by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. One so sexy I want to die. “Let’s make love…all night long…until all our strength is gone…” I snap my eyes open and look at Noah. His hand is tightened on the steering wheel but otherwise not betraying that he feels as prickly as I do all of a sudden. I wonder if he’ll make a move to change the station, but he doesn’t. Whether it’s because he doesn’t want to tip me off to discomfort, or because he wants to see if I’m affected by these lyrics or not, I have no idea. Or maybe he replaces it hilarious.

Either way, I lurch forward and change the station. “Whew!” I say loudly, trying to cover the awkward moment and that I nearly just broke his radio dial from the force I used to turn it. “You don’t mind if I surf the radio a bit, right? I’m not really in the mood to listen to country today.”

The corner of his mouth hitches up. “Shame. That’s one of my favorites.”

I give him a side-eye look and keep scrolling, making him chuckle. “So sorry to disappoint you.”

I finally settle on a commercial about a men’s hair loss remedy. Perfect. Zero sexual tension here. And at each new point the radio announcer makes, I give mock encouraging eyes to Noah. “Well, see there, Noah!” I swat his bicep playfully, desperate to recover the levity from a few moments ago. “There’s hope for your bald spot after all.” He contains his amusement so I push harder. “I bet you didn’t even know you had one. But you do. It’s back there. A gaping shiny bald spot. And you know what? I’m a good friend, so if you want, I’ll buy this cream and apply it for you. I won’t even expect anything in return other than pancakes made for me daily with whipped cream and chocolate chips on top.”

“I’ll gladly make you pancakes every day if you’ll quit trying to burn my house down.”

I’m just about to respond with something sassy and delightful, when my own voice stops me in my tracks. It’s my latest chart-topping single. When it plays through the speakers, I freeze. My joy dims, and a boulder settles back over my chest. It’s a reminder of the real world that I don’t want or need.

“You’re about to tour for this album, right?”

I nod and swallow the lump in my throat.

Noah nods, too. After another pause, he asks, “How long will you…how long does the tour last?” His voice sounds suspiciously light. Like he’s working extrahard to convince me that he could care less and is just making small talk. But I know.

I fidget with the hem of my shorts. “Nine months. I’ll have a break between the U.S. leg and the international leg, but it’ll be short.”

Again Noah nods slowly. And this time, he’s the one to abruptly end the song. “Okay, enough with the radio. Besides, I hear that singer is a real diva. And wants everyone to like yogurt for some reason,” he says with a smile before clicking the CD button.

“You would have a CD in there. Who still listens to CDs?” Says the woman who owns and continues to watch DVDs.

He gives me a look. “Just be glad it’s not a cassette.”

I settle into the bench again, looking out the window, excited to learn what is in Noah’s personal music library. I don’t know what I’m expecting to hear, but I can promise you I never in a million years would have guessed Frank Sinatra. “Love Me Tender,” Frank’s version of Elvis’s classic song, croons through the cab of his old truck and it’s so lovely that even the sun swoons. Of course he would have this. Of course because he’s the classic man. My classic man, my mind wants to tack on, but I swat that thought away like a pesky gnat.

I turn sharply to look at Noah. “This is not your CD?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a thirty-year-old man living in Rome, Kentucky.”

“Thirty-two.”

“Fine. Thirty-two. You should be listening to…I don’t know, some weird rock music from your youth. Or since you like classic things, maybe Hank Williams. Johnny Cash! I don’t know…anything but this!”

He glances at me and then back to the road. “Do you not like Frank?”

Frank. He would be so familiar with him that he feels inclined to be on a first-name basis with the man. Like I am with Audrey. It physically hurts now how smitten I am with Noah. I can’t take much more.

“I love Frank Sinatra.” I say this in a tone similar to a person trying to speak while their insides are being squeezed. “As well as the other greats of that time like Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, and—”

“They’re on here, too,” Noah states casually like this doesn’t completely floor me. At my silence he looks at me with an amused smile. “It’s a compilation CD. My grandma bought it for me a long time ago.” He chuckles and turns his eyes back to the road. “She bought it for me because I was listening to too much of that weird rock you talked about. Said I needed to know the classics if I had any hopes of growing into a good man.”

Mission accomplished, I want to whisper loud enough for him to hear, but instead I stay quiet, and together we let the song wrap around us. An already perfect moment feels like a dream now. When the song ends, I look at Noah. “I love your grandma. I wish I could have met her.”

A real genuine smile splits across his face like the sun popping over the horizon at dawn, but he doesn’t say anything.

Noah pulls into a small parking lot that overlooks a dock, stretching out to a small scenic lake. There are trees lining the bank, making it feel secluded and intimate. We both get out of the truck, and he pulls two fishing poles and a tackle box from the back of his truck. Together we walk down the long dock until we end at the small platform. I remove my white canvas sneakers and sit down, dangling my legs over the side. It’s high enough up that my feet hover about a foot above the water. Noah sits beside me and our shoulders touch. My face flushes with an innocent pleasure I haven’t experienced in years.

The tips of Noah’s ears turn lightly pink—something that happens to him when he’s embarrassed, I’ve learned—and he scoots away. If there were a window between us, I think we both would have rolled it up slowly and dramatically. We’re acting as if we’ve never touched anyone of the opposite sex before. It’s absolutely ridiculous. And wonderful. And confusing. And incredible.

“What was she like?” I’m desperate for any glimpse of a picture he’ll paint for me, and also to break the tension between us.

“My grandma?” he asks as he pops open the tackle box and begins baiting his hook. I nod. “She was…tender and fiery at the same time. That woman loved to love on people. I swear no one made it out of her pie shop without a hug. Even strangers. It’s just the way she was.”

“What was her name?”

“Silvie Walker. Believe it or not, she and Mabel were best friends since their teenage years. Those two got into all kinds of trouble together. And since my grandad had already passed away by the time my grandma needed to take guardianship over me and my sisters, Mabel acted like our second parent in a lot of ways. I rarely went a day without seeing her.”

“Ah—that’s why Mabel loves you so much.”

“That’s why she bugs me so much.” He smirks, but I hear the tenderness in his voice. “I may have lost my parents, but I’ve been really lucky to be loved by so many people who feel like family to me and my sisters. It’s why I didn’t hesitate to come back when they needed me here.”

I open my mouth to ask why they needed him back here, but he continues talking before I can. “Speaking of names…” Once he gets his hook baited with a nasty-looking rubber worm, he sets his fishing pole down and turns his face to me. “I’ve been wondering how you chose your stage name.”

“Rae is my middle name.” I shrug lightly. “My mom used to call me Rae-Rae when I was little sometimes, and so it felt like a sweet choice for a stage name. And I thought having people refer to me as Rae instead of Amelia would help me have some separation between my private and professional life.”

“Did it?” he asks, and this is something about Noah that is so different from other people. Most people would hmm, nod, and then move on. But he wants to know the answer. Did it?

“No. In fact, Rae Rose just absorbed me. I feel like I haven’t been Amelia in so long. Except for you and your sisters, everyone just calls me Rae now. Even my mom. It’s…” I falter for polite words to describe what it feels like, so I settle with a basic childish idea instead. “I hate it. I feel so jumbled and unsure of who I am.”

“That must be hard,” Noah says without accusation or shock. He doesn’t even offer advice or throw a pile of shoulds on me. Doesn’t even seem to expect me to come to any conclusion right now. I just get to say what I feel, and if that’s not freedom, I don’t know what is.

“Mainly it’s the loneliness that makes it so hard. The second I became famous, everyone stopped seeing the real me. All they see is Rae Rose now and what she can do for them or give them. You know my mom used to be my best friend? Even she just sees me as a twenty-four-hour ATM now. It sucks. And the thing that’s so weird is I’m rarely ever alone, and yet I can be standing in a room full of hundreds of people that supposedly love me and feel completely isolated.”

“Do you feel lonely right now?”

Noah’s question punches me in the heart. “No.”

Everything would be so much easier if my answer were yes. Part of me wishes I could have come to this damn town and found my joy of music again without also replaceing something more.

“Good. I’m glad.” He sounds genuine. He is genuine. “And maybe after this time away, you’ll replace your love for your career again.”

“That’s exactly what Mabel said.”

“And she’s never wrong. Or at least, that’s what she’ll lead you to believe.” He grins and turns his eyes to the tackle box. He pulls out a nasty, squirmy, wet worm that is 100 percent a bucket of cold water to the intimate mood. Good. We need it. “So do you want to bait your own hook?”

“Am I a wimp if I say no?”

“Definitely.”

I make a thinking face before answering. “I’m realizing I’m okay with that.”

“Suit yourself, but you’re missing out on all the fun.”

I laugh and bump his shoulder. “That would be your idea of fun.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, but it’s clear by his tone that he’s playing along.

“You just don’t seem like the type of guy to pursue fun. So something sedate and peaceful like this would be considered fun to you.”

“I’m very fun,” he says deadpan. “Forget Mr. Hospitable. Everyone else calls me Mr. Fun. You just haven’t been around long enough to hear it.”

“Mm-hmm. Sure.”

He raises an eyebrow, his full lips turning up at the corners. “Want me to prove it?”

“Yes,” I say with a firm nod and then have to blow my bangs out of my eyes. “I would pay good money to see it, in fact.”

“Well, you’re in luck. It’s free of charge today.” Noah sets down the fishing poles and quickly hops to his feet. I frown up at him as he extends his hand to help me stand. I slide my palm into his and my heart flutters wildly. He tugs me up to my feet until we’re nearly chest to chest. I stare up at him expectantly. “Okay, Mr. Fun. What’s it gonna be?”

I watch in awe as his face opens into a full smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. He then puts his hand softly to my abdomen, and I gasp—which is perfect since the next thing I know, he’s pushing me off the dock right into the water.