Blood Moon (Moon Books) (2 page)

“I’ll be out in a minute, Maya. I just need to get changed. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“Okay. I’ll get you some cereal. Bring a towel.”

She bounded back out of the room, her endless energy radiating from every surface of her body. I flopped back down and closed my eyes for a second.

I swear this is the last time I’m coming here....

Noah

I wasn’t sure if it had been four or five days since we’d arrived. Could’ve been a hundred for all I knew. Every day I played with Maya in the sun, endlessly applying sun block so my pale ass didn’t get burnt. I tried to smile, dig in the sand and race her to the buoys out in the middle of the water. My heart was halfway in it, attempting to have fun for my sister’s benefit, but I was distracted. I was constantly drawn to the huge stone house at the end of the lake—looking for movement, cars coming and going, familiar faces. The only thing I ever saw was the gardening crew and someone painting the deck railing. It was insanely frustrating.

I barely slept. The nights were too quiet and it was impossible to stop listening to my mind. The only place where I had any peace at all was the dock. In the middle of the night I’d go there and stare at the moon wishing I could be anywhere else.

It was on the fourth night that everything changed. I’d slipped out as usual to sit by the water and think about how lame my life was. I was seriously considering asking my mother to take me to the nearest bus depot so I could get a ticket back to Manhattan where the noise could drown out my thoughts.

I didn’t know why it was worse that year than it had been the previous two. Maybe it was seeing that light go on the first night, a reminder that he was still out there and I couldn’t have him, maybe I’d finally realized that he was gone from my life and every year that went by only made it that much more impossible that I was ever going to see him again. Maybe it was—

I stopped in my tracks. I’d just rounded the corner in the path and stepped out onto the dock. I was shocked to see I wasn’t the only one out there. The moon glinted on a wild halo of silvery blond hair.

He was sitting on the edge of the dock where I’d seen him a million times.

I blinked and shook my head but he was still there.

Impossible.

Maybe I’d dreamed him back into existence so my life didn’t feel so pathetic. He couldn’t be real. My mouth went dry and the walls of my throat immediately stuck together. “N-Noah?”

The blond head turned and looked at me, still for a second. Then he jumped up in one smooth movement and I could hear quick running footsteps. Before I knew it my feet had been lifted off the ground and I was enveloped in a tight spinning hug.

“Zack! You have no idea how good it is to see you!”

* * * *

Noah Harper and I met when we were five years old. It was the first summer my family went to the lake, my first real trip out of New York City. You might notice that his name matches the name of the lake. It also matches the name of the huge stone mansion that crouched like a giant on the shore a few hundred feet from our cabin. I didn’t even want to know how loaded his family was. All I knew is that they’d been there forever. Like part of the landscape.

That first year, he’d heard from his nanny that a boy his age was spending the summer at the lake and had been excited to make a new friend. His nanny, sweet Mrs. Clooney, had walked him over to meet me. He smiled but hung back, looking nervous and shy. She had to tell me his name since he spent most of the introduction hiding behind her legs. I didn’t have much of a problem with shyness, so for the first hour or two I did enough talking for both of us. By the end of the day I not only had him talking, but laughing and shouting and chasing me around the dock with a garter snake he’d found in the bushes. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

I don’t remember a ton about that first vacation but I do remember every single one after. Vividly. Starting from the minute I’d get there, usually greeted by an impatient Noah waiting at the cabin’s front door, and lasting until the car was packed and ready to head for home in August, we were inseparable. All the fort building, hiking, swimming, and fishing, all the summer adventures I had were shared with him. He was my best friend in the world. All year we’d keep in touch, through childish letters at first and e-mail and Internet chat when we got older. We’d spend the long months planning our summer campouts and various adventures. I looked forward to his e-mails and our nightly chats more than any other part of my life.

If I’m being honest, I probably knew I was in love with him by the time I was about fourteen, but of course I didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure he wasn’t into boys and didn’t want to lose his friendship by doing something stupid.

Happened anyway. I blamed myself.

The summer I was eighteen, the last summer that I was happy at the lake, had been the best by far. Noah and I had outgrown fort building and the other childish pursuits of years past but we found other ways to bond. We talked and wrote stories together, read comic books and dreamed about the future. We had both been accepted to NYU in the fall, and planned to share a dorm room. I was so desperately in love with him by then that I could barely wait to spend every single night with him only a few feet away. Every once in a while I’d get a twinge when I thought of him meeting a girl. I knew he would, with his gorgeous blond looks and easy smile, but I hoped he would wait at least a few months before he ditched me for a girlfriend.

It happened in August. He’d been acting a little strange for a few weeks; ever since the day we’d gotten back from our yearly campout for his birthday. I’d tried to pry it out of him, figure out what was wrong, but every day he seemed a little more distant. I got the feeling like he was trying to say goodbye.

“Noh, what’s going on?” I’d asked him. “You gotta tell me what I did. I’m your best friend.” The look he’d given me that night was so sad I nearly cried.

“Zack, it’s not you. I promise.” He tried to smile but it looked a little off. He leaned over and nudged me with his shoulder. “I’d tell you if I could but I can’t talk about it. It’s family stuff.”

I’d reached over, intending to comfort him. I swear that was the only thing I wanted to do. Instead I found myself cupping his chin in my hand and leaning my forehead against his. Funny thing was, he didn’t pull away.

“I get it,” I whispered, our faces only inches apart. “I’m here if you need me. I’m not going to pressure you to tell me what happened.”

And that’s when I did it.

To this day, I don’t know what got into me. Maybe it was too many years of pent up need. But something made me kiss him. Yeah, you heard right. I said I kissed him. Could I have been any more of an idiot? I kissed the guy I’d been friends with since we were five years old, sitting on the dock in the dark with our legs dangling in the lake. I was horrified by my actions but by the time I realized what I was doing it was too late to stop. Definitely too late to take it back.

The amazing thing, though, was that he kissed me too. Really, he did. I know I wasn’t imagining the way he smiled against my lips, or the gentle fingers that tangled in my hair and touched the skin on my neck. There’s no way I could have dreamed up the memory of his tongue sliding into my mouth and rubbing up against mine. God. I still get all shivery when I think about it. I know when we said goodbye that night it was with more kisses and shy smiles, looking back at each other over our shoulders a million times as we walked away. What I’ve never been able to figure out is what happened between that night and the next day.

I’d been up all night grinning at the ceiling and spinning fantasies in my head about loving Noah forever but when I met him on the dock the expression on his face made my stomach clench in a knot.

“What’s wrong?” I knew I didn’t want to hear his answer.

“I’m not going to NYU anymore. I talked it over with my parents this morning and we all think it’s best.”

“What? No! That was the plan. What about the plan? What about last night?” I was desperate and near tears. Noah looked distraught, like he couldn’t stand to be saying what he was saying.

“Look, Zack. I can’t do this. I think it’s probably just better if we weren’t friends anymore.”

He walked away then, ending a thirteen-year friendship and whatever had blossomed the night before with a few words that felt like shards of glass ripping into my insides. I collapsed on the dock and cried, not caring who saw or heard. My heart was broken and I knew it was somehow my own damn fault.

* * * *

“Noah, what on earth are you doing here?”

He pulled back and looked at me sadly. “I like the dock. I come out here when I need to think. It reminds me of better times, you know?”

He looked different. More than I did, I thought. The hints of roundness had melted out of his cheeks. If anything he looked even more aristocratic, and damn he was so gorgeous. I tried to stifle that thought before I could complete it but ended up sighing. It was useless.

“I don’t mean what are you doing on the dock, I mean here. At the lake.”

He gave me a confused look. “Why wouldn’t I be here? I live here.”

“But you weren’t here last summer or the year before.”

He looked at the ground. “Yes I was,” he mumbled quietly.

Pain sliced through me. I couldn’t believe he’d been so close and obviously still avoiding me. I would have done anything to see him. I turned to walk away but his hand on my arm stopped me.

“Please don’t go,” he whispered. I looked at him not even trying to hide the hurt in my eyes. “Listen, I don’t even know if I have the right to ask, but how’ve you been?” He cocked his head to the side like he’d always done when he asked a question.

I didn’t know how to answer him. How do you tell someone you’ve spent the last three years keeping as frantically busy as possible so that you didn’t have time to miss him?

“Okay, I guess.”

He reached up and traced my cheek with his thumb. The gesture was so wonderful, so confusing that I couldn’t even react.

“I’ve missed you, Zack.”

The combination of the words and the touch made my pulse leap. “Then why?”

Noah sighed heavily and closed his eyes for a second. “Because I was stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

“I let my family stuff take over. I wish I could explain it to you, but it would sound so crazy.”

“Everyone’s family is crazy, Noh.”

He smiled at his old nickname. “I know but I let mine get in the way of the best thing that had ever happened to me.” He touched my face again and rubbed the ends of my too-black hair between his fingers.

“Do you really mean that? I thought I’d scared you off by kissing you.”

“No! It wasn’t like that at all.” He shuddered and wrapped me in his arms. “I hated what I did to you three years ago. It was what my parents wanted and I should have said no. Losing you nearly broke me.”

I looked up at him and smiled hesitantly. Our faces were only inches apart.

Was this really happening? Ten minutes ago I was angry and lonely and now all of a sudden I had Noah back in my life holding me like he’d never let go? I guessed I could have decided to be mad at him, to walk away and hurt him like he’d hurt me. I didn’t. He was forgiven the second I felt his arms around me.

I was pretty sure he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. My eyes drifted shut and suddenly I was engulfed in another tight hug. I could feel his body trembling. His mouth descended on mine, sweet and pliable, and I dragged my tongue across the lips I’d been desperately trying to forget. It had been such a waste of time. I trembled too and shimmied closer knowing in a second that I would have never forgotten such a feeling. He nibbled gently on my bottom lip and dipped his tongue into my mouth. I rubbed up against him with my body, my tongue, buried my hands in his hair. I did everything I could think of to touch him.

“Noah,” I whispered against his mouth, never wanting the kiss to end. It was just like I remembered. Better even because I knew what else was out there and it was nothing like him. Tasting and touching for long minutes we held onto each other. When we finally broke apart, our foreheads were still connected.

“I’m sorry. It was probably way too soon for that,” Noah said.

“I’m not sorry.” I grinned and pulled his lips to mine for another small kiss. “Anyway, it’s not too soon. It’s forever practically! I’ve been waiting for that kiss for three years.”

“Do you know how bad I wanted to kiss you on that awful morning?” he whispered.

“Probably. I know I sat up that whole night thinking about kissing you again.” I threaded my hands through his hair, loving the softness against my fingers.

“I’m such an asshole,” he muttered to himself.

I lifted his face with my hand so he had to look at me. Any residual hurt I may have had slid away. He looked so sad and alone.

“You’re not an asshole, Noah. You were a scared kid who listened to his parents. I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t have done the same. Hey, it’s not like I’ve ever brought any of the guys I’ve dated home to meet my family.”

Noah looked horrified all of a sudden. “Wait, do you have a—”

I smiled, understanding. Even after three years the thought of him with a boyfriend other than me made me want to hit things.

“No, I don’t have a boyfriend. Do you think I would have kissed you like that if I didn’t mean it?”

“But I kissed you. I didn’t even ask.”

“You didn’t have to.”

I tugged on his hair, bringing his mouth to mine for another kiss. There was no point in playing coy. He had to already know how I felt about him. It only took me seconds to be back to a place with him where I had never even got close to with another guy.

* * * *

We were sitting on the dock, legs crisscrossed and facing each other. I had no idea what time it was. We’d been there for hours talking, kissing, staring at each other like love-drunk morons. I didn’t ask Noah about his family drama. I was so happy just being there with him and I didn’t want to ruin it by bringing up the past. Instead he asked me questions about college, New York, and the guys I’d dated. It was inevitable but painful to admit that I’d never wanted any of them. That I’d only dated to try to keep my mind off of him and it didn’t even work.