Filmed: An Alpha Bad Boy Romance (City Series Book 3) (18 page)

“Noah,” I said, surprised.

“Picture my thick cock deep inside of you, and the way it felt when I got you off over and over last night. Think about how much I love your soaked cunt.”

He pulled away and grinned, and I felt color come to my cheeks.

“You’re such an asshole,” I muttered, embarrassed at how turned on I was.

“Have a good day, dots.”

He gave me a quick but rough kiss on the mouth, our lips pressed hard together, and then hurried over to his car. I was breathing deeply, trying to calm myself down, as he drove away down the block.

That was a month ago. I had gone up into my room after that and run my fingers between my thighs, thinking about how his cock felt like it fit me perfectly, and how strong his arms were wrapped around my sweating body.

Exasperated, I let out a huff of air. I walked into the supply closet, grabbed the right trash bags, and then I moved over toward the trashcans Selena had messed up. I figured, if anything could get the image of Noah out of my head, dealing with trash could.

Four weeks was a long time not to hear from someone. At first, I was worried out of my mind, and called him a bunch of times. In retrospect, I regretted that, but part of me thought he had died or something horrible like that. Eventually, I got the picture when I saw that he had updated his Facebook status.
Chill night downtown
was all it said, but that spoke louder than my answered calls: he was fine, and he was even going out with friends.

I stopped calling after that, but the hurt only bit deeper. I thought we had something, but I realized that I was just another one of Noah’s conquests. He got what he wanted, and he tossed me to the side. It broke me more than I ever thought it would.

He stopped showing up to our class, and I guessed he dropped it. I had no clue why he would do that; it wasn’t like I would have screamed at him in class. If anything, I would have awkwardly ran away from him every day, avoiding him the best that I could. Instead, he essentially disappeared, quit his job and dropped our class and stopped responding to me. After the first week, he even blocked me on Facebook.

I had no idea why Noah had decided to go full nuclear and wipe me completely out of his life, but that was his choice. He wanted me gone and he went to any length he could to make that happen. It might not have been so bad if he had simply told me he wasn’t interested, or maybe just stopped hitting on me all together. But the way he so ruthlessly removed me from his life spoke volumes.

And those volumes were terrible. Awful. I had never felt so humiliated, and more than that, heartbroken. I could picture him laughing with his other rich friends over the dumb poor prissy chick he had banged after his party, and completely tossed aside.

Noah Carterson wasn’t a good person.

That’s what I kept telling myself, at least, as the days wore on. It got easier, eventually, to start to hate him with that refrain running through my mind. As the one-month mark ticked by, he was relegated to a dull thud in my heart, a minor ache. He was still there, but I was beginning to move beyond him.

Nobody talked about him at work, which I thought was weird. He had been pretty close with Chelsea, and Chuck obviously liked him, but once Noah was gone, nobody mentioned him around me again. I even asked them both how he was doing in the early days, that first night when I didn’t know he was cutting me out of his life. Both of them said they had no clue, and were just as worried as I was. When I figured the truth out, nobody brought it up, and I was too embarrassed to mention it.

But I had my suspicions. I wasn’t mad at them for it, though. How could I be, when they were both being so kind to me? They both became my friend after Noah was gone.

I pulled out the old trash bag, balling it up and tossing it to the side. I shook out the right bag, and pressed it into the container. I pushed the lid back on, and repeated that procedure three more times. Once I was finished, I hunted down Selena.

“Hey, Selena, real quick,” I said, getting her attention.

“What’s up?”

I held up the two bags. “These are for the cans outside of the theaters, and these are for the cans in the lobby. Okay?”

She made a face. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. I was being a jerk, but I was exhausted, and suddenly in a bad mood from thinking about Noah again.

“It’s really not a huge deal. Don’t worry about it.”

“So, are you doing anything this weekend?” she asked me.

I shook my head. It was Friday night, but I had pretty much become a hermit. Since Chris was in hardcore study mode, it felt easy to stay at the apartment with her. I didn’t feel like doing anything, and the idea of going to a party like the one at Noah’s made me almost ill.

“Probably not, I have a bunch of studying.”

She made a face. “You and Chris always have so much studying to do.”

“I know. I’m really not much fun.”

“That’s not true, but whatever. Let me know if you feel like coming out tonight.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks.”

She smiled and headed off toward the concession stand. I felt bad about calling her out on the trashcans, but she had to learn eventually. She was being very nice to me ever since the Noah stuff, and I should have probably cut her some slack. I made a mental promise to myself to go out of my way to make it up to her in the future.

Even if I was hurting, I had to try and be a better person. I couldn’t let myself spread the hurt that Noah had given to me, no matter how badly I wanted to, no matter how good it made me feel. Because that kind of catharsis didn’t last long, and only made that hurt worse for everyone.

I took a deep breath and sighed. Before Noah, I had never bothered to wonder what kind of person I was. I had always assumed I was good. But my world had been rocked, and I promised myself that I would find out.

A
fter talking to Selena, I went into the supply closet and dropped off the trash bags, my mood souring. I went back out into the lobby and stopped short. I saw a blonde girl talking to Selena, and Selena pointed at me in reply. The girl followed her gaze and saw me, said something to Selena, and then headed straight in my direction.

My heart began to hammer in my chest. I recognized her. The long blonde hair, the trashy clothes. As she got close to me, I remembered her name: Ellie, formerly known as Stripper Barbie.

“Are you Linda?” she asked, stopping in front of me.

“Yeah, I am,” I said, feeling evasive.

“I’m Ellie, I’m friends with Noah.”

I gave her a look. “I know who you are.”

She smiled softly, looking embarrassed. “Look, this is a little awkward.”

“No, you look. I don’t know what you want, but if it has anything to do with Noah, I’m not interested. Okay?”

Before she could respond, I started to walk away, back toward the front of the lobby. I wasn’t sure what I was doing or where I was going, but I wanted to get away from her. I couldn’t let myself get sucked back in, not when I was starting to get over him.

“Wait, please, just listen for a second,” she said, catching up to me.

I whirled around on her, feeling my anger bubbling up. “Listen to you? Noah didn’t bother listening to me before completely cutting me out of his life. I don’t want anything to do with that piece of shit asshole. I’m done with him.”

She looked surprised at my sudden outburst, and then her face softened. She smiled sadly and nodded her head.

“Yeah, I really don’t blame you. He is a real piece of shit sometimes.”

I sighed, exasperated. I felt better after having blown up, and I knew none of that was her fault. It said a lot about me, that I was willing to yell at a stranger.

“Look, what do you want?” I asked.

“Just, hear me out for a second, okay?”

“Fine, but talk fast. I’m supposed to be working.”

She nodded. “What Noah did to you is fucked up. Really fucked up. I mean, I honestly didn’t think he was capable of cutting someone out like that. It’s some pretty ruthless shit.”

I rolled my eyes. She didn’t know the half of it.

“I know. But listen,” she said, continuing. “After he stopped talking to you, he changed. I’ve known Noah for a while now, ever since we first came to college, and he’s always been there for me. He was there for me when I was pretty messed up on drugs and dealing with my own issues. He was the only person I would listen to, the only person who really understood, because he had gone through it all himself. When he came to school, he forced himself to get clean and to stay clean, and he has been ever since.

“And I’m still dealing with that stuff, and he’s still trying to help, but he’s different. I mean, really different. He’s back into partying, going out almost every night, and I think he’s doing drugs again. And it all started when he cut you out of his life. Look, Linda, I don’t know what happened between you guys, but he’s still in love with you. There’s no other reason why he would have done what he did.

“He needs help, and I can’t do it. He won’t listen to me. So I’m here to beg you to get in contact with him and to talk to him. I don’t care if it’s just to say hi, or whatever, but he really needs you. I know this is really weird and you don’t know me, but I’m begging, you please, give it a try.”

She finished speaking and stared at me, her expression pleading, her look earnest, and all I wanted to do was to run away. I wanted to get out of there, pretend like she had never found me, pretend like I hadn’t heard anything she said. I wanted to pretend like she never said he loved me, pretend like he wasn’t suffering. I wanted to shut out the world and forget about Noah Carterson.

But I couldn’t.

The memory of him smiling at me in the car, and answering my questions with a pained expression, came rushing back. I remembered our first kiss in the theater, the way he called me ‘dots’ and how furious that made me at first, and how excited it made me later. I remembered the night we spent together sweating, making our bodies come again and again, and I couldn’t let it go. If there was any chance that I could do something for him, when he had clearly had helped so many people on his own, then I had to take it.

Because Noah may have been a shitty person, but he was still a person. If he was in pain, it was the human thing to help him.

I let out a long breath, biting back tears. I wasn’t about to let myself cry in front of her. I nodded my head.

Her face brightened. “Seriously, you’ll talk to him?”

“I can’t promise anything. I’ll try though.”

She threw her arms around me and crushed me into a tight hug. I was pretty taken aback, but I returned her hug tentatively.

“Oh my god, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” she said, pulling away.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Call him I guess, ask how he’s doing.”

“What if he doesn’t talk to me?”

“He will. He’s hurting over you, and I’ve never seen Noah hurt over a girl before.”

I shook my head, still slightly in shock. “This is so weird.”

She laughed. “I know it is, but trust me. He’ll listen to you.”

I nodded and looked away as I felt the tears bite into me again. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. Ellie reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, her face smiling kindly.

“It’s going to be okay. I know you don’t know me, but trust that I care about Noah and know him better than anyone. That guy is madly in love with you, no matter what he says.”

I smiled back at her, feeling steadied and calmer. I suddenly felt bad for calling her Stripper Barbie. I was surprised at how kind she was being, and how much she seemed to care about Noah. She wanted to help him enough to come beg some strange girl she’d never met to talk to him. I had never done something like that for someone. I made a mental note to make it up to her in the future, which made two people I had to be kinder to.

“I’ll let you get back to work. Here’s my number in case you need anything or whatever.”

“Okay,” I said, as she handed me a piece of paper with a number written on it.

“Seriously, anything you need, just call. I want to help him.”

I nodded, at a loss for words.

“You’re doing the right thing. Thank you,” she said.

“Yeah, sure,” I answered.

She smiled again then walked off, back toward the stairs. I watched her go, shocked at how mature and serious she had been. I shook my head softly, completely stunned over the whole encounter.

Finally, I gathered myself together, my head practically spinning. I felt my stomach drop with excitement when I imagined calling Noah. She had said he was madly in love with me.

She had said he was madly in love with me.

As I headed back to work, a smile crept over my lips. I wasn’t over Noah and I knew it. I had been fooling myself the whole time, building up an armor of fake hate. But hope flooded in, small but sure, shattering that armor. I was going to try, because I owed it to him to be a decent person, the same way he had been to so many people before me.

6
:45pm Me: Hey, I ran into your friend last night, I hope everything is okay
.

I stared at the message and considered the implications. He had more or less abandoned me, decided never to speak to me again, and ruthlessly cut me out of his life. I had never met a person that would go so far as to quit a job and drop a class to avoid someone, and yet Noah had done exactly that. Somehow, I was so diseased that he had to avoid me at all costs.

And yet Ellie was so sincere. I considered adding her name to the message, but I didn’t want to make things bad between them. She seemed genuine in her worry, and really seemed to think that I was the only person who could bring Noah back out of whatever funk he was in. But I knew things about Noah, things maybe most other people didn’t know, and I had been convinced that he wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. Something had happened, something that made him panic and run. And that same thing was probably forcing him to ignore me, and maybe that’s where all the partying was coming from. I was worried, and I hated myself, just a little bit, for still caring about someone who had so easily cut me out of his life.