Wildflower (Colors #4) (4 page)

“You have a
husband
?”

Navie’s shrill voice cut through my brain, agitating the headache I’d had for the past several hours and making it that much worse. After my unexpected brush-in with Noah, I’d quickly escaped the church, running like the hounds of hell were nipping at my feet. Later on, as we all attended the graveside service, I’d been unable to keep myself from looking through the mass of people for those honey eyes. The disappointment I felt in not seeing them, and my weakness for looking in the first place, made me angry. With him
and
myself.

Afterwards, we headed back to my grandmother’s house where my friends helped lay out a spread of food for all the people who wanted to spend a little more time reminiscing about Grammy. I spent hours giving fake smiles and handshakes to everyone who came up to me offering condolences. My cheeks felt bruised and I worried my hand was going to fall off, but the last townsperson had finally left just minutes before, and all I could think about was taking a nice long bath. I needed one like no body’s business after receiving a bone-crushing hug from Old Lady Wilson. I desperately needed to wash off the Bengay and chewing tobacco smell that had seeped into my hair and clothes.

“
Ex-
husband,” I responded, putting extra emphasis on the
ex
.

“I can’t believe you were married.” Pepper stared at me with wide eyes. “That’s crazy. You’re only, what, twenty-three?”

“Twenty-four,” I answered. “And I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“I can see it,” Griffin chimed in, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up on Grammy’s scarred wooden dining room table that we were all congregating round. “You’re hot. I’ve always wondered why the hell you were single. Figured you were just getting some action on the side and wasn’t one to talk about it.”

“It should be illegal for you to talk. You shouldn’t be allowed to say words,” Pepper clipped, smacking him in the back of the head.

Navie continued on like the two of them going at it didn’t faze her in the slightest. “How long have you been divorced?”

I heaved out a heavy sigh and dropped my head into my hands, my elbows resting on the table. “Five years.”

“Oh my God,” she gasped, no doubt doing the math in her head. “So you were only—”

I interrupted. “Eighteen. I was eighteen when I got married and nineteen, already living in New York by the time it was finalized. And I’ll say again, I do
not
want to talk about this.” I turned my head and peeked through the doorway of the kitchen, looking to make sure Ethan wasn’t anywhere in hearing distance. Lowering my voice, I gave my attention back to my friends. “Look, Ethan doesn’t know the full extent of what happened between Noah and me, okay? And it’s not really a time in my life I’d like to think about. I’ll tell you the whole story, I promise, just… not today, all right? I can’t do it today.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Navie replied.

“It’s okay. I’m just exhausted. It’s been a rough week.” I smiled weakly, knowing it didn’t come close to reaching my eyes. “All I want to do is relax in a nice, hot tub and soak the past seven days away, but I still need to clean up all this mess.” I looked around the kitchen, every available surface covered in casserole dishes filled with food, brought over by Grammy’s friends and neighbors. It was going to be impossible to eat all of that food, even with a growing teenage boy in the house.

“Babe,” Pepper spoke up, pulling my attention away from the mess in the kitchen. “Go relax. We’ll take care of this. You don’t need to worry about anything else, okay?”

“Hey!” Griffin shouted. “I didn’t agree to that shit!”

“I swear to God, asshole, I’m going to punch you right in the nuts if you don’t stop talking,” Pepper warned.

Not wanting Pepper to get in trouble for assaulting a police officer, I stood on a laugh. “Thanks, honey. I appreciate that.”

She and Navie stood and got busy. “No problem, sweetie, we got this. When we’re done, we’ll head back to the hotel and give you and Ethan some quiet.”

I walked around the kitchen giving out hugs and goodbyes with the promise of everyone meeting back there in the morning for breakfast before they had to head to the airport. The large, claw foot tub in my grandmother’s bathroom was calling my name.

I had hoped for relaxation, a break from the outside world as I soaked in the warm, soothing water. Instead, once all the tension melted from my body, I fell asleep in the tub and dreamed of the first time I ever laid eyes on Noah.

I was sixteen years old the first time I spoke to Noah Murphy. He was the new boy in town, all mysterious and hot. Despite the fact I didn’t know him whatsoever, I felt a kinship with him, having been the new kid in Pembrooke just three years earlier when Ethan and I had moved in with Grammy after our parents died.

He was taller than most of the boys my age, something I loved considering I stood at the same height, if not taller, than most of them myself. His hair was a little too long, but it still managed to look good on him, and I couldn’t help but want to run my fingers through it whenever I watched him brush it off his forehead in the fifth period Geometry class we shared together. His face was sharper, more defined than most of the sixteen-year-old, baby-faced boys in our class. But despite the chiseled jaw and perfect cheekbones, it was his eyes that I was the most drawn to. They were just a little darker than pure honey, yet not quite as dark as the whiskey Grammy had in her liquor cabinet at home. For any teenage girl with raging hormones, he was the epitome of gorgeous. The girls lost their minds over him, and I was no exception.

I was standing at my locker at school when he appeared at the locker beside mine, like he materialized out of hot guy thin air or something.

“Hey.”

Turning in his direction I saw those unique eyes pointing directly at me. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked to see if he was speaking to someone behind me. I couldn’t help it, Noah had been at our school for a little over a week and, until that very moment, I was certain he didn’t know I even existed.

“Uh… hi?”

The moment the word came out in the form of a question I wanted to smack myself in the face. Two words. We had only shared two flipping words and already I sounded like an idiot.

One corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin and my entire face flushed bright red. “You’re Harlow, right?”

I froze solid at the sound of Noah Murphy saying my name. Noah-flipping-Murphy knew my name!!! He cleared his throat, lifting one of his dark eyebrows when I spent too long doing my impersonation of a statue in the middle of the hallway.

“Um… uh huh.”

Words, Harlow! Say words, for the love of God!

He was probably standing there thinking I was a freak of nature. Noah Murphy went out of his way to come over and say hi, and I was screwing it all to hell. I might as well have just mimed my way through the whole interaction. It couldn’t have possibly been any worse.

To my dismay, he didn’t run off in the opposite direction. His little grin turned into a full-blown smile, causing my knees to tremble. I had to lean against the lockers for support. I had already made a big enough fool out of myself, I’d be damned if I collapsed to the floor while he was standing right in front of me.

“I’m Noah. We’re in the same Geometry class, right?”

Dear sweet baby Jesus, Harlow, use words this time. Do
not
nod your head like a moron!

“Yeah!” I answered a little too enthusiastically. “I mean, uh, yeah. I think we do. I guess. I’m not really sure.”

I wanted to die. I wanted a hole to open up in the floor and swallow me whole. I would have given anything at that very moment for one of those ugly DeLorean’s just so I could go back in time and have a do-over.

“Cool,” he grinned. “Be sure to sit by me in class today.”

Outwardly, I schooled my features as best as I could, but inside I was jumping up and down, squealing like a twelve -year old at a Justin Timberlake concert. I shrugged one shoulder and tried to come off as nonchalant as possible. “Yeah. Sure. I can do that, I guess.”

He took a step closer. His scent invaded my senses and I promised myself right then that I was going to the mall after school to try and find whatever cologne he was wearing, and I didn’t care how weird that made me. “Awesome.” He reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear causing my entire body to break out in goose bumps. “See you later, wildflower.”

With that, he turned and walked away, his stride confident and self-assured. He gave me a nickname. Noah Murphy… the hottest guy in school gave me a nickname and told me to sit by him in class! No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t contain my excitement as my inner twelve-year-old girl emerged dancing and squealing out in the open for everyone to see.

That was how my best friend, Chloe, found me. “Please tell me you’re having a seizure or something. Because if not, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

“Noah Murphy just asked me to sit by him in Geometry!” I squeaked. “And he called me wildflower!”

“No way,” she breathed, her eyes going wide. Chloe understood as well as anybody how important it was for Noah Murphy to talk to you. Every girl in Pembrooke High School wanted to date him. And he asked
me
to sit next to him in class.

That. Was. Epic!

“That’s so awesome!” Chloe declared, grabbing my hands and joining me in my squeal-fest like any good best friend should. Suddenly she stopped jumping up and down and sucked in a sharp gasp before flailing her arms around in front of her. “Ohmigod. I bet he’s gonna ask you out!”

My heart rate picked up as images of Noah taking me on my very first date flooded my head. “You think so?”

“Totally! You two would be so cute together! You better say yes!”

If Chloe was right and he
did
ask me out on a date there was no way in hell I’d say no. Noah Murphy was the first boy to ever spark my interest. The three years I’d lived in Pembrooke consisted of going to school, helping Grammy raise Ethan, and missing my parents terribly.

Neither of us could have known it at the time, but it was in that moment that Noah Murphy had just become someone very important in my life.