29. Noah

I wakein the middle of the night. I know that because it's dark and silent—as quiet as it gets in the city, at least. I've lost count of how many times I've been sick, or how low I've felt every time Cat has come in to help me. She's washed my bowl and changed my sheets and now I can never face her again. I know it's been at least an entire night and a day and then a night again, because I've been hazily awake off and on.

There's also the snippets of memory floating around in my head. Moments when I think I told Cat that I love her and never want her to leave. I was sitting on the bathroom floor, my head over the toilet, and she was pressing her cool fingers to my forehead.

Hopefully that was a dream.

Now I'm ravenous and alert. I rub my eyes and sit up, growing completely still when I notice Cat in the chair in the corner of my room. She's curled up with a blanket, her feet on the ottoman and her head resting on the armrest. There is no way that's more comfortable than the couch. I need to fix this.

As I slowly sit up and wait for my head to stop spinning, I realize I'm in no shape to carry her anywhere. My hands are braced on the edge of the mattress, my head hanging down while I wait for my blood to even out.

"Noah?"

My body constricts. Has she said my name before now? It has a crazy effect on me, but I do my best not to react.

She rises, leaving the blanket and picking up black-rimmed glasses, sliding them on before coming to stand in front of me. She's in one of my T-shirts, so long on her it hits her mid-thigh, and I'm struggling to swallow. I've never been more attracted to anyone in my entire life.

"You okay?" she asks, her voice low from sleep.

I lift my head. "I'm actually hungry."

"That's a great sign," she says. "Does hot and sour soup sound good?"

I can only seem to gaze up at her like the angel that she is. I want to pull her close, so I grip the mattress harder. "How did you know?"

"Mateo."

"Of course."

She turns away. "I'll go heat it up."

I reach for her hand, tugging. I don't have much strength right now, so I know she's willing when she turns back to face me. "You should go to sleep," I say, admiring the glasses and her rumpled hair.

"I can heat some soup first."

"So can I. You've done enough."

"It's just soup."

"It's the middle of the night."

"It's like eleven."

"What?" I look at the clock, and indeed, it isn't even midnight yet.

"You slept for almost twenty-four hours. It makes sense you'd be hungry now."

I'm still holding her wrist, my fingers running along her velvety skin. I thought my pride wouldn't allow me to face her again, but it's surprisingly easy. She makes everything feel that way. "It's too much. Everything you've done is too much. I can't believe you stuck around."

She grows still. "I wouldn't abandon you."

"Clearly."

"Listen." She frees her hand to brace my shoulders, standing between my legs. The hem of her shirt—my shirt—brushes against my knees. "It's really not a big deal. I would stay up with anyone I care about."

She cares about me.

"As for all the other stuff?—"

I groan.

"—I've seen so much worse. I'm a maid, remember? I don't get grossed out very easily."

"That's not as comforting as you think it is. I've had my eye on you for a long time, Cat Keene. Now that we're friends, this isn't really how I want you to see me."

"Tough. It's over now and, like I said, I'm not going anywhere."

"You mean I get to keep you?"

She laughs. "You don't really want that. You're still delirious."

"Maybe a little. But I know how I feel about you." I'm feeling reckless and heady and will probably regret this tomorrow. "If you feel even remotely the same way, I don't want to pretend anymore."

Her fingers dig into my shoulders. "Why were you pretending?"

"Because you work for me. I'm your boss. It's not appropriate to try and date you while I'm paying you so much."

She freezes. "What do you mean?"

"When you're finished earning the money you need for Otto, then I can ask you out."

"So it was just a charity thing," she says, and her voice has a weird quality.

"No."

"Why else would you say you can't date me while you're paying me so much?" She drops her hands and steps back. "Not just paying me, but overpaying me? Seriously, Belacourt?"

Not Noah. Belacourt again. It feels like a demotion. "Just let me write a check, Cat. Let me help you so you don't have to worry anymore."

She takes another step back.

I immediately regret the words. I'm not thinking straight.

"It's late," she says, "and you're hungry. I'm going to heat your soup." Her words are clipped, a message to quit talking while I'm ahead. I give her five minutes in the kitchen before I follow her in there and sit at the counter. She gives me a steaming bowl of hot and sour soup—my comfort food—and a glass of Gatorade.

"Just do what you can," she says.

I take one bite and my stomach doesn't want it, so I chase it with Gatorade and wait.

"Want toast?" she asks.

"I don't have bread."

"I ordered some." She moves into the kitchen and makes me toast.

The whole time I feel like we're hanging out in limbo, where she's upset but still feels like she has to care for me.

I don't like this, so I stand up and circle the island to reach her. "Cat." I take her face in my hands and wait until she looks at me. "I said something stupid, okay? Can we please forget it?"

"It's not what you said," she says weakly. "It's how you feel. You can't just wave your checkbook and erase my problems."

"Actually, I can. For this problem, at least. I haven't tried to, because I respect you too much and it's obviously not what you want. But I can."

She looks at me but says nothing.

"The only reason I haven't offered before is because I knew you'd say no. I also figured it meant you wouldn't work for me anymore and, selfishly, I've really enjoyed having you around."

Cat steps out of reach and my hands fall to my sides. "Is this all just charity? You hired me to pay Otto's bill and create jobs to keep me busy? Did you ever even need an island PA?"

"You've earned that money, Cat. Don't diminish the work you've done. You were crucial to the success of the ad campaign. Without you, we wouldn't have gotten such incredible shots. But before that, even, you were imperative to the creative process."

"You were humoring me."

"You think that?" Now I'm annoyed. "I asked for all those opinions because I value your feedback. You're smart, you're our demographic, you're a consumer. The things you said were useful and relevant. You were immensely helpful."

She closes her eyes.

Time for all or nothing. "I have liked you for a long time, Cat."

"You mentioned that last night."

"Crap. That wasn't a dream?"

She gives me a soft smile, filling my chest with hope. "No. Apparently, you've been into me since middle school. Caused a lot of problems with that crush, Belacourt."

"I would have kept it to myself had I known."

"Even now?"

"No." I swallow, my throat going dry. "Now I want you to know I have a crush on you." I step forward, but my head is light.

Cat considers me for a beat. "Then show me your secret room."

"What?"

"The secret room. The Vikings you hid on your computer. Give me a reason to believe you can trust me. You didn't tell me Bree's secret, which makes me think you're good at boundaries, but I also need to know you trust me."

My heart thuds. Cat stuck around even after I made a fool of myself at Tootsie's party with an anxiety attack and the flu. She has stuck around despite being angry that I want to pay away all her problems. If she hasn't left for those reasons, maybe this won't turn her away either.

At some point I have to take a leap of faith.

"Okay. Follow me." I lead her to the bookcase to the right of my TV and find the fake The Lord of the Rings book. "This is the key. It's a dead giveaway, since it's a trilogy and this isn't thick enough to hold all three books."

"Not a dead giveaway to all of us," she mutters.

I pull the book, which is really a lever, and the bookcase swings open. Inside, I slide up the dimmer until there's enough light to see into my little den.

"You're serious," she says, stepping inside. Her eyes run over the shelves of Funko Pops and LEGO creations of Hogwarts Castle and Rivendell. Her gaze moves to Aragorn's sword hanging above my computer, then the framed TheLord of the Rings movie posters and the enormous map of Middle Earth on one wall. The Death Star hangs from the ceiling, the Millenium Falcon a few feet away. There's a glass frame holding Viking arrowheads I bought in the UK a few years ago. It's a nerd's treasure trove.

I try to see it all through her eyes, and I'm guessing most of it doesn't make sense.

"Where's the Viking thing?" she asks.

I sigh, pulling out the desk chair and powering on the computer. It takes a minute to pull up the game, and I'm grateful to sit. When it comes on the screen, I swivel to face her. "A few guys at work are helping me create a game."

"Like Vikings meet wizards?"

"Kind of." I make my character walk through a tavern and then through a village, showing her some of the graphics. "It's at the beginning stages. I'm hoping to build that department once the dating app is launched. Maybe open an office entirely for game development." I swivel in the chair to face her, nervous about what I'm going to find. Cat has always been cool. She's the kind of effortless who does what she wants and wears what she wants and always seems so comfortable in her own skin.

I couldn't be that person in a million years. I overthink everything. Stress is my longtime companion. It's a turn-off for a lot of women, but they put up with me for the other perks, like Celine can attest to. My name comes with money, spotlight, entrance into places otherwise closed to the public—like Kevin McCallister's hotel.

"This is really cool," she says, her eyes dancing around the room again, taking in the minor details—"speak friend and enter" painted in Elvish above the interior of the door or the glass-encased pipe Gandalf would have used in filming if his had broken. It might be a backup, but it's still the real deal.

And, no, I will not say how much I spent on it at auction.

Is Cat pulling my leg? I look up at her, and her eyes are jumping between my computer screens before slowly tracking each of the things in the small room.

When her gaze falls back on me, it's warm. "I love this."

"Do you know what any of it is?" I ask.

"No, but it's still cool." She crosses to the map of Middle Earth and peers closely.

"The Lord of the Rings," I tell her.

"You really like that one, don't you?"

"It's some of the best storytelling of all time."

"Hmm. You're saying it's better than The Shop Around the Corner? Or You've Got Mail?"

I stare at her.

"What? Those are romantic comedy at its finest," she says, perching on the edge of my desk. "I tell you what. We watch your favorite movie?—"

"Trilogy."

"—then we'll watch mine. After that, we can debate."

"It's apples to oranges."

"It's your favorites to mine."

She's not running away. I told her I like her, showed her who I really am, and she's not running away. "Should we start now?"

Cat gazes down into my eyes like she's reading my soul. "Yes."

It feels like she's agreeing to more than just a movie marathon. I'm waiting for the penny to drop, for Cat to laugh at my interests like my sisters do or some of my ex-girlfriends have. Celine doesn't even know this room exists, because we never reached the point where I could bare my soul to her. I'm waiting for Cat to tell me it's a cute pastime but bores her. I'm waiting for things to go wrong.

But they don't.

We leave the secret room and go to the kitchen to retrieve my cold toast. "I like the glasses," I tell her.

"I know."

My face cringes. "You mean I already said something earlier?"

"I believe your exact words were something about a sexy librarian."

I shove the toast in my mouth so I don't have to come up with a reply. I'm starting to worry about what other things I revealed while in the throes of delirium, but at this point, there's nothing I wouldn't want Cat to know about me. Apparently, I've confessed my love for her and her sexy glasses, showed her I'm a professional nerd, and she's still here.

"Olive mentioned your parents have fought for a long time," she says, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter.

"Most of our lives."

"But they waited so long to divorce."

"I'm guessing they considered their relationship as more of a partnership than a marriage. When the partnership outlived its usefulness, they dissolved the company."

"The company being their marriage?"

I shrug, taking another bite of toast and waiting to see how it feels on my raw, empty stomach.

"Was she serious about selling the Sunset Harbor house?" Cat won't look me in the eye.

The toast hovers just before my mouth. I'd forgotten about that. I put it down on the plate. "I don't know."

"So you don't know if you'll have a home on the island anymore?"

This hurts her. I can see that right away, but what I don't understand is why. "I think it will hurt my sisters more than me. When I'm around, I usually stay at the resort anyway."

"Right. When you're around."

"What's wrong, Cat?"

She looks ready to say something, but then looks away and smiles. "Should we start the first movie? I'm wide awake now."

"There's a projector in my room if you don't mind lounging on my bed. I promise I'll stay on my side."

"That sounds amazing," she says, heading for my room.

I think I just won the lottery.