Chapter 8

EIGHT

Noelle

I smile as I lazily draw circles with my finger on Ansel’s bare chest. My body is sore from everything that we did together, but I’ve never been happier. I can’t stop smiling, can’t stop touching him.

Being in bed with him, naked, feels almost surreal. I’ve wanted Ansel for so long, and now it’s finally happened. Now he’s finally mine.

“Feels nice,” he says sleepily, and I lean up on my elbow and look down at him. “What time is it?”

“Just after six.”

“Are you hungry? I can go make us some dinner. Or we can order something,” he says, and I grin.

“I’m hungry, but I think that I could wait for a bit,” I say, leaning forward to kiss him.

He kisses me back greedily.

“Fuck, I love that I get to kiss you whenever I want now,” he says, and I giggle.

“I love that too.”

“We sh?—”

“Noelle!” Someone screams outside, breaking the quiet calm around us, and we both freeze.

Then comes the sound of someone banging on the front door.

“Who is that?” I ask as Ansel leaps out of bed and grabs his clothes off of the floor.

“I don’t know. Stay here, okay?”

“Wait! Don’t go down there. Maybe we should just call the cops or?—"

“Noelle! Get out here!” They scream, and I tense.

“It’s my stepdad. It’s Paul,” I tell Ansel, and he looks grim.

“Stay here,” he orders before he heads out of the bedroom.

“Ansel!” I call after him, but he’s already gone.

I can’t stay here, naked, and wait for him to come back, so I scramble out of bed and pull on my clothes, cursing, when I realize that my sweater is on backward and inside out.

I can hear raised voices coming from the floor below me, and I rush out of the bedroom and to the top of the stairs.

“You’re not coming inside. Noelle is staying here, and you need to leave,” Ansel says forcefully, but Paul just glares at him.

“I’m not leaving without her. She has her mom and brother worried sick.”

“I doubt that.”

“It’s true!” Paul screams, and Ansel shuts the door an inch, trying to force Paul back out onto the front porch.

I wonder how he even made it so far into the house. I know that Ansel hates him, so I’m guessing that Paul pushed in when Ansel first answered the door.

I take a step down onto the first stair, and my eyes stray to the splintered wood. I didn’t see it before, with Ansel’s body in the way, and my mouth drops as I realize that my stepdad must have kicked the door in enough to break it and get into the house.

What was his plan? What was he thinking?

“What are they worried about? That they just lost their live-in maid?” Ansel snarls at Paul.

“She’s our daughter! She’s our family, and family helps each other out!”

Paul’s face is so red that I’m worried that he’s about to have a heart attack.

“And when have you ever helped her?” Ansel asks, his voice deadly calm.

“We raised her! We kept a roof over her head, kept her fat ass fed, we?—”

Ansel punches him right in the face.

“No one talks about my Noelle like that,” he snarls, sounding like a beast, and I shiver.

“You asshole! I’ll call the cops! This is assault!” Paul sputters.

“You’re trespassing. You broke my door. Who do you think the cops are going to arrest?” Ansel snarls at him.

He takes a step towards Paul, and my stepdad trips over himself, backing up.

I should be worried or afraid, but seeing Ansel like this, being my protector, all I can think about is taking him back to bed and showing him how much I love him.

I never told him that, I realize and make a mental note to tell him that I love him more than anything as soon as Paul is gone and we’re alone again.

“Noelle is staying with me. She’s not going to go back to being at your beck and call. If she wants a relationship with any of you, that will be up to her.”

“I don’t,” I call, and they both turn to look up at me.

I swallow and start to slowly walk down the stairs. I can tell that Ansel wants to tell me to stop, to go back upstairs where it’s safe, but I think that he can see that I need to do this. He knows that I need to be the one to tell my family off. I know that Ansel will always be there for me, he’ll always support me, but I need to start sticking up for myself too. I need to take back some of my power that they’ve stolen over the years.

“I don’t want to ever see any of you again. Don’t call me. Don’t ever come back here. If we run into each other in town, just pretend like we don’t know each other.”

“You don’t mean that. This… this asshole has just brainwashed you! He’s always been bad news,” Paul says, and I snort.

“Ansel is the best person that I know. He’s the most amazing person, and all he’s ever done is look out for me and take care of me.”

“You heard her. Get lost,” Ansel says, standing at my side with his big arms crossed over his chest.

“You’re going to break your mother’s heart,” Paul says, trying to change tactics and guilt me into going back.

“I’m sure that she’ll be fine.”

“She won’t. You don’t have kids, so you don’t know how much losing one can hurt you.”

“You’ve done nothing but hurt me. If we ever have kids, I won’t let you near them, and I sure as hell won’t ever treat them the way that you treated me.”

Paul’s eyes flash, and I can tell that he doesn’t know how to handle me. He can’t manipulate me, not when I’m standing next to Ansel, and anger starts to take over again.

“Time for you to go,” Ansel says before Paul can say anything else.

Then he shoves him out onto the porch, closing the front door as much as he can.

“Leave, or I’ll call the cops and have you arrested for property damage and trespassing,” Ansel threatens him.

I can hear Paul screaming and cursing as he heads back to his car, and I let out a deep breath. Ansel kicks the door closed as much as it will go, and then he’s on me, wrapping me up in a tight hug.

“You’re such a badass,” he tells me, and I let out a surprised laugh.

“Hardly. I was only so brave because you were standing next to me and I knew that you would keep me safe.”

“Always,” he promises, and I smile and hug him back.

“Thank you,” I whisper, and he kisses the top of my head.

“For what?”

“For always being there for me. I meant what I said to him. You really are the most amazing person that I know. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I… I love you, Ansel. I always have, and I know that I always will.”

“Fuck, Noelle, don’t cry,” he says, sounding and looking pained as he wipes my tears away. “I would do anything for you. I love you, more than anything. I’ve always loved you. I should have told you. I should have married you when I joined the Marines and taken you with me. I just… I thought that you didn’t see me that way.”

“I did,” I tell him, and he nods.

“I should have talked to you four years ago. Hell, I should have asked you to be mine the second that I saw you.”

“We’ve wasted so much time,” I whisper, and he smiles slightly.

“We won’t waste anymore,” he promises me.

“I’m sorry about your door.”

He shrugs, and I look at the busted wood.

“I know that you like a different style door any way so I was going to replace it. We can go look in town tomorrow,” he tells me. “We’ll get the kind you like, with the big glass in it to let in the sun.”

I smile, squeezing him tighter.

“I love that you know so much about me.”

“I’ve been obsessed with you for most of my life, Noelle. I don’t think that you realize just how much you mean to me.”

“I do,” I assure him. “Because I feel the exact same way about you.”

“You’re moving in here,” he tells me, and I grin as I rest my face against his strong chest.

“Alright.”

“Into our room. The master bedroom,” he clarifies, and I nod.

“Okay.”

We stand like that, our arms wrapped around each other for a moment, until the wind kicks up outside and the door sags open slightly.

“I’ll fix it for tonight,” he says, reluctantly pulling away from me.

“I can help.”

He nods and passes me my boots to put on while he heads out back to the shed to find a piece of wood big enough to cover the doorway.

I smile as I look around my new home. I’ve never really thought about my future, probably because I was always too busy trying to make it through each day. Now though… now all I can think about is what’s to come. I want a future with Ansel, I want everything with him, and I know that together we can get through anything.

Starting with this door…