I follow her into her room with Aiden hesitating in the doorway, unsure if he wants to risk his life by walking through the door. I look back and roll my eyes, apparently giving him what he needs to come on in. Besides, if he leaves me alone with this monster right now, I’ll kick his ass. Taking down bitches like Monica, Candice, and Alyssa is one thing, but facing off against Tully…nope. No thanks.

  Tully grabs her blanket and huffs a few times before glaring at me as if whatever Noah has done is somehow my fault. “He should have known.”

  “What? About Rivers leaving?”

  “Duh,” she snaps. “What the hell do you think I’m talking about?”

  Jesus. This is going to be worse than I thought.

  “How could Noah have known that he was going to enlist and disappear like that?” I question, realizing that Aiden doesn’t actually know what we’re talking about, but I’m sure he’ll quickly put the pieces together. “He’s just as surprised and hurt as you are. He lost his best friend and is already hating himself for letting it happen.”

  Tully lets out a heavy sigh refusing to respond, so I go on. “Come on, Tully,” I murmur, trying to be gentle about it, but not too gentle. After all, she just tried to bitch out the man that I’m crazy in love with. “You’re in love with the guy. If you couldn’t have worked it out, Noah had no chance.”

  She glances away and there’s no doubt in my mind that she knows I’m right. Two seconds later, her eyes fill with tears. “Shit,” I say, climbing across her bed and turning towards Aiden who looks positively horrified at the idea of having to deal with tears. “We’re going to need all the ice cream this house has.”

  Aiden salutes me. “On it,” he says before turning and walking straight out of the room, a sigh of relief following him.

  I climb in beside Tully and pull her into my arms as the tears begin to flow. “It’s going to be alright,” I tell her. "I miss him too.”

  “It’s just,” she cries. “How could he do this to me? I know we weren’t together, but we were in our own way. He was my guy and he just left without even a goodbye.”

  “I know,” I tell her. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing all day, but you saw the letter. He thought he was doing the right thing. He wanted to give you a chance to move on.”

  “By tearing me apart and seeing just how much he could hurt me? Maybe hope that I’ll hate him so much that I couldn’t even consider loving a guy like him?” I let out a sigh and hold her a little tighter as she continues. "He’s not the kind of guy to just make irrational decisions like this. He’s been thinking about it for ages. He’s got his fucking GED for fuck’s sake. He’s been planning this and was just too chicken shit to say goodbye.”

  The more I think about it, the more I realize that she must be right. Joining the Marines at eighteen without a high school diploma just doesn’t happen and I’m sure as hell that getting a GED doesn’t happen overnight. Shit, he has been planning this.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Tullz,” I say, heartbroken that I can’t help her as much as I wish I could.

  She lets out a sigh just as Aiden returns with the ice cream and she instantly dives on it. “It just hurts,” she says, digging the spoon deep into the tub. “I mean, he was able to message Alyssa over and over again for the past two weeks, yet to the person he says he’s in love with; he can’t even spare a second to reply to any of her texts.”

  “Knowing what you know now, don’t you think that hearing from him would have made it harder?”

  “I don’t know,” she grumbles, sulking into her ice cream.

  “He needs you to move on,” I remind her. “He wants you to find someone worthy of you, someone who could give you a life that he doesn’t think he could give you. I know you don’t like it, but this is his way of giving you space to do that.”

  “But he is worthy of me. He’s the best fucking guy I’ve ever met. We would have been so happy if he’d only given us the chance.”

  “I know, but he doesn’t see it that way. Surely you must realize that he’s probably hurting just as much as you are. Walking away from the girl he loves would not have been easy.”

  “He’s a fucking idiot,” she says. “We’re a pack. You don’t walk away from the pack, and you don’t walk away from the girl you love.”

  “Now that I can agree with,” I tell her.

  Aiden climbs into Tully’s bed on her other side. “Look,” he says, “I don’t know how to cheer you chicks up when a guy tramples you like that, but if it makes you feel any better, Henley kicked Alyssa’s ass today. She was fucking incredible.”

  Tully’s head raises with a cocked brow, but with the tears still streaming down her face, I have to smother a laugh. “Really?” she questions. “Alyssa actually did it?”

  “Sure did,” I tell her. “She thought being with Rivers meant that she could take my crown.”

  “Fuck off,” she grumbles. “Doesn’t she realize that being the Queen isn’t the fucking dream job that everyone assumes it is?”

  “Clearly not. I told her if she could take me down that I’d willingly give her the crown.”

  Tully scoffs. “And I bet the fucking idiot tried.”

  I grin wide. “She sure did.”

  “Damn,” Tully sighs. “I wish I’d seen that.”

  “Oh, here,” Aiden says, wriggling around so he can pull his phone out of his pocket. “Spencer recorded it and sent it to me.”

  Aiden fiddles around on his phone and brings up the video before handing it to Tully. I can’t help but lean over to get a look myself. I find myself smiling like some kind of evil villain as I watch Alyssa go down. “Fuck, yeah,” Tully says, getting a little too much satisfaction out of that.

  Her tears begin to dry up but there’s no doubt that the pain hasn’t even begun to fade away and I know that come nightfall, when she’s all alone lying in bed the tears are going to start all over again. “Come on,” I tell her. “Why don’t you go and have a shower? I know you probably don’t feel like it, but I’m sure the hot water and clean clothes will make you feel better.”

  Tully shrugs her shoulders and I decide enough is enough. I pull her up behind me and get her to her feet. “You’ve sat in bed and cried all day. Your face is puffy and sore and I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

  She looks at me for a few moments before completely breaking down into sobs that tear violently from her throat. “I miss him,” she cries.

  Shit.

  I dive in and catch her as she collapses to the ground, but Aiden is there to scoop her up and put her back up onto the bed. She sobs into his chest and I sit, feeling absolutely helpless, hating on Rivers more than when I thought he’d been the one to send the video.

  An hour later, she’s exhausted herself to the point she’s fallen asleep on Aiden’s chest. He goes to scoot out from under her and I shoot him a glare. If he was the one silly enough to let that happen, then he’s staying there until she’s gotten her sleep. I don’t want to risk her waking only to think it over again.

  I get up and make my way around her room, setting up her TV with her Netflix account so Aiden will have something to watch while he lays with a heartbroken girl spread out across his chest.

  “What if I need to pee?” he whisper yells as I make my way to the door.

  I turn back to face him, “Hold it,” I say before pulling the door closed and hoping she’s able to get the rest she needs as an emotionally drained Tully is never fun. Though, I have a feeling this isn’t going to be one of those times she can just snap out of. This heartbreak is going to take forever to get over and even then, I’m not sure she’ll ever be able to move on.

  Walking out into the living room, I realize that Noah isn’t back yet and his parents still aren’t home from work. They both come home late on a Monday and I have a feeling that’s planned. It’s their ‘get away from the rowdy teenagers’ time that seems to happen every week.

  Knowing Tully probably hasn’t eaten all day, I make myself busy in the kitchen and get started making her favorite dish, hoping that’s enough to entice her to eat just a little.

  Breakups suck, but this is so much more than that. There was no breakup here, but there might as well have been. It’s going to hurt just like one, if not more, and I have a feeling she’ll never be able to forgive this. Hell, I don’t even know where she stands on the topic of war, but I have a feeling I know how she’d feel about Rivers being front and center during one.

  All I know is that the next few months are going to be hard. Hopefully, after that, she’ll be able to find a little peace within her heart. Though, that might all go to pieces if he comes back during his leave to explain himself. I hope he does, but then, I hope he doesn’t. It’s all too hard. I guess all we can do is wait and see what happens.

  I’m just about through dinner when I hear the familiar sound of Noah’s car pulling up in the driveway. I smile to myself. I’ve missed him this afternoon.

  Seeing Tully hurting so badly makes me realize how damn lucky I am to have Noah by my side every day. Sure, we may fight every now and then and the need to throat punch him surfaces a little more than it should, but in the end, he’s by my side day in and day out. I love him with everything that I have and for some reason, he loves me all the same. He’s present in my life and wouldn’t dream of pushing me away.

  I couldn’t imagine how hard that must be for Tully, constantly having the man you love so close in your life, knowing how he feels, but being unable to reach out and take what’s yours. It would kill me, every moment of my life I would feel empty, not good enough, unworthy. And that’s exactly what Rivers has done to my best friend.

  I hear the front door opening before Noah’s low groan. Worry filters into me. He never groans like that. He must have had a shit afternoon to finish up his shitty day. I turn down the heat on the stove and put the lid on the pot before going to find him.

  I don’t have to look long as he goes to walk into the kitchen just as I’m walking out.

  I gasp as I look up at him. There’s blood on his face, his brow is cut, and there’s definitely a blackeye forming. “What the hell happened?” I demand as my eyes continue sailing over him, taking in the ripped shirt and bloodied knuckles.

  “Nothing,” he says giving me the side-eye as he walks past me to get a glass of water. “I’m fine. Just forget it, ok.”

  I distantly realize he’s used the exact word that I’d used this afternoon and resist kicking his ass as it seems someone else has already done it for me.

  I cross my arms over my chest as I watch him fill his glass before swirling a mouthful of blood around and spitting it into the sink. “Noah,” I say, demanding his attention. “Don’t even think about giving me the ‘I fell’ bullshit. What the fuck happened to you?”

  He looks over at me with that sharp glare but it quickly fades away. “I’m fine,” he tells me softly. “Just a little misunderstanding.”

  “A misunderstanding usually doesn’t involve a good ass kicking.”

  “Hey, I was the one who did the ass kicking,” he informs me before indicating to his face. “This is nothing. You should see the other guy.”

  I walk forward to get a closer look, deciding his scolding can wait until tomorrow. I’ve already dealt with too much today and I’m fucking exhausted. Noah wraps his arms around me as I try to study his face. “You need ice,” I say, trying to figure out if his brow needs stitches.

  “It’s fine, babe.”

  “It’s not fine,” I say, squeezing out of his arms and darting to the freezer. I rifle round and find the packet of frozen peas and toss them to him before pulling out the box that gets kept in the cupboard exactly for this reason. I walk over to the dining table and pull out a chair, letting him know this is non-negotiable. “Sit down and let me clean you up.”

  Noah rolls his eyes but I’m relieved to see him moving. He takes the seat before me and instantly takes my hips, pulling me in. “What happened?” I murmur, removing one of his hands and forcing him to hold the frozen peas to his face.

  I get started with his brow as he lets out a sigh. “I honestly don’t really know,” he tells me. “One minute I’m standing in front of this guy, demanding payment and the next, my fist is slamming into his face.”

  I resist reminding him how much I hate that he works for Anton and concentrate on today’s events. “He didn’t say anything to provoke you?”

  “Apart from the usual, ‘I’ll pay him next week’ bullshit– nope. He was a fucking douche though and gave me lip, but they all do. They don’t exactly like that some kid is coming ‘round demanding shit from them. He had this bad attitude and the second I saw him, I felt like teaching him a fucking lesson.”

  “This is because of River, isn’t it?”

  He glances away and shrugs his shoulders. “Add that to you not telling me whatever the fuck’s been on your mind for the past few weeks, and yeah, I might have needed an outlet,” he explains. "Usually, Rivers is around and we take our shit out on each other.”

  I curl my hand around the back of his neck and give a light squeeze, remembering how not that long ago, the boys had beat the shit out of each other in the living room, putting one hell of a hole in the wall. “I know you’re angry with him,” I murmur. “But it’s ok to miss him too.”

  Noah drops the peas and pulls me in even tighter before pressing his head into my stomach. I hold him there, giving him what he needs as my thumb gently rubs over the back of his neck. “Don’t you think that could be a sign that things need to change, you know, with Anton?”

  His fingers tighten on my waist. “Don’t start this again,” he groans.

  “I’m serious,” I tell him. “Working for Anton is dangerous but doing it without Rivers is just asking for trouble. He’s not coming back and I’m terrified that you’re going to run into the wrong guy and end up in trouble, or hurt.”

  “Babe, you know I can’t.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “Because of Lily.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that now.”

  I grab his head and pull him back up, needing to see his face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Tell me,” he says. “What did Tully’s face look like when she went to Broken Hill University with you?”

  My brows pull down, wondering where the hell he’s going with this. “She was in awe.”

  “Exactly. She’ll never admit it, but she needs to be there, getting a business degree for that flower thingy she wants to do after school.”

  “Wait,” I say, pulling back. “How the hell did you know that? She told me she hadn’t told you.”

  He grins as though he’s proud of himself. “I know everything that’s going on with my sister.”

  “You didn’t know that she was in love with your best friend for years,” I remind him, never skipping an opportunity to put him in his place.

  “Really?” Noah scoffs. “You want to go and bring that up right now?”

  I laugh as I study his face, skipping over the whole ‘Tully and Rivers being in love’ thing. “You realize she thinks being a florist is some kind of top secret?”

  “I know,” he chuckles. "And it’ll stay that way until she decides that she’s brave enough to tell me.”

  “You’re such a good brother,” I tell him.

  He beams up at me. “I know. She’s so fucking lucky to have me.”

  I roll my eyes. “So, what are you trying to tell me, exactly?” I ask. “How does working for Anton have anything to do with Tully going to college?”

  “Because,” he starts, pulling me down onto his lap. “The reason she refuses to even try is because she doesn’t want to ask our parents for the money to go, but I’ve been saving up for this. In another few months, I’ll have enough to cover her if she was to get in. Nothing is holding her back, you know, except her grades, but they’ve been getting better since you’ve been forcing her to put a little effort in.”

  “That’s all good and all, but you realize the cut off for applications has already passed? There’s no way a school like that would accept late entries.”

  A cheesy as fuck smile plasters itself over his handsomely cut up face. “You really think I’d do all this and not remember to put in her application?”

  “Holy shit, Noah. She’s going to kill you.”

  “Yep,” he agrees. “But it’ll be worth it. She wants this flower shop, and I’m sure she could make it happen on her own, but with a business degree behind her, she’d be unstoppable.”

  “So, you’re prepared to continue working for a guy like Anton, despite what could possibly happen, just to help Tully get to college.”

  “You bet that fine ass of yours I would.”

  “I think I just fell in love with you a little more.”

  “Right back at ya, babe,” he says before gently pressing his lips to mine. “Don’t act as though I haven’t noticed that you just cooked dinner for my whole family.”

  I grin against his lips before he pulls back and studies my face. “How is she?”

  “Asleep,” I tell him. “She put up a fight and then completely broke down. She’s shattered, but Aiden’s with her now.”

  “But she’s asleep?” he checks, wondering how Aiden fits into this.

  “Yeah,” I chuckle. “She fell asleep on top of him and I refused to let him move in case he woke her, so he’s watching some ridiculous show on Netflix while she snores.”

  He nods his head. “She’s really hurting, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “It’s going to take a while for her to get past this one.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Chapter 13

  “Shit. Hurry up,” Noah yells as the rain quickly turns into large, icy, hailstones that come down hard on my new car.

  I slam the door and run inside as fast as I can, searching through all the cupboards for a thick blanket big enough to cover the car from front to back. It doesn’t take long to realize that Noah didn’t come tearing in behind me, but I don’t have the time to dwell on it. I need to get a blanket on my car before it turns into a dented mess.