Out of My League

Chapter 21 (Izzy)

Reagan and I are on our sixth consecutive hour of a competitive cooking show when a knock sounds on the hotel door. 

I don't know who it could possibly be considering Noah is still very obviously upset with me. I'd called him three hours ago and he hadn't answered. 

In fact, it'd gone immediately to voicemail. 

I'd wanted to call him again, to call him until he picked up, but I decided against it. I don't want to seem like an overbearing, obsessed girlfriend. 

He'll call when he's ready. 

Hopefully soon because I'm beginning to go slightly stir crazy without him. 

Does that make me an obsessed girlfriend? 

I don't care. 

Reagan looks at me, completely tucked under the blankets with pillows propped all around her. 

"Please," I poke my bottom lip out, doing my best to give her puppy-dog eyes. 

She groans, taking a pillow from behind her head and whacking me with it. 

"Only because you're having a bad day," she tells me, throwing the covers off of herself and walking over to the door. 

The wall in the middle of the room completely blocks my view of the door, so I can't see who's standing there. 

"Is it the pizza?" I ask. We'd only called and ordered it twenty minutes ago, so Reagan better tip them extra for their fast delivery, "I'm starving." 

"Not the pizza," Reagan calls out, lowering her voice as she walks back into our shared bedroom, "But it's for you." 

"Me?" I ask, butterflies in my stomach fluttering excitedly, "Is it Noah?" 

Reagan shrugs, innocently, "I guess you'll have to go see for yourself." 

Tossing the covers off of myself with a newfound energy, I bound out of bed and to the doorway. 

My knees nearly go weak when I see him standing there, smiling, with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other. 

He's wearing a look equaled with guilt and sadness. 

"I'm sorry," he blurts just as I'm opening my mouth to say the same thing. 

We both laugh a little before he gestures at himself and says, "I was a jerk and for that, Bella, I'm so sorry." 

"It's okay-" 

"It's not," he insists, "I brought your mom up, I compared her like the two situations could be compared at all."

"It's okay," I insist, trying to portray with my voice just how much I truly mean it, "You're sorry and that's all I could ask for." 

"So, I can keep the chocolate?" He asks with a small smile, making to pocket it. 

I lunge for it, giggling like a schoolgirl as he releases the box into my hands, "Absolutely not. I'm keeping the chocolate." 

Immediately, when I realize I've yet to apologize, I say, poking my bottom lip out for emphasis, "I'm sorry, too. I never should've tried to get in the way of your decision." 

"You most definitely should've," he says with certainty, stepping towards me. The wind he carries with him doesn't smell with Noah; it smells like oranges and something else, something I can't quite place. 

Maybe he was with Vivi all that time and that's why he didn't answer my call. 

"I was only trying to help," I glance, bashfully, at the ground, "But it won't happen again, I promise. I'll keep my opinion to myself."