The Best is Yet to Come

Forty Two: Noah

It feels like I've walked into a nightmare. I have no other explanation for the sequence of awful events taking place tonight.

Either that, or I died in my sleep and woke up in Hell because that is the only place I ever expected to see Alice again.

Hell would explain why Emma was sitting across from me at one of the round dining tables my mother had set up in the dining room. I knew she had an obsession with placement cards and I'd assumed that she'd seat my guest next to me. Yet upon discovery and despite my verbal objections, Emma had reluctantly taken her seat on the other side of the table, the furthest possible chair from mine.

Between bites of my dinner, I gaze longingly at her as she engages her neighbor in conversation. A young, fair-haired woman that even I don't recognize. On her other side sat, with my greatest displeasure, Jackson.

Despite all my previous statements, now I couldn't wait to talk to him. Couldn't wait to ask him why the fuck he was talking to Alice in the living room ten minutes ago. He knows exactly who she is and what she's done. Seething betrayal emanates off my skin like hot steam as I shuffle through any and all possible reasons they would be talking. I couldn't think of one logical reason but the sick churning in my gut told me Jackson was anything but innocent. Not that I trust Alice, either...

I still didn't know why she was even here in the first place. I haven't seen her since the day I left for college and I had damn well expected to keep it that way. Chewing aggressively, I push away the unpleasant memories before I make this night even worse.

I can't take it anymore. Angered curiosity gets the better of me and I lean to my left, my whispered accusation catching my mother off guard, "Want to tell me why Alice is here tonight?"

She jumps slightly in her seat and blinks at my question, feigning innocence, "I invited her parents. They must have brought her along. I heard she just arrived home from New York with her B.A. in fashion design." Her thin eyebrow arches with this information like she expected me to be impressed.

"Why didn't you tell me you invited her family?" I struggle to hide a growl from my tone. I can't prove that she invited Alice purposely to irritate me, though the glint in her eye doesn't support her case.

Avoiding my eyes, she dabs her scarlet lips with her napkin, "I was afraid you wouldn't come if I did."

Even I couldn't mask my frustration as it boiled, hot and festering, beneath my skin. I pull at my coller, itching to remove my jacket.

Watching me, my mother rolls her eyes and adds impatiently, "Noah, the Whitney's are lifelong friends of our family and they live in town. You can't expect Alice to uproot her life because of what happened. It's unrealistic and frankly, unfair."

I can't believe the words spilling out of her mouth. If Emma wasn't sitting six feet away from me, I'd race from the room and get as far from this house as I possibly could.

Sensing that she might have pushed me too far, my mother pats my arm hastily and changes the subject, "Have you had a chance to talk to Jackson yet? Apparently there's some exciting news about the company."

"I don't care about the company," I remind her flatly. Why was it so difficult for everyone to understand that?

That sets her off. Squaring her shoulders, my mother's voice shifts to a low hiss, "Noah. Stop with this nonsense. Jackson needs you at the office." She stabs a piece of salmon with her fork a little too aggressively.

"The office is over an hour away. I'm not picking up my life and moving to take a job that I don't want." I argue, my voice wavering as I struggle to keep my volume low. There was only so much shit a man could take in a single day.