Awake At Dawn (Wildflower Series Book 2)

SILAS TAYLOR. WHAT a motherfucking sleazeball.

I stared down at the picture of St. Maverick’s athletic director on my phone, wishing I could wipe that smug expression off his face. The only thing keeping my pissy mood in check was the knowledge that Silas Taylor wouldn’t be looking at anyone like that once Julian learned he’d knocked up his sister and then told her to fuck off.

God, I couldn’t wait for that day. I hoped to hell that Julian would let me tag along.

A flash of copper hair caught my attention, and I shoved my phone into my pocket, snapping into action. Gemma had a teetering pile of boxes in her arms as she slipped through the front entrance of her apartment complex.

I swore, racing forward to grab the load from her arms. She was reluctant to let me help; I felt the stubborn resistance in how she gripped the boxes, but she didn’t say anything.

“When you said you were coming down, I thought you meant you were letting me in so I could come up and help you.”

“I just figured I should bring a load if I was coming down.” She wiped a few beads of sweat off her forehead. “Save some time.”

“You brought a load, alright,” I muttered, maneuvering her piles of boxes into the back of my SUV. They weren’t light. “Fuck. How much can you bench, Gemma?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, waving the comment away and turning on her heel to lead me back into the apartment complex. I wasn’t fooled, though. I saw her eyes light up when she saw my home gym yesterday. I’d bet anything Gemma had all her PRs memorized.

I followed her through a foyer, noting how the old building seemed to have been recently renovated. But then she brought me to an elevator that didn’t seem nearly as new as the tile in the entryway, and I half wondered if we should have gone with the stairs instead.

“Did your doctor mention any restrictions for the gym or the rink?” I asked, deciding not to comment on the state of our ride to the fifth floor.

Gemma froze, giving me a funny look.

“Was that an obvious question?” I chuckled, nervous I’d said the wrong thing. “I obviously don’t know the first thing about pregnancy.”

I still hadn’t completely wrapped my head around that—Gemma being pregnant. It bothered me more than I cared to admit, but mostly because it meant that a sleazeball named Silas had fucking touched her. I hated that. I hated how he’d treated her and how I couldn’t shake the urge to treat her better when it wasn’t my place. I hated that she’d forfeited her job—her whole goddamn livelihood—to get away from him.

Although if that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have run into each other, and we wouldn’t even be here.

Gemma relaxed again, her lips twitching as those dazzling blue eyes swept over me. We stood on opposite sides of the elevator, her leaning against one wall and me leaning against the other. The space between us seemed to stretch forever, and I resisted the urge to lessen the distance.

“Well, Noah. When sperm travels through the cervix and into the uterus—” She broke off with a grin at my expression, and then her sparkling laugh drifted into a sigh that sounded almost sad. “I considered making a speech about how when a man loves a woman…but clearly, that isn’t necessary to make a baby. So the technical version will have to work.”

Gemma looked pointedly down at her stomach at the last words, and before I could conjure up a response, the elevator dinged, and the doors slid apart. Gemma slipped through them as fast as she could, and I had to quicken my pace to keep up with her, watching her long, shiny hair fly behind her as she damn near sprinted down the hallway.

“Eager to get out of here?” I teased when Gemma stopped in front of a door labeled 512.

She grimaced as she glanced back at me over her shoulder. “I told my landlord I would be out of here by eleven.”

“It’s 10:39, Gemma.”

The door clicked open, and she raced through it. “Why do you think I was trying to save time earlier?”

I ran a hand down my face. “Jesus, you should have told me to come like two hours ago.”

“I didn’t want to inconvenience you more than I already am.”

She started stuffing blankets into a bag, and I paused in the doorway to her apartment, taking in the pile of boxes and worn, weathered flooring. The space was decently sized, the walls painted in pastel colors that reminded me of the girl packing her things. A pang of sadness hit me as I realized what she had to give up, and then anger came crashing in, too. Just another thing that I hated about him.

“Gemma.”

She ignored me, wandering through her packed belongings like she was looking for something. I was sure she was just using it as an excuse not to look at me, though. So I followed, weaving through the piles until she was within reach. “Gemma,” I repeated, wrapping my fingers around her forearm.

She stilled, her breaths labored as she kept her eyes downcast.

“If we’re going to spend the next six months living together, you can’t do that.”

“What?” She blinked, her long lashes sweeping up so I finally had her eyes. They sucked me in until I felt trapped—but in the best way possible. This was what living with her would be like, wasn’t it? Hell, I might not make it.

“You can’t keep things from me because you don’t want to bother me,” I clarified.

“But I really don’t want to bother you, Noah.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to rescind my offer? Because I won’t,” I assured her. “I promise. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I just feel like such a burden,” she whispered.

The anger kept rolling in, spreading through me like wildfire. Silas Taylor was such a fucking dead man. Gemma was doing me a favor by moving in, but she couldn’t see that at all. And there had to be a reason for her worries.

“You’re not a burden, and this isn’t charity. You’re helping me. I’m helping you. It’s a two-way street.” She bit down on her lip, and I could tell she wasn’t totally buying what I was saying. “This is because of what he said to you, isn’t it?” When I realized I was still gripping her arm, I let it go. “He made you feel this way. When you told him⁠—”

“Noah, it’s fine.” She shook her head, but I didn’t miss how her eyes glossed over before they darted away. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.”

I pursed my lips but didn’t argue the point. If Gemma needed to get her stuff out of here as soon as possible, then that was what I should focus on. I could worry about how to deal with Silas Taylor another time.

But there would be another time.

I tossed Gemma the bag with blankets in it when we arrived back at my place, specifically picking something light for her to carry. The idea of watching any girl break their back when I wasn’t the one doing it didn’t sit right with me. Gemma rolled her eyes like she knew what I was doing but didn’t say a word about it.

In fact, Gemma was unusually quiet on our way up to my unit, meaning it was our second unsettled elevator ride of the day. And the lingering awkward tension only worsened when we ran into my neighbor Summer.

“This one’s moving in already, huh?”

She was clearly about to enter her apartment but just had to take time out of her fucking miserable life to harass us. I wasn’t sure what I ever did to Summer, but she hated me.

Okay, that wasn’t necessarily true. I had an idea of what I did to her, but I still didn’t think it warranted the attitude she gave me on a daily basis.

“This one has a name,” Gemma snapped before I even had a chance to consider what Summer said. Usually, I let her snide little comments go in one ear and out the other.

Summer opened her mouth to reply, and I quickly added, “And we won’t be telling you what it is.”

I didn’t want word to get around about Gemma. If the media caught a whiff, it would only be a matter of time before Julian found out. And while I didn’t particularly like the idea of hiding this arrangement from my friend, the last thing I wanted was for him to find out from someone other than Gemma or me.

“Hm, protective,” she murmured as we walked past her. I guided Gemma to the opposite side of the hallway than Summer, blocking her from view. “Interesting.”

“No, it’s called common decency,” I called over my shoulder. “Because my friends don’t deserve to be harassed by you.”

“Friends?” she laughed. “Is that what we’re calling them now?”

I gritted my teeth but pressed on, motioning for Gemma to ignore her and keep walking.

But we didn’t make it all the way into my apartment before Summer conjured up something else to say.

“I’m not the one who uses women for⁠—”

I slammed my apartment door on the end of her sentence, but I knew what it was. It was always the same.

“Fuck, I’m sorry about that,” I said immediately, setting the heavy boxes on the ground and moving to take the pillows and blankets from Gemma. My insides sank as I realized what she likely thought after Summer’s spewings. “I promise the rest of my neighbors aren’t so…”

“Jealous?” Gemma finished for me, cocking her head slightly with a lopsided grin.

“I was going to say hostile.”

Gemma shrugged. “I think she’s just jealous she’s not invited to the slumber party.”

That squeezed a laugh out of me. “I don’t know about that, but Summer never used to be like that until I rejected her.”

“See? Jealous.” The expression on Gemma’s face remained neutral, but it didn’t make me feel a lick better.

“Look, about what she said⁠—”

Gemma held up a hand to stop me. “You don’t have to explain anything, Noah.”

“Right.” My lips twisted. “I forgot my reputation precedes me.”

“I just meant that it isn’t my place to have an opinion on what your sex life is like.”

Oh, great. We were really having this conversation, weren’t we?

“I don’t use women for sex,” I said flatly, feeling like she missed that point.

“That’s good.” She considered me, lazily assessing my face like she was looking for a lie she knew wasn’t there. “I didn’t really think you did.”

I picked up one of the boxes again, needing something to do with my hands. “You have more faith in me than a lot of people, and you barely know me,” I muttered, slipping away from Gemma to put the boxes in her new room.

“My brother wouldn’t be friends with someone who used and abused women,” she called after me.

But it made me scoff as I slid the box into the room and returned to grab another. “You do remember his reaction when he thought I was going on a date with Juniper, right?”

I wasn’t sure why I was arguing against her about this. Of course I didn’t want her to think that I used women for sex, but she was giving me the benefit of the doubt when I wasn’t sure I deserved it. Everyone, even my own sister, thought I was a fucking player. There was no reason for Gemma to have this much faith in me. I might be doing her a little favor, but I didn’t want her looking at me with stars in her eyes. I’d only disappoint her.

That was the last thing I wanted, even though I was terrified it would happen. I really wanted to be someone Gemma could count on right now when she felt like she had no one. In reality, she had a million people in her life that would be a better support system than me, but until she was ready to tell them, I wanted to step up to the plate. I hoped to hell I wouldn’t mess it up, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about pregnancy, hadn’t lived with someone else since college, and had never even had a girl sleep over at my apartment. No one was allowed to stay the night.

And now Gemma was going to be here every night.

And every morning.

“Because he was in love with Juniper,” Gemma emphasized, bringing me back to our conversation as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“And for some reason, he still worried I’d take her home with me afterward,” I grunted, grabbing the next box.

“Did Juniper seem worried about that?”

“No.” I shook my head with a shrug as I returned to where Gemma stood. “She seemed to know that it wasn’t a real date. Just a dinner between friends.”

Gemma raised her brow as if to say, See? But I shook my head again, waving off her reassurance. And that was when she moved closer.

“Noah, I told myself I wouldn’t trust men who didn’t deserve it. Not after…you know.” Her hand moved over her stomach, which was still flat—no hint of pregnancy. But I did know.

“I know I come off as desperate, but I’m not that desperate,” she continued. “I wouldn’t be moving in if I thought you were an ass. And please don’t let me being here keep you from living your life. If you have girls over or whatever, I won’t say a word. I’ll gladly hide in my room or leave for the night. You can do the good ol’ tie-on-the-door thing.”

Great. So she wasn’t delusional, and she did think I was a playboy. Just a nice playboy. Somehow, none of that made me feel better.

“I’m not going to bring girls over while you’re here,” I said gruffly.

“Oh, you’re practicing abstinence now?” she asked, looking wholly surprised.

I gritted my teeth together, her shock making the next words fall from my mouth for no reason other than the need to lash out. “No, I’ll just use my away games for that.”

“Oh.”

Gemma didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so I added, “You can have guys over if you want.”

As soon as I said it, I bit down on my tongue to keep from taking it back. Watching other guys flirt with Gemma in my apartment was not how I wanted to spend my free time. And the thought of that happening when I was out of town? Fuck that.

Luckily, Gemma quickly brushed my offer aside with a sad smile that made my stomach turn. “I don’t really think dating is a priority for me right now, but thanks.”Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

“Dating is different from sex,” I pointed out.

Why? Why did I point it out? I had no fucking clue besides the fact that I knew the distinction between sex and dating incredibly well. But the smart thing to do would be to end this conversation.

“Yeah…” Gemma winced, reaching to grab the pile of blankets again. She balled them in her arms as though she could hide behind them. “The thought of casual sex isn’t appealing at the moment, considering the recent memories,” she admitted.

My hackles rose up, my hands automatically balling into fists at the tone in her voice. “Did he hurt you?”

“No…not physically.”

Her expression grew sullen, making me wonder exactly what happened that night with Silas Taylor. I probably wouldn’t ever know, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to. Mostly so I’d know how badly Taylor needed his ass kicked.

The silence fizzled, stretching between Gemma and me. She cocked her head to the side, assessing me again. And I needed to know why.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you just proved why I don’t need to worry about you.” The small, sad smile reappeared. She walked to her room, throwing the blankets inside it before returning. “Come on, why don’t we go get another load? It’ll give me a chance to flick off your neighbor if we see her again.”

I fought a grin at the thought of Gemma giving Summer the finger. I’d never had anyone fight for me before. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

Mostly because Gemma was wrong. She thought I was someone I wasn’t; she had no idea I’d spent the last handful of years waiting for my chance to take her home and make her scream my fucking name.

Now she was living with me, and that chance had gone out the goddamn window.

But that didn’t mean I knew how to stop myself from thinking about it.