Chapter 13: Still Open

Noah's room on Pike Street had one window, one bed, and by seven that evening no floor.

The girl with the label maker sat cross-legged in the middle of the paper, printing strips of tape.

WHAT NORMAN DID, VOL. 3, said the strip she pressed onto a folder.

"You've been quiet for an hour," she said. "That's not like you. You usually tell me my tape is crooked."

"Your tape is crooked."

"There he is."

Noah sat on the bed with a stack of printed statements on his knees and did not read them.

He had read that note on the second morning, and he still had not decided what to do about having read it.

He could tell Cassian he knew, and lose the one thing he was sure of.

That one thing was what Cassian did when he thought nobody was watching.

Or he could keep quiet, and be the second person in that house with a secret.

His own phone buzzed on the bed beside him. It was Cassian again, the third message that day.

He turned it face down.

He had left all three unanswered, and he knew exactly what that said about him.

"Noah," the girl said, not looking up. "You're allowed to be a person in front of me. I've seen worse. I've seen you eat cereal."

"I'm not hiding."

"You're hiding in a very loud way."

"Hey," the girl said. "You're doing the face."

"I don't have a face."

"You have a face when you think about his hands."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Faked a Romance, Noah Gave Him One Real Chance from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.