Awake At Dawn (Wildflower Series Book 2)

EMBARRASSMENT TRICKLED DOWN my spine.

Noah London just overheard that I was flat-out broke. Of all the mortifying things that could have happened today, this one had to involve my brother’s too-hot-for-his-own-good friend and former college teammate. Considering I had to pack up all my belongings into as few boxes as possible, I hadn’t exactly expected a good day, but I definitely didn’t think it would be a Noah London knows your greatest failure kind of day.

If that wasn’t causing my cheeks to flame enough, now the quarterback of the New England Knights was giving me an odd look while crossing his tattooed-covered arms over his chest. He leaned back casually as his eyes skirted to Chloe, who’d gotten sidetracked by watching the older skaters glide out on the ice.

I loved the passion in her eyes—like she was determined to get where they were. Finding out that she had professional athleticism in her veins made sense.

When I felt a prickling on the back of my neck, I looked back to find the reason: Noah’s sharp gaze had returned. When he stared at me like that, the air grew thick. Humid. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ice started melting on the rink—Noah just had that effect. I wasn’t ashamed to admit the truth, but I was ashamed to be blushing so furiously about it.

He cocked his head to the side, considering something. “Does Julian know you need a place to live?”

I swallowed a groan. Great, we were back on this subject. And of course he had to bring up Julian.

“No, and you’re not going to tell him,” I said pointedly.

Noah’s brows rose in response, and I realized that maybe I was being a touch defensive.

“I’m not going to tell him,” he said, and the honesty in his reply made my tense body relax. A bit, anyway. There was still the way he was looking at me, after all. “But I am curious why you won’t tell him.”

“If I told Julian, he would either insist on giving me money that he’s saved up to pay for his wedding, or he’d demand I move in with him and Juniper.”

Noah frowned. “Moving in wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I mean, Juniper is your best friend.”

“Exactly,” I said, lifting a finger to emphasize the point he’d just made. “Do you think I want a front-row seat to my brother and best friend’s love life? Absolutely not.”

A low chuckle slipped from Noah’s lips. “I suppose when you put it like that…”

I lifted a brow as if to say, See?

I’d considered an exhaustive list of options when I realized I couldn’t continually afford my apartment in the suburbs, but never once had I considered asking Juniper or Julian for help.

Noah nodded like he understood, and I appreciated the validation. Sadie, another Back Bay Skating coach, had implied that not asking my brother for help was ridiculous. But Noah didn’t try to pressure me.

Instead, he changed the topic.

“Chloe loves you.”

I immediately warmed at the comment. It always made me feel good to hear things like that. I wanted to make the rink a safe place where kids felt excited to come and try new things. There had been moments when it hadn’t always been like that for me, and I never wanted that for my skaters.

“I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her,” I said honestly. “She’s always the one who gets me laughing on these weekend morning practices.”

“Yeah?” He rocked forward, taking a step closer. Despite the cold air swirling around us, heat continued to rocket through me. Noah London was startlingly attractive. And staring at me funnily. And incredibly unavailable. His lips curved, and his eyes danced with mischief. “That’s good to know. And how do you feel about dogs?”

“Dogs?” I repeated. Had I heard him correctly, or had my preoccupation with the light brown twinkle in his eyes distracted me?

“Dogs,” he affirmed. “Of the young variety.”

Okay, yep. I was lost.

“I like dogs,” I said slowly. “Of all varieties.”

Growing up, I’d begged my parents for a dog, but they never caved, saying they opted for more kids over pets. They had a point; Julian aside, I also had four other sisters. There wasn’t really anywhere to put a pet in our house.

Noting my confusion, Noah laughed.

“Well, I wanted to make sure before offering you a place to stay,” he explained, and I stiffened. In shock? Heatstroke? I wasn’t sure, but I suddenly had the urge to face-plant on the ice. “I got a new puppy a few weeks ago.”

“What?” I began to backpedal. Not literally, because I was standing with my back to the metal stands and still had my skates on my feet. But figuratively, in my brain, I was doing a whole lot of backpedaling. “Noah, I⁠—”

He didn’t let me protest. “I have an extra room that’s not being used at home, and it would be great if someone was around to hang out with Winnie when I’m gone at away games this season.”

“Is Winnie your…girlfriend?” My stomach turned uncomfortably because that just sounded…strange.

Noah’s lips twisted in amusement. “Winnie’s my dog, Gemma.”

“Right.”

Yeah, that made a lot more sense.

Not just because what he suggested would be weird and awkward but also because Noah London didn’t have girlfriends. He had girls, of course. But he didn’t have girlfriends. Everyone and their mom knew he was one of the NFL’s biggest playboys.

My cheeks were officially on fire, probably matching the shade of my hair.

“Think about it,” he said, his eyes skirting to the side to see Chloe approaching us. He jerked his head toward her. “I’ve also been worried about Chloe.”

Dread dropped into my stomach. “What’s wrong with Chloe?”

Noah’s eyes darkened, and the relaxed version of him I’d grown accustomed to was suddenly gone.

“She has a dickhead for a dad.” I let out a breath as Noah went on. “My sister works odd hours at the hospital, so Chloe often ends up at my place. Her dad isn’t in the picture, and I don’t know what Nat will do when I’m traveling over the next few months. But maybe if you were there…”

His voice grew quieter as his niece neared, and all I could do was blink back at him, struggling to keep up with everything he was saying. And especially his tone, which indicated that he was serious. He genuinely wanted—or needed—me to move in with him.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” he whispered, shrugging. “Too much, probably. But I’d pay you, of course.”

“Pay me?” I shook my head in disbelief. “I was going to ask how much you wanted me to pay you. For rent?”

It was his turn to stare blankly. “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “I don’t want your money, Gemma.”

Was this a dream? He wanted me to live in his apartment free of charge, play with his dog when he was gone, and hang out with his niece, who I already adored. This was absolutely too good to be true. And absolutely too dangerous—as noted in Noah’s growing smile. He probably didn’t do it on purpose, but he always had this wolfish, wicked grin that made me think things I shouldn’t be thinking.

“Julian would have a fit,” I hissed under my breath.

There, that was a responsible thought.

“I thought you weren’t telling Julian about this,” Noah said, that grin of his full-fledged now.

He had a point. But still…

“Noah, you can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m super serious,” he said as Chloe snuck into his side, giving him a giant hug around his middle. He squeezed her in return, casting a warm look in his niece’s direction before returning his attention to me.

He didn’t look serious; his lips formed a twisted smirk. But I’d learned from meeting Noah over the years that he never really looked serious.

“Let me give you my number,” I said hurriedly. “Maybe sleep on it, and then let me know if you’re still serious.”

I put my hand out, and Noah unlocked his phone and placed it in my palm. His lips did that thing again, twisting further like he was suppressing something, some emotion he didn’t want me to see. While I put my number in his phone, I heard him quietly tell Chloe about how we knew each other.

I mean, we didn’t know each other. Not that well, anyway. And I suspected that wouldn’t be changing.

Noah London was a famous professional athlete, and I taught kids how to figure skate while living paycheck to paycheck.

We lived in different worlds.

Yet, he wanted us to share an apartment. And I just wasn’t so sure how that would work.

I paced around my living room, knowing I needed to pack. My mug collection was scattered haphazardly around my living room, colorful little mementos waiting to be put into boxes. I wasn’t going to, but I really should donate some of them because there was no way I’d be able to bring everything with me—not that I even knew where I was going. Even though I had to be going somewhere really soon.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Noah.

Well, not Noah like the person. I wasn’t just sitting around daydreaming about Noah and his sleeves of tattoos and the way he wore his hat backward with his light brown hair curling out beneath the sides⁠—

No, I wasn’t thinking about Noah. I was thinking about his proposition.

No, not his proposition. That made it sound…dirty.

His idea.

There, yeah. I was just thinking about his idea.

Mentally exhausted, I threw myself onto my couch and tipped my head back with a groan. I missed working at St. Maverick’s College. It was well paying and prestigious, and I loved the girls on my team to death.

But it also came with a boss who manipulated his way into my bed after taking me out for drinks—way too many drinks. And that drunken one-night stand resulted in the cutest little sweet pea.

That was what the internet said: at six weeks pregnant, the embryo was the size of a sweet pea.

Silas, my boss, was the athletic director at St. Maverick’s. I’d never really know what his intent was when he kept buying me drinks that night, but I knew I accepted them because he was my boss. That, and I’d never minded Silas before. He’d always been moderately nice to me, and apparently, I was easily manipulated by people who smiled at me and also held my job in their hands. It made it hard to say no.

Maybe he’d been trying to get me into bed from the start, or maybe both of our judgments had been skewed by alcohol. I didn’t remember consenting, but I also didn’t remember not consenting. I hated that I couldn’t remember, that only bits and pieces of that night popped up in my brain, and while none of them were particularly good, it could also have been so much worse. It left me feeling slightly traumatized by the what-ifs. What if something worse could have happened? What if something worse did happen? What if I never really knew?

It was a vulnerable feeling, one I hoped I never experienced again. And once I finally started to get over the experience of that night, a new emotion overwhelmed me: shock.

Because I was pregnant.

Silas took the news of my pregnancy about as well as I expected. There was denial, first—it couldn’t be his baby. When I informed him that it quite literally couldn’t be anyone else’s, he threw a lot of hateful words at me before implying that there was only one solution, and if I didn’t take that solution, he didn’t want to be involved.

Suddenly, Silas Taylor turned into a boss who was anything but nice.

Imagine that.

I didn’t take the solution he wanted me to. Being a mom was something that I’d always dreamed of, and despite the turmoil of it happening in such a craptastic way, I didn’t want to give up on that dream. I was scared beyond belief, mortified to my core, but beneath all that, I was excited—in a terrifyingly beautiful sort of way.

But I couldn’t keep working with Silas, let alone for him.

Feeling uncomfortable and out of my depth, I quit St. Maverick’s. I could have fought for my job and fought with Silas about what happened that night after our supposedly harmless round of drinks, but I needed out. I needed to never see or work with Silas ever again.

Since Juniper and Julian were both attorneys at a Boston law firm, the smart move would have been asking them for legal advice first before quitting. But that would have meant telling my brother I was pregnant.

To put it mildly, I was terrified of how Julian would react. He would undoubtedly jump into big-brother overdrive and do exactly what I told Noah earlier: uproot his entire life with Juniper to support me, insist on giving me money, or force me to move in with them.

I couldn’t do that.

Not telling Juniper had been so much harder. I’d needed her the last few weeks. I’d needed my best friend more than I ever had. But I couldn’t ask her to keep this secret from Julian, so I’d kept it for myself. At least until I came up with a plan that I could tell them to prove I had everything figured out.

I didn’t have everything figured out.

Moving in with Noah was an absurd idea. While I liked Noah, we barely knew each other. We’d met a handful of times over the years, mostly at parties that revolved around Julian, like when I visited my brother in college or when we’d celebrated his law school graduation. But we didn’t know each other.

Not well enough to live together.

But he lived ten minutes from Back Bay Skating.

He’d already texted me the address and information about the building, not even waiting to sleep on it like I told him to. He lived in the perfect location. In a highly secure penthouse that was close to everything. I wouldn’t have to take the commuter rail to get into the city, and not paying for a T pass would save me a good chunk of change each month. The more I could save, the better.

Plus, it was temporary. A few months so I could save up for this baby, help him with his puppy and Chloe during the football season, and then I was out of there. Besides, while I didn’t know Noah well, of all my brother’s friends, he was my favorite. He’d played the ultimate wingman to force Julian and Juniper together, and despite all my efforts to get those fools to realize how in love they were, he was the real MVP who made it happen.

I liked Noah London.

But that thought came around again, the one that reminded me how he was a famous all-star, and I was a single-mom-to-be.

I could like Noah London.

I just couldn’t like Noah London too much.

That wouldn’t be a problem…right?