Mistletoe's For Kissing Under, part 5
We were just hanging out together. Have you never realised that? You were my best friend, and all I ever wanted was to spend time with you.
ICYMI: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Noah was just the kid next door I used to babysit. Or maybe the little brother I always wanted? Just like his mum. Aunty Suze was the only mother figure I’d ever known. My mum left us when I was a baby, but Suze was always there. She took me to get my first bra, and held me while I sobbed over my first broken heart.
As if he could read my mind, Noah broke the silence.
‘Mum misses you so much, you know. She talks about you all the time, and she’s ridiculously proud of your wolfy books. She was thrilled when I told her I was moving back home.’ He looked at me almost challengingly.
‘She’ll miss you, though. You’re her little prince. I reckon that’s why Jim was so mean to you as a kid – he’d had all the attention, then you came along out of a clear blue sky, you were your mum’s favourite, and couldn’t do anything wrong. That’s why she was so overprotective of you.’
‘She was not!’ He frowned, and the sweetest little crinkle developed between his eyebrows. Noah looked exactly like he had as a little boy, trying to deny having sneaked a cookie out of the tin when he still had the crumbs all round his mouth. I had an overwhelming desire to smooth it away until he was smiling again.
To distract myself, I argued back, just like in our younger days, when we’d bicker happily over everything and nothing for hours.
‘She was still asking me to watch you on their date nights when you were fifteen, and if you hadn’t moved away, I bet she still would be.’
‘You don’t think you were babysitting me, do you?’ He looked at me with such tenderness, shaking his head gently in denial. ‘Let’s finally get on the same-Paige. You hadn’t been babysitting me for the previous couple of years. We were just hanging out together. Have you never realised that? You were my best friend, and all I ever wanted was to spend time with you. You wanna know the truth? I’ve always considered you my first girlfriend. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and realise that we belong together.’
