“Will everyone just shut up for a minute?!” Noel shouts, walking forward and grabbing onto Logan’s arm, yanking him inside the warm house and slamming the door closed behind him.
He shivers like a *, wrapping his arms around his body and rubbing his hands up and down his arms, still clutching the giant diamond ring.
“I still don’t understand what’s going on right now. If you’re Logan, and you’re Sam, is Leon still Leon?” Bev asks. “Is this part of your Oklahoma play? Are you all in character? Ooooooh, is it audience participation? I’ve always wanted to be in a play!”
I watch as Noel closes her eyes and bows her head, speaking softly to everyone in the crowded hallway.
“I lost my job, Logan proposed, and I ran without giving him an answer. I met Sam at the airport and convinced him to come home with me and pretend to be Logan because I didn’t want to disappoint you guys,” she blurts out all at once.
The entire family explodes into shouting, yelling and curses, save for Nicholas and I as we stand silently watching the argument unfold in front of us.
“You better fight for her. Don’t let that dumb shit worm his way back into her life,” he whispers to me loudly over the yelling.
“Oh, thank God! This guy is just an actor! Jesus, Noel, you scared the hell out of me when I saw another ring on your finger,” Logan says with a laugh.
Noel doesn’t say anything in response as Bev, Reggie, Aunt Bobbie, and Casey all continue yelling and firing questions at her about what the hell is going on and why she didn’t tell them what had happened to her before she came home.
I sigh as I watch Logan get down on one knee in front of Noel, taking a step back from the commotion until I’m a few feet behind Nicholas. I close my eyes when I see Dumb-shit hold up the giant diamond ring toward Noel that he’s still clutching in his hand.
“I know you just got spooked when I did this a few days ago, and that’s fine. I get it. But we can work this out, Noel,” he maintains.
“It was much more romantic when Sam did it,” Bev huffs, crossing her arms in from of her. “You really need to work on your delivery, because it sucks Dominic the Donkey balls.”
I take another step back from the group until my heels hit the stairs behind me, waiting for Noel to laugh in Logan’s face, grab the ring and chuck it across the room or tell him he’s an idiot and came all this way for nothing. Anything but the silence that’s happening with her right now.
“Please, sweetheart, just take the ring. I have a car waiting for us outside and we can be in St. Thomas with my family in just a few hours. Some sun and sand will do you some good and help you clear your head,” Logan tells her.
When everyone starts shouting again and I see Noel reach for the ring he holds out to her, I turn and head up the stairs quietly.
There’s no point in sticking around for the rest of this shit show. I wanted to know how Noel felt about me and now I have my answer. She feels nothing and it really was all an act. Now who’s the dumb shit?
Chapter 15
Noel
I’m pretty sure I’ve cried for so long and for so hard that my body is now dehydrated. I feel like a slug, curled up on my side under the Christmas tree in the living room, my arms and legs refusing to move to pick me up from the spot where I’ve been ever since Nicholas came downstairs and told me Sam was gone.
Gone, just like that. His bag packed and out the door without a word. Gone.
Why didn’t he fight for me? Why didn’t he punch Logan in the face when he insulted Aunt Bobbie and looked around my parent’s home like it was a hovel in the middle of the hood instead of a beautifully decorated, two story Colonial in a nice neighborhood?
Fuck, why didn’t I punch him in the face? He was my problem to deal with, not Sam’s. Of course he left when I stood there in the hallway like an asshole and didn’t say one word about how much I loved him and how I wanted nothing to do with the idiot on his knees for the second time in front of me. I never said one word to him about how I felt because I was too scared. Too much of a chicken-shit to verbalize these feelings that are so foreign to me I don’t know how to handle them. I should have told him last night, when he made love to me so sweetly and held me so tightly. I should have told him at dinner when he got down on his knee and I imagined it was a real proposal instead of an act. There are a thousand different times I should have told them, all of those times running through my mind so quickly it makes my head spin and a fresh round of tears fall down my cheeks as I curl up into a tighter ball under the tree.
“I have something that will cheer you up, Leon. I took a video of you giving it to Logan,” Nicholas says as he walks into the room and squats down behind me on the floor.
I roll over to face him and he turns his cell phone in my direction, hitting play on the video he pulled up.