Chapter Twenty-One
Just a Guy
Noc
Noc knocked on the door and stepped back just in case it went up in flames, or maybe shot magical laser beams at him.
He was there because he and Franka had had a meeting with Valentine that morning, he’d been briefed about all things Dax Lahn, and Noc had volunteered to go smooth things over with Circe.
He wasn’t looking forward to the task, but he was the man for the job mostly because, if she’d slept on it and was still pissed at Frannie, after all she’d said the night before, no way in hell he was setting up his woman to face whatever Circe felt like dishing out.
Valentine had assured them she was seeing to Dax. She didn’t share how she was doing this. Noc also didn’t ask because he really didn’t want to know.
As he waited outside Circe’s place, the door didn’t explode.
It also didn’t open.
He got close again, knocked again and stayed where he was, saying through it, “I know you know it’s me. What you also gotta know is, until I see you’re all right, I’m not leaving.”
She made him wait but she finally opened the door.
Cutoff jean shorts, a little tee, bare feet, hair wild, face makeup free, fuck, Dax was going to like every version of Circe.
“I’m all right,” she snapped and started to close the door again.
Noc lifted a hand to hold it open.
She didn’t push it. Instead the battle she waged was with her gaze, trying to stare him down.
He didn’t just take it.
He pushed back, but only verbally.
“She meant no harm. She wants good things for you. She’s lived the life she felt she had to live to keep herself safe. That’s not her life anymore but she’s used to doing things a certain way. But now she’s doin’ those things for good. She just doesn’t have it down how to go about doin’ that yet. She’s not the woman you said she was last night, Circe. Valentine told me she’s kept you in the loop about what’s been going down with Frannie, so I figure you know it. But even with all that, she shouldn’t have played it that way. She fucked up. She knows that now. And she’s gutted, babe. Kicking her own ass and worried as shit about you.”
Circe could only hold the attitude for a few seconds before she looked away and stepped away, opening the door further, inviting him in.
He went in and saw that, with the little she had, she had good taste. But even with the treasure she’d been given, she wasn’t about pimping out her space.
Noc moved to the middle of the small living room and stopped, turning to her.
Circe followed him and leaned the side of her thigh against the arm of her couch where a cat instantly appeared, rubbing its side against her skin.
She did not ask Noc to sit. She did not offer him coffee.
She just dropped a hand to scratch the ruff of her pet and held Noc’s gaze.
He laid it out.
“I should have stopped her. I knew it wasn’t the right play. I told her that, she was determined. I still should have stopped her.”
“What’s done is done,” she stated shortly.
“It is but you gotta know, I felt how it made you feel last night and I’m sorry about the part I played in it.”
Circe, unsurprisingly not a woman who would carry a grudge in the face of an open apology, visibly lost some of the attitude and repeated, “What’s done is done,” but this came far more gently.
Right, they were beyond that, now it was time to lay more shit out.
“We need to talk about Dax.”
She straightened from the couch, going instantly wired.
“There’s nothing to say.”
He took only one step toward her before he stopped and pointed out, “I don’t get, at the same time I do, why you’d be in denial about what went down last night. But I wouldn’t be a friend if I didn’t try to pull you out of that.”
“You and Franka are proof that there are differences between our two worlds and they still carry on. This being so, I understand why Valentine and Franka would think this needs to happen between me and that man. But it’s also obvious that it actually doesn’t.”
“True enough,” Noc replied. “But that doesn’t explain your reaction to him last night, or his to you.”
She looked away.
He kept at her.
“Circe, babe, please don’t shut me out. I’m here to talk to you but I’m also here for you to talk to me. Share with me. Give me whatever shit is holding you back from something I know rocked you in bad ways last night. The thing is, it also rocked you in good ways. Really good. I can’t know, but my guess is that the good parts are what are holding you back. And knowing all that’s in play here, I would be no friend at all if I didn’t try to help you see that good as just what it is.”
When she again gave him her attention, her face was a mask and her eyes were angry.
Even so, she couldn’t hide they were also haunted.
Fuck.
“There is no way you can understand where I am with this.”
“No,” he whispered. “No,” he repeated, letting all he was feeling out with that one syllable and seeing the anger dissolve, but also seeing the wounds surfacing. He fucking hated what he saw but he didn’t give up. “I can’t know. But I know what’s there. I know why you’re there. And it kills me there’s not a fuckin’ thing I can do about it.”
“No one can do anything about it, Noc,” she said quietly.
“This guy can.”
She blinked up at him.
“I was not that guy,” Noc went on. “We both knew it. I could not be that guy for you. I knew and you knew. We both understood I was not strong enough to handle all that happened to you. Not for the long run. So what we had was what it was because we both knew I couldn’t be the guy for you to give you what you needed.”