The next day it poured all day again and she was sure he wouldn’t be in again. She didn’t recognize the number when she saw it on her phone’s screen but her phone rang so little lately she knew it had to be him. She picked up her phone, feeling a small flutter in her belly.

“Hello?”

“Veronica?” The flutter turned into an all out somersault. His voice was so deep and resonating she had to gulp before responding.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Hey, this is Noah. Sorry about yesterday, I was so busy I completely forgot to call any of my trainees. “

“That’s okay. You had good reason. How’s your roof?”

“Not good. I won’t make it in again tonight to the gym. Maybe not for the next couple of days, except to sleep. But I’ll be out of there first thing in the morning. It’s a bitch trying to get this roof patched up, especially in the rain.”

Picturing Noah all alone on an air mattress in that big cold gym filled her with guilt. She’d thought about the two extra bedrooms in her house ever since Jack had mentioned it, but she had no idea if Noah would think it too weird. Was it even an appropriate suggestion, especially given how her heart hadn’t stopped thumping since she answered his call? How would she handle knowing he’d be sleeping just a couple of doors away from her?

“So you’re staying at the gym?”

“Yeah, I slept there last night. It’s not too bad except for the no heater thing. I’ll just take extra blankets tonight.”

That tugged at her heart even more. A few times, he’d mentioned foster parents, but unlike when he talked about working on his Ninja and about boxing where his eyes lit up, she sensed that was a subject she shouldn’t ask too much about. So she never did. What he did say about it was always very vague, almost as if it had slipped out accidentally and he usually moved on to another subject quickly. She could only imagine what his living situation must be if a storm had done it in.

With the words at her lips, Noah spoke again. “Listen I gotta go, but I’ll call you again tomorrow and let you know if I’m gonna make it.”

“Noah?”

“Yeah?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath but the words that came out were not what she wanted to say. “Be careful.”

“Okay. You, too. Stay out of the rain. It’s bad out there.”

She hung up feeling like the biggest coward and as the temperature dipped even lower, she called Nellie.

“Hey,” Nellie was sounding more and more cheerful these days.

She and Rick were speaking more now. Though she still hadn’t decided what she was going to do about the marriage, she wasn’t nearly as depressed as she’d been when it first happened.

After asking her about how she’d been doing and Nellie filling her in on her latest conversation with Rick, which didn’t offer anything new, she got to her real reason for calling. She’d already told her about the awkward way she found out how much younger Noah was. Nellie didn’t seem to agree with Veronica about how inappropriate it would be to do anything social with him out of the gym.

“Veronica, you act like you’ve never had lunch or gone to a movie with a male friend,” had been Nellie’s response to Veronica’s mortification over having invited an nineteen-year-old to have a drink with her.

Ever since Nellie had assured and reassured Veronica that continuing her workouts with him was perfectly acceptable. Only Nellie couldn’t know because Veronica had yet to admit it even to herself that she enjoyed her time around Noah a little too much. She was sure it was nothing more than loneliness and right now, he was hands down the best and only company she could count on, on a nightly basis. With nothing else going on in her life how could she not look forward to seeing him?

“I didn’t work out today.”

“Why?” Nellie knew she hadn’t missed a day since she’d gone back and she was more than ecstatic about the amount of weight Veronica had already lost.

“Noah wasn’t there yesterday and he just called to tell me he wouldn’t be again. I would’ve gone in anyway but the storm is so bad I figured why chance it? Maybe I’ll work out a little here at home instead.”

“Why hasn’t he been there?”

Veronica was counting on her asking that. “His roof is all messed up and he’s spent the last few days working on it. He’s sleeping at the gym until his roof is fixed, but with the storm not letting up that might take some time.”

“The gym?” Nellie sounded as incredulous as she felt when she first heard about it.

“Yeah, I guess he has no place else to stay.”

“Is that place even heated? It’s been freezing these last couple of nights.”

Veronica felt her stomach knot up as she walked by one of the extra rooms in her heated home with the comfortable bed. “No, it’s not. But he said he’d take extra blankets.”

“Oh man, that’s gotta be brutal. Poor guy.”

“I know right?”

“Yeah, doesn’t he have family he can stay with?”

And the knot grew even bigger, making Veronica chew her nail in indecision. “No, I don’t think he does. He mentioned having foster parents once but I’m guessing he’s too old to have any now. Nel…” God, she couldn’t even bring herself to say it.

“What?”

“I uh… was thinking of asking him if he would want to stay in one of the extra rooms here at my place…you know just until his roof is fixed. You think that would be too weird?”