Fixing Noah / Finding Noah - #ForNoah | +18 | BWWM

26 | Neptune's Superman - Part 4

A/n: This was a two chapter post day. So, Talk - Part 3 is first. This is the last part chapter.

I jump sky high knocking my head against the roof of my tiny car.

A second knock at my window in the middle of the night. Noah's sandy blonde head tilted to the side watched me. He had a frown, and without him saying it.

"You wanted me to wait inside the party and not at the very end of the street. And on top of that not under a lamp in the middle of the night. Because sitting in the dark is basically the beginning of almost every horror movie." I filled in the blanks for him as I rolled down my janky car window. Because he was worth it. No, Neptune wasn't happy at all. Not one tiny bit of happiness crossed his crabby expression. He was like a crabby farm cat and if I had a saucer of milk, it would be a perfect day. And if I was honest with myself I knew better. I grew up as a black woman in America. That's basically like horror movie practice.

"I would have preferred it, yes," he said. Concise, caring, and oh so angry. I'm not even sure how he does it. He's yelled at me a total of one time in our entire relationship. And that was on the boat when I wanted to swallow, and he didn't want to cum in my mouth. It took forever to fully roll down my crappy window that doesn't roll up properly. Because of course it's Noah and I couldn't help myself. When it was finally full down, the grumpy barn cat was absolutely a correct assessment. I hate when there's space between us now, even if that space is a stupid window pane.

"Thanks for coming Noah," my smile was lopsided as a flat tire.

"No problem Tari, start the engine. I want to see what the problem is," he said. I turned the engine over and it sounded like I did when I was pregnant the first time. A wail of projectile vomiting and complete sadness. Of course the car didn't start. He lifted the hood, and I closed my eyes in the front seat and did everything in my power to think about how fucked I was. I had the money to fight back in court if I had to. But the battle would set back most of the gains I've made for the past year plus. Lawyers are expensive plus I'd need to take time off but I have a nest egg to do it now. It wouldn't clean me out totally, I'd still be in a good place. And even if I didn't have the money to do it I'd still fight Theo.

How dare he give me some type of ultimatum for my own good? The level of assholary from Theo was off the charts. I got out of the car and headed to the front. Gone was his flannel shirt, the white under t-shirt grease stained like a warrior mark. Noah's hair was up in a bun, his head under the hood inches away from my engine exposed.

"It is not the starter, I can guess it's the engine by the noise. Is that why you stop visiting the house with your car? He asked me. And he put together the pieces pretty quickly. I was limited in the amount of times I took the car anywhere. The kids were taking buses to so many places with me.

"Yep," the monosyllabic answer didn't encompass the level of done I was with all of it.

"I can fix it," he proceeded to hook my car up to the truck for the haul. I expect him to ask a bunch of questions like why I didn't ask him for help or to fix it early. But he didn't, and I was thankful. I didn't trust him enough to ask for help which probably made it worse. I 'm not even sure why I didn't trust him to tell him I needed help. He babysits what meant most to me, the kids but things like this. I'm not sure what it is. But it's rooted in a lack of trust. Same reason why I didn't talk to him about needing money for Space Camp for Sim, he'd have hired me back mad or not. It's the same feeling with not inviting him over to my apartment. The smallness makes us look poor even though we aren't exactly poor here, just not exactly rich either. I thought he might think less of me. Which is dumb. So dumb. While he did that I got into the truck shutting the door. Leaning up against the cold truck window staring out into the night.