Chapter 5 A Joke

Ella‘s POV　　

I woke up to a hammer pounding inside my skull. 

I groaned and pressed my palm against my forehead.

Sunlight stabbed through a gap in the curtains, too bright and too sharp. 

I was in my bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes. 

The pillow smelled faintly of wine and something else, something clean and warm that I couldn't immediately place.

Panic arrived a half-second later, cold and electric.

I tried to piece together the fragments. Mrs. Geller. The roast chicken. The smiling fish gravy boat.

 The second glass of wine, and maybe a third. After that, nothing. 

Just a black void where my memories should have been.

I had been completely defenseless. 

I threw back the covers and stumbled into the living room. 

My legs felt unsteady, my mouth dry as cotton.

Noah sat on the sofa, already dressed in his work clothes, a cup of coffee cradled in his scarred hands. 

He looked up when I appeared, his expression calm and unreadable.

"Good morning," he said. "There's coffee."

I ignored the offer. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat. 

The question clawed its way out before I could stop it, raw and ragged.

"Did you," I started, my voice cracking on the words. "Did we, did you do anything to me last night?"

“What do you want me to do to you？”

The silence that followed was unbearable. 

Noah set down his coffee with deliberate care, and when he looked at me, a half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"You performed very well last night," He raised an eyebrow.

Heat flooded my face so fast I felt dizzy. My cheeks burned, my ears burned, the back of my neck burned. 

I knew I must have turned the color of a ripe shrimp, blotchy red spreading down to my collarbones. 

The room tilted, and I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself.

Noah's smile vanished. He stood up quickly, his hands raised slightly, palm outward, a gesture of reassurance.

"It was a joke," he said, his voice suddenly serious. 

"A bad one. I'm sorry." He took a step toward me but stopped short, respecting the distance I clearly needed. 

"I have no interest in taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable state. That's not who I am."

"God," I breathed, pressing both hands to my burning cheeks. "That wasn't funny."

"No, it wasn't." His voice carried genuine regret. 

"I misjudged. I thought you would know I was kidding." He paused, his dark eyes searching my face. 

"You don't remember anything from last night?"

I shook my head, still too flustered to form proper words. 

He gestured toward the bathroom.

"You spilled wine on yourself. I dried your hair and put you to bed. That's the full record."

The image surfaced, hazy and improbable: Noah's fingers working through my tangled hair, the low hum of the dryer, a tenderness I had no right to expect. 

"Thank you," I managed. "And I'm sorry. For assuming."

"You had every right to ask." He returned to the sofa and picked up his coffee again. 

"Drink some water. You'll feel better."

I shuffled to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, my hands still trembling slightly. 

The sunflowers on the table caught my eye, their petals now drooping and edged with brown. 

The coffee shop was quiet all morning while I was working at The Daily Grind, but it also allowed my thoughts to drift freely back to that morning.

My cheeks flushed, Noah had an innocent expression on his face.

I was wiping down the counter when I heard a familiar voice.

"Ella! There you are."  

Lucy, my coworker, emerged from the back room, her phone pressed to her ear. 

She was the kind of pretty that seemed effortless, blonde hair in a perfect ponytail, her uniform shirt somehow looking tailored instead of boxy. 

She ended her call and beamed at me with the particular brightness of someone who has good news and intends to share it.

"My boyfriend is picking me up tonight," she announced, though I hadn't asked. 

"He just got the new Bentley. Have you seen it? The Continental GT? It's absolutely gorgeous. He's taking me to that new steakhouse downtown."

"That's nice," I said, because there was nothing else to say.

"Oh, you should come outside when your shift ends. You can see it. Maybe your boyfriend can pick you up too." 

She tilted her head, her smile sharpening just slightly. "What does he drive again?"

I focused on wiping an invisible spot on the counter. "We walk mostly. We live close by."

"Walking." Lucy said the word like it was a sad foreign dish she had no intention of trying. 

"How quaint. Well, you'll definitely want to see the Bentley. It's a whole different world."

She flounced off to serve a customer, leaving me with a cold knot of irritation in my stomach. 

Lucy and I had never been friends, exactly, but we had maintained a functional politeness until now. 

Something about her tone today felt different. Sharper. Like she had been waiting for an opportunity to draw a comparison.

My shift ended at six. I grabbed my bag and pushed through the front door, already looking forward to the quiet of the apartment, to a simple dinner and the strange comfort of Noah's quiet presence.

Lucy was already outside, posing beside a sleek silver car that gleamed under the streetlights. 

Her boyfriend leaned against the driver's door, a tall man in an expensive coat, his expression one of practiced boredom. 

Lucy saw me and waved.

"Ella! Come look!"  

I approached reluctantly, my bag clutched against my side. 

The car was undeniably beautiful, all smooth lines and polished metal, the kind of machine that cost more than I would earn in a decade.

"Nice car," I said, because it seemed expected.

"It's the base model," Lucy's boyfriend said, though his tone suggested he wanted me to be impressed anyway. "Just something to tide me over until the new model ships."

Lucy hooked her arm through his and directed her bright, sharp smile at me. "See what I mean? It's a shame your boyfriend couldn't afford something like this. What did you say he does again? Warehouse work?"

The knot in my stomach tightened. "He's a porter. At the docks."

"A porter." Lucy exchanged a look with her boyfriend, a look that communicated something I couldn't quite decipher but didn't like at all. 

"Well, I suppose someone has to do those jobs. It's very, noble."

The condescension in her voice ignited a spark of anger I hadn't known I was carrying. 

I opened my mouth to respond, but another voice cut through the evening air before I could speak.

"Ella."  

I turned. 

Noah stood at the edge of the parking lot, his hands in the pockets of his worn jacket, his dark hair slightly disheveled from the wind. 

He looked tired, the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from lifting and hauling all day. 

But his eyes were fixed on me with quiet intensity, and something in my chest loosened at the sight of him.

He walked toward us, his gait steady despite his obvious fatigue. 

When he reached my side, he didn't touch me, didn't put an arm around me the way Lucy's boyfriend might. 

He simply stood there, a solid presence, his shoulder nearly brushing mine.

"This must be the boyfriend," Lucy said, her eyes sweeping over Noah's worn jacket and work-roughened hands. 

Her smile didn't waver. "We were just talking about cars. Do you drive?"

"No," Noah said, his voice flat.

"What a shame. You two must spend a lot of time walking." Lucy tilted her head at me.

"Ella was just telling us about your job. Docks, right? That must be so, physical. I can't imagine doing that kind of work."

The words were polite on the surface but the implication beneath them was clear and cruel. 

I felt my face heat again, but this time it wasn't embarrassment. It was fury.

"He works harder in one day than most people do in a week," I said, my voice coming out sharper than I intended. 

"He goes to a job that breaks most men just so we can keep a roof over our heads. So you can keep your comments to yourself."

Lucy's smile finally faltered. 

"We should go," Noah said quietly, his hand brushing my elbow. 

"Thank you for the, car demonstration."

He guided me away before I could say anything else. 

We walked in silence, the Bentley shrinking in the distance behind us, the city sounds filling the space where words should have been. 

My anger slowly cooled into something sadder and heavier.

When we reached the apartment, Noah closed the door behind us and stood very still. 

I turned to look at him. His expression was unreadable, but there was a tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there before.

"Ella," he said, his voice low and careful. "You've suffered because of me."

The words landed like a blow. 

I stared at him, my mouth opening to argue, to deny, to do anything that would erase the quiet certainty in his voice. 

But no words came.

He believed it. He believed he was the burden, the anchor dragging me down. 

"You haven't made me suffer," I said softly. "You're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time."