All Chapters of Daddies Taste Better : Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

The peephole was scratched and foggy, but I pressed my eye to it anyway.Noah.What was he doing here?Worse, he was staring straight at the door like he could see through it. His jaw was tight and his eyes narrowed with his coat unzipped and his scarf hanging loose. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in days and was one wrong word away from exploding.I hesitated. My hand hovered over the deadbolt. Every instinct screamed to pretend no one was home. But he knocked again—louder—and Amelia shifted on the couch with a small groan.I couldn’t let him wake her. Or scare her. Or whatever came next if he kept pounding.I turned the lock and cracked the door just enough to speak through the gap, chain still on.“Noah,” I called quietly. “What are you doing here?”His eyes locked on mine through the narrow opening. “Where’s Thea?”“She’s not here.”“Bullshit.” He pushed forward, shoulder hitting the door and the chain rattled. “I know she’s here. Let me in, Mia.”“She’s not here,” I rep

NOAH°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･I stumbled out of Mia’s apartment building, the door slamming shut behind me like a final fuck-you from the universe. The cold air hit me like a brick wall, slicing through my coat and straight into my bones, but I barely felt it. Honestly? I don’t feel a fucking thing anymore.The weed—some top-shelf shit Lex had passed me earlier in the night—was still riding high in my system, turning the world into a blurry, tilted mess as I stepped out. The streetlights bled halos into the snow-flecked sky, and the sidewalk tilted under my feet like the deck of a ship in a storm. I paused on the stoop, one hand braced against the railing to keep from pitching forward, and sucked in a breath.Thea wasn’t there.When I got home I discovered Thea wasn't home but for some reason I felt something was off so I searched the whole goddamn house—ripped open closets, checked under the bed like she was a kid playing hide-and-seek, even kicked her bathroom door just to be sure. Nothing.

I opened my eyes to white.And a thin curtain drawn halfway around the bed, letting in slivers of pale daylight from a window I couldn’t yet see.My mind was preoccupied with how wrong my body felt.Like someone had poured concrete into my veins while I slept. My fucking left arm was strapped tight across my goddamn chest in a sling, shoulder throbbing like a bitch in time with my pulse, while every deep breath made my ribs on that side scream like they were being ripped apart, a dull pulsing ache hammered behind my left eye, and when I tried to turn my head the whole fucking room spun like a bastard as nausea slammed up my throat.Hospital.The word landed slow and heavy in my mind.I was in a fucking hospital.A soft rustle of fabric pulled my gaze to the right.And right there was a man sitting in the vinyl chair beside the bed—mid-forties maybe, salt-and-pepper hair cropped close, wire-rimmed glasses, charcoal sweater over a pale blue button-down. No white coat. No stethoscope.

“Just because!” “That’s not an answer, Amelia.” She spun to face me fully, eyes blazing. “It’s my answer! And it’s enough!” “We promised not to hide things from each other anymore.” My voice cracked on the last word and I absolutely hated how it sounded—pleading and desperate—but I couldn’t stop it. “You agreed last night. No more secrets, Amelia! You promised.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well, promises are easy when you’re both bleeding in the dark. They’re a lot harder in daylight.” I stood up so fast the stool scraped backward across the floor with a harsh screech that made us both flinch. “Amelia.” She didn’t look at me. Just stared at the floor between her feet. Her voice came out flat, almost mechanical when she finally spoke. “I have my reasons.” “Amelia—” But she was already moving. She walked past the broken door still propped shut with a chair, then the bedroom door clicked shut behind her. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands hanging useless at

I let out a small, embarrassed giggle, the sound wobbly and half-hearted. “Well, that’s unbecoming.”He didn’t laugh, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Well, you don’t have to be composed right now, Mia.”I exhaled and dropped the ruined tissues into the empty coffee cup. The cold dregs sloshed around them. “I hate crying in public.”“The rest of the shop can mind their own business for a couple of minutes.”I glanced around and noticed that the few people that had looked over earlier had gone back to their laptops and phones. The barista was wiping down the espresso machine with the kind of focused indifference that said she’d seen worse. I relaxed my shoulders a fraction.Dr. Harlan leaned back in his chair and for a moment he just watched me. Then he asked, almost casually, “What’s something you used to enjoy doing for fun, but haven’t done in a while?”The question caught me so off-guard I blinked. “What?”He repeated it, slower this time, like he was giving me room to hear i