Chapter 377: We’re friends aren’t we?

Noah

Cyan told me about how he had met Étienne at a terrible underground club in Paris four years ago, threw out names of other friends as if they were footnotes in some massive, chaotic book, and described trips to Lisbon and Milan with a casual lightness that made the whole world seem smaller.

But as the meal began to wind down, Cyan set his massive drink glass down on the wood. The teasing, bright quality in his eyes shifted, softening into something a bit more focused as he looked across the table at me.

"Can I ask you something, Noah?"

I sighed, leaning back against the wooden chair. "Cyan, you’ve been dragging me around the city and asking me things all afternoon."

"A different kind of thing," he said, his voice dropping. He rested his chin on his hands, looking at me directly. "Are you happy? Like... just in general, right now."

The question caught me completely off guard. The directness of it felt heavy in the warm room, cutting straight through the light energy of the lunch. I looked down at my plate, my fingers tracing the edge of the ceramic. "I’m... yeah. Mostly."

Cyan watched me, his eyes tracking the movement of my hands. "Mostly."

"It’s just a very complicated time right now," I murmured, thinking of the empty desk at the office, the look Preston had given me, and the heavy silence from Cassian. "There’s a lot going on."

Cyan nodded slowly. He didn’t push me to explain, and he didn’t demand details about the drama he clearly knew was happening behind the scenes.

He just picked up another chip and dipped it into the salsa, which felt like its own rare kind of gentleness.

I reached for my leather bag absently, pulling my phone out just to check the time. It was the kind of routine check you do without expecting to see anything important.

The screen lit up, and my heart instantly stopped beating.

Seventeen missed calls. All from Cassian.

Eight unread text messages. All from Cassian.

The most recent one, sent five minutes ago, read simply: Where are you.

A cold, watery wave of absolute panic hit my stomach. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, I’m dead. I am actually going to be fired.

Cyan noticed the look on my face immediately, his hand stopping halfway to his mouth. "What is it?"

"How many times did you say you told Cassian about this afternoon?" I asked, my voice slightly higher than usual as I stared at the red notifications.

"Once," Cyan said, taking a bite of the chip. "Very clearly."

"He has called me seventeen times in the last two hours, Cyan."

"Well, he was probably buried in budget sheets or looking at blueprint revisions when I told him," Cyan muttered, entirely unbothered. "His brain locks up when he’s working. He probably just didn’t register the words."

"Cyan, this isn’t funny—"

Before I could finish, the phone began to vibrate violently in my hand again. Cassian’s number flashed across the screen in large, white letters.

I reached out to swipe the screen, my fingers trembling, but Cyan was faster. His long, ring-covered hand darted across the table, snatching the device right out of my palm before I could touch it.

"Give that back!" I hissed, reaching over the plates.

Cyan was already sliding the green button over, lifting the phone to his ear with a bright, cheerful expression. "Hello, gorgeous!"

There was a brief, dead silence on the other end of the line. Even from three feet away, I could hear the faint, low rumble of Cassian’s voice coming through the speaker, tight and sharp.

"No, this isn’t Noah," Cyan said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs comfortably. "Yes, obviously I have his phone. I kidnapped him about three hours ago... No, he’s perfectly fine, don’t be dramatic. He’s currently stuffed full of chicken tacos."

Another pause followed, longer this time. I sat there with my hands clenched into tight fists, internally attending my own funeral as I watched Cyan’s face.

"He’ll be back at his desk tomorrow morning," Cyan continued, rolling his eyes at the screen. "I told you all of this at ten o’clock today, Cassian. You made that little mm sound down your nose. Mm means yes. I didn’t invent that rule, it’s a universal law of communication... Okay, you’re being incredibly boring now, so I’m going to hang up. Bye!"

He clicked the screen off, cutting the call before Cassian could say another word, and slid the phone back across the table toward me.

I stared at the device as if it were a live grenade. "I’m getting fired. Tomorrow morning, I am going to walk into that building and he is going to hand me a box for my things."

"Oh, please," Cyan scoffed, waving a hand in dismissal. "If he fires you, I’ll just hire you myself."

I looked at him, completely exhausted. "Doing what, exactly?"

Cyan tilted his head, his finger tapping against his chin as he considered the option. "I don’t know yet. But you’d look incredibly cute carrying my heavy shopping bags around Paris."

I let out a weak groan, letting my forehead drop forward until it hit the cool wood of the table with a soft thud.

The third location Cyan dragged me to was much quieter. The spa was hidden away on the lower level of a luxury hotel, illuminated by a soft, warm amber light that made the entire space feel like it was part of a dream.

The air smelled of eucalyptus and cold water, and the city noise outside vanished completely the moment the heavy glass doors closed behind us.

The woman at the front desk didn’t ask for an ID or a reservation number; she smiled the moment she saw Cyan, greeting him by name and pulling up a list of services that he apparently had saved on their system for whenever he brought a guest.

Cyan led me down a tiled hallway with the easy, smooth familiarity of someone who spent half his life in these kinds of rooms. We ended up in a private pavilion, sitting side by side on low stone benches with our feet submerged in large basins of steaming, scented water.

The silence between us grew comfortable—the quiet, heavy kind of silence that only happens when you’ve spent a full day running around with someone and no longer feel the desperate need to fill the empty space with words.

Cyan had two cold cucumber slices resting over his closed eyes, his head tilted back against the tiled wall, completely still.

I glanced over at him, the sight of his bright pink roots and his silver chains contrasting with the white spa robe making me smile.

He looked completely ridiculous.

Without moving a single muscle in his face, Cyan spoke into the quiet room. "I know you’re staring at me, Noah."

"I wasn’t staring," I lied, looking back down at the swirling water around my ankles.

"Liar," he murmured, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "I know I look absolutely fabulous."

I let out a soft, quiet laugh, looking out toward the small stone fountain in the corner. "...You kind of do."

A few minutes later, two therapists arrived to handle the shoulder massages. As the tight knots in my neck finally began to loosen under the pressure, a deep, heavy wave of relaxation washed over me.

For the first time in weeks, maybe since the day Cassian had been shot, the constant, buzzing tension in my chest faded away entirely.

Cyan was lying on the table next to mine, his eyes closed as he received his own treatment.

"Why did you do this?" I asked softly, the question slipping out before I could think about whether I should ask it.

"Do what?" Cyan muttered, his voice thick with sleep.

"Today," I said, looking at the dark ceiling. "The car, the clothes, the food... all of it. Why?"

There was a short beat of silence in the room, the only sound being the quiet trickling of the water fountain. Then, Cyan opened one eye, looking across the small gap between our tables.

"Because... you’ve been on my mind a lot lately and I realized the only time we ever see each other is when Cassian’s around."

He was right.

"... we’re friends, Noah. Aren’t we?"