The Middle - Volume Three ✔️

Chapter 66 (Patrick)

Patrick

I've never been a big fan of Sundays. They're boring. All you do is mope around dreading Monday. Everyone is usually hungover. Sunday's just suck in general. But this particular Sunday really sucks. Because I know Jamie will be home tonight? Yeah, I guess. But also because of last night.

I can't stop thinking about the way Noah acted towards me in the Grill. And what he said to me.

And what it comes down to is this: I've pretty much convinced myself that Noah knows Jamie and I slept together after New Year's. Hell, maybe he knows all of it. I don't know, I just have a feeling he knows something. If not something, fucking everything. I think he knows. I think. But I need to find out for sure, or this is gonna drive me mad.

Joel's still in New York, which is good. I’m glad he’s spending time with Sarah, he needs it. After everything Jamie and I have put him through lately, he deserves some time to himself to just be happy with his girlfriend. His girlfriend who happens to be one of Noah’s best friends.

So I'm thinking... What if Joel did tell Sarah? He totally could have, I mean, they are in love. Obviously they talk about stuff. But he wouldn’t do that to me, would he? Fuck, maybe he would. And if Sarah knows, maybe she talked to Noah about it. She has no loyalties to me or Jamie, and she’s been friends with Noah forever.

Shit. He knows. He totally fucking knows.

That’s why he was so weird with me last night. He knows! Shit, if he knows, who else knows? All his friends, Aubrey, Kim? Shit, shit, shit!

I check the time on my phone, it’s a little after 5.00pm, on a Sunday night. Does he have Track practice on Sundays? I can’t remember, Jamie hasn’t mentioned stuff like that in a while. Not that I was ever really listening when she talked about his extra curriculars, I don’t give a fuck what he does with his free time. Unless it concerns her, of course.

But what does it matter what he’s doing right now? I can’t just show up at his dorm and talk to him about this. Will might be there, his friends might be there. There is absolutely no way this plays out well. But, I need to know if he’s said anything to anyone else, including Jamie. Especially Jamie. And let’s face it, he probably wants to punch me now that he knows I slept with Jamie over the holidays. Not that it’s any of his god damned business, he was off in New York sleeping with god knows who, too. He fucked Jamie over. If anything, I should be the one punching him!

But I won’t. I just wanna talk to him. That’s all.

But maybe I should take my lip ring out, just in case he ends up ripping my lip if his fist does end up in my face.

I shrug the idea off. I’m not doing anything, I’m not going anywhere. If anything, I should call Joel and make him swear on Melody’s life that he hasn’t told Sarah a thing.

But, fuck that. Noah and I need to have this out, regardless of what he may or may not know. He was weird with me last night, and he fucked over my best friend. I have some stuff I wanna say to him, and now's as good a time as any. Especially while Jamie is out of the country.

I get up from where I’ve been sitting on the couch and grab my keys from the kitchen counter. My eyes linger on an open bottle of Jack. But I don’t need any liquid courage right now. I know what I wanna do, and I’m gonna do it.

When I pull up outside Noah’s dorm building, I waste no time getting out of my car and ringing the buzzer for his dorm. I hope Will’s not there, but I think Will’s kinda intimidated by me anyway, so I don’t really care. I made out with Madison Hudson at a party once (fucking years ago), so I really hope she isn’t there with Will. Not that either of us care about that at all, we were both young, dumb and drunk. And it didn’t go any further. But, still. I just wanna talk to Noah. I just wanna talk to him.

“Hello?” It’s Will’s voice over the intercom, fuck sake.

“Will, it’s Patrick Moore. Is Noah there?” I say impatiently into the speaker.

“Yeah, come on up.” The intercom cuts out and the door clicks open. Will, you fucking idiot, aren’t you wondering why I’m here?

Whatever, I open the door and climb the stairs up to their dorm. I haven’t been in this building before, but I’ve been in identical dorms with girls I’ve gone home with. They all look the same. When I reach Noah and Will’s, the door is already open and Will is standing smiling at me.

“Hey, long time no see.” Will says, opening the door wide to let me walk in past him. “Noah’s in his room.”

“Hey, Paddy.” Madison blows a kiss at me from where she’s sitting on the sofa. Great.

“Hey, cut it out.” Will says, re-joining her on the sofa. How he can put up with her, I’ll never know.

“Which room is Noah’s?” I ask them.

“Oh, I thought you’d been here before, um, it’s the one on the right, down the hall.” Will says, finally looking a little curious as to why I’m here.

“Since when was he so chummy with Noah?” I hear Madison say as I move down the hall to Noah’s bedroom door.

What do I do? Do I knock? Burst in? Christ. I decide to wrap my knuckles against the door while saying “Noah?” so that he’ll know it’s me. Or some random guy who’s voice he doesn’t recognise. 

He opens the door and he looks totally confused when he sees that it’s me. He doesn’t move to let me into his room, of course. I didn’t expect him to, and I have no fucking interest in seeing the inside of his bedroom, but we aren’t doing this in front of Madison and Will. So I push past him, nudging him on the shoulder a little, and sit down on the desk chair.

“Um, can I help you with something?” He asks me, making no effort to hide the irritation from his voice.

“I don’t know, can you?” I say, sounding like a total dick. I can’t help it. I look around the room and see that he must have been doing homework just now. His laptop is laying open on his bed and there are random books and pieces of paper scattered around it. He’s listening to music through his speaker too, and oh my god, he’s listening to Fleetwood Mac. He is actually fucking obsessed with her.

“You like Fleetwood Mac, huh?” I ask him flatly.

He turns around and sighs, while tugging a hand through his hair. He really does do that far too much. Calm down, dude. Not every situation needs to peak your stress levels. He walks over to his bed and sits down facing me. Great, let’s do this. 

“Why are you here, Patrick?” He asks me evenly.

There are two ways I can go about this. I can be mature and calm, and tell him I wanna talk to him about Jamie. You know, I could keep it vague, and test the waters a little to see if he’ll admit that he knows everything. I’ll ask him what happened between them and tell him I’m here because I care about Jamie… see how he responds to that.

“I’m here because I fucked Jamie while you were in New York, and I know you know about it.”

Or, I could say that.