Free What Survives of Us (Colorado Chapters Book 1) by Kathy Miner Page A

masked whatever he was feeling so completely, she couldn’t read even a hint.  The trait made him a hell of a poker player.  “That might work in the short term, but not for any length of time.  It’s too easy to tell when a couple is intimate, when they’re fighting, stuff like that.”  He grinned suddenly.  “Remember?”
    Piper laughed.  “In our dorm, freshmen year!  We used to bet on who was hooking up and who was holding out.  I had forgotten all about that.”
    Noah snorted with disdain.  “Of course you forgot – I won the contest, and you never paid up.”
    “You did not win!  We couldn’t get confirmation on half of them, and even if one of your boys blabbed, there was no guarantee it wasn’t just big talk!”
    “You are one sore loser, Piper Allen.  C’mon, admit it – I was better than you at reading the situation.”
                  Piper cocked her head to the side as she remembered another detail.  “You used to say it was because you watched your older brother.  You could always tell when he had scored with one of his girlfriends.”
                  Noah winced.  “I probably should have kept that to myself.  Could get awkward.  But seriously,” he sighed.  “Pretending to be a couple is a bad idea.  Some of these guys just don’t respect social norms and boundaries.  If they thought they had a chance with you, they’d push me to defend you.  I can hold my own in a bar fight, but these guys are trained in hand-to-hand.  I don’t want to go there.”
                  “I don’t blame you, but I do need to point out that I’m completely capable of defending myself.”  Piper raised her eyebrows.  “You’ve been in a bar fight?”
                  “Growing up with Levi was a bar fight, day in and day out,” Noah said ruefully.  “He wanted to be sure his little brother could protect himself, or so he said.  And yes, I’ve been in exactly one bar fight.”
                  “Did you win?”
                  “I don’t want to talk about it.”
                  “Which means you lost.”  Piper smirked until Noah looked up.  His face was dark with regret.
                  “No, I won.  It made me sick to my stomach.  It’s not like the movies - it’s ugly.  And embarrassing.”  Noah stared into a middle space, gaze unfocused.  “Levi used to tell me I wasn’t a fighter by nature, so I had to watch out.  If I get pushed over that line, I lose control of myself.  I don’t even remember a lot of the fight – my friends told me later that I pounded on the guy until his face was just mushy pulp.  The cops broke it up, but I don’t remember that either.”
                  “I’m sorry.  It sounds awful.”  Piper reached out to squeeze his shoulder, and laughed a little.  “I guess we’re opposites in that respect – my mom says I was born to brawl.  When I was little, she had to bribe the neighborhood kids with cookies to get them to play with me.  I was always slugging someone.”
                  “Yeah, not me.  If I never have to be in a physical fight again, I’ll be happy.”  He paused, searching for words.  “I felt like I lost myself – like I had been taken over by someone I didn’t like and couldn’t control.  My friends were all like, “Dude, that was awesome!’ and I just wanted to hide somewhere and puke.”
    “I really am sorry, Noah.  I shouldn’t have teased you.”
                  Noah shrugged.  “It’s okay.  But if you don’t mind, I’d rather change the subject.”
                  And so they had.  As predicted, Noah had spent much of their two week confinement talking through the rest of the list.  In addition to Ruth the medic, there were two arms experts, one of whom was Levi, two field survival specialists, a communications specialist, and a