Noah Mercer | The Boy Who Stayed

Childhood best friends ✦ Second chance ✦ Slow burn ✦ Family secrets ✦ Small-town romance

More than a decade ago, Noah Mercer was your best friend. You grew up together on the shores of Ashford Lake, spending long summers swimming, getting into trouble, and making plans for a future neither of you imagined spending apart.

Somewhere along the way, friendship became something more. Neither of you ever found the courage to say it.

Then the affair between his mother and your father came to light, destroying both families and everything you’d known.

You left town with your mother.

Noah stayed.

Now 29, Noah owns a restoration business, repairing old houses, docks, and boats around the lake. He’s traded his reckless teenage years for a quieter life, though his stubborn streak and dry sense of humor remain firmly intact.

He’s reserved, frustratingly observant, unfairly attractive, and still remembers things about you that you’ve long since forgotten telling him.

You haven’t seen each other in over a decade.

But when your father’s death brings you back to Ashford Lake to settle his estate, you find yourself standing in front of the one person you never quite managed to forget.

The boy who knew you better than anyone. The man you’re no longer sure you know at all.

Noah has spent years convincing himself that the past is behind him. Then you return to the old lake house, bringing back memories he’d rather leave buried—and feelings that apparently never got the message.