Chapter 25

Riley’s POV

I stared at the lineup: a bottle of chocolate milk, a bottle of strawberry milk, and—just to keep things interesting—a bottle of cinnamon-flavored milk that looked like someone had spilled potpourri in a dairy farm. Noah handed me a straw like I was a baby bird. “You’re gonna need all this,” he said, voice as calm as if he were offering me a glass of water instead of a liquid four-course meal. I downed the chocolate milk first, feeling like a pregnant whale in training. Then came the strawberry—pink, sickly sweet, and somehow more filling than a cheeseburger. Last, the cinnamon: a spicy, heartburn-inducing tidal wave that slid down my throat and disappeared like it was playing hide-and-seek.

My stomach rumbled. Again. It might’ve been knocking on the door at that point. “You’re kidding, right? I just drank enough calories to feed an entire Netflix marathon of cooking shows, and I still feel like I could inhale a cow.”

Noah chuckled, that deep sou