Chapter Twenty-Two
AMIRA
“A re you sure this dress is okay?” I ask for the hundredth time. I wish I was exaggerating, but ever since I picked this slightly daring outfit I’ve been questioning my choices.
The long lilac sleeves sit just off my shoulder, and the front dips into a conservative, but apparent vee. I’m hardly flashing my cleavage, but it’s the most skin I’ve shown around my father since those rebellious months of my late teens. Paired with a skirt that barely grazes the tops of my knees, I’m worried a heart attack is coming. Either due to my father’s shock when he sees me, or my anxious energy giving way to full-blown panic. Both are inevitable, it’s just a matter of which ends up worse.
Noah steps behind me, and his eyes find mine in the mirror. He reaches one hand over my arm to trace the neckline of my dress with his fingertips. “It’s more than okay, Cupcake, but if you’re not comfortable we have time for you to get changed.”
“No, we don’t!” Ella screeches through the open door to our room, skidding to a halt by grabbing the frame. “The ceremony starts at two !”
“I thought it started at two-thirty?” Although, neither of us has seen an invite. We’re relying on the passed down information from our mothers.
“Ma definitely said two—”
“Even if it starts at two, we have time.” Noah interrupts. He glances between Ella and me before settling his gaze on me. “Do you want to get changed?”
Ella huffs, crossing her arms and storming away. “If I’m late I am going to tell my mother it was your fault, Noah.”
“I’m okay with that,” he calls back.
I spin to face him, making his fingers trace a line across my chest. Goosebumps erupt over my skin and something like static electricity begins to ring in my ears. I’m waiting for the zap that’s sure to bring me back to Earth, but it never comes. Noah draws a line over my collarbone, then up my neck, eventually tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. Glancing over my shoulder at the mirror, I shimmy my hips to make the skirt swoosh out around me. “I do really like it.”
Noah leans down, kissing behind my ear. “Then to hell with your dad.”
“You can’t say that!” I gasp with playful shock. “He might actually have a heart attack seeing me in this and you’ve just condemned him to an eternity of torture.”
Frowning, Noah rears back. “Do you actually believe that?”
“I don’t, but he might.” I cup Noah’s cheeks and pull him towards me. With our lips so close I can feel his breath, I hesitate. “Just don’t say anything like that around him, just in case.”
“My lips are sealed.”
And he does just that; seals his lips. Over mine. It’s one of the few times we’ve kissed just because we can. I wasn’t expecting it to fill my chest with warmth or make my knees weak, but it does. There’s no sexual urgency, no raging endorphins, no onlooking cousin. It’s just me. And Noah. And this kiss.
My lips part on a sigh and Noah takes it for the chance it is. His tongue traces along my lips and mine darts out to meet it. We don’t rush, we savour. Noah’s hand is gentle on my neck, and he wraps his other arm around my back to hold me close. Keeping me from running away even though I know I won’t. Not this time. At least, not right now.
Ella’s voice is at least three octaves higher than usual as she calls for us to hurry up. “Let’s go!”
“Why doesn’t she get as much shit for being single as you do?” Noah asks when our lips finally break apart. Though there’s no judgement in his tone, the question still stings. I’d give anything for my father to be less strung out on ‘tradition’ than he is.
“She’s younger,” I reply with a shrug. “And her parents are a lot less conservative than mine. After they moved back to Melbourne and she stayed in Adelaide to study, I think they were blissfully ignorant. It might not be as bad for her, but I’m sure the pressure will hit her soon enough.”
“And when it does? Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“With her sass and independence? I think she’ll be fine.” I grab a thin scarf off the hook behind my door. The colour doesn’t quite match the shade of my dress, but it will do if my father’s scorn proves too much to handle. “And if not, she’ll have me to stick up for her.”
Noah follows me out the door, tugging on my arm to hold me back. “She’ll have us.”
Sadik’s wedding is nothing like Kaya’s was. Although the space is huge, it feels intimate and homely. The botanical gardens are bright with flowers and the heritage cottage is historic and timely without feeling old. On the veranda, ivy climbs along the building, creating a beautifully simple backdrop for Sadik and his new wife to say their vows. If only there were half as many people, it would be the perfect evening.
The crowd is almost as big as the space. There’s no way my cousin will make his way around to every guest. The benefit though, is that my parents have been pulled in so many directions by extended family and friends that they didn’t have the chance to interrogate me before the ceremony started. Hardwood floors click under dress shoes as we make our way into the reception hall. Noah squeezes my hand when I hesitate just inside the room.
He follows my gaze to where my parents are standing by a table, looking through the crowd of family. My mother clings to my father’s arm, straining her neck as she searches. Presumably for me.
“We have to say hi to them at some point,” Noah says. “We might as well get it over with.”
“I need two glasses of wine and a full stomach first. Thank God we aren’t seated at the same table.”
Sadik, it appears, had the foresight to seat all his cousins as far away from their parents as possible. Noah and I find our table on the edge of the room, and Ella skitters off to her spot nearby.
“You look beautiful,” Noah reminds me as he peels my wrap off my shoulders to drape it over my chair. “Don’t let your fear over what others might think stop you from owning your own beauty.”
I swallow down my uncertainty, leaning into his touch. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
Noah places his hands on my shoulders and traces my collarbones with his thumbs. His lip twitches before he speaks. “You trust me?”
“Always.”
“Then believe me.”
On the other side of the room, someone begins clinking their glass. Soon, the room jingles with the high-pitched clatter as more people join the cacophony. It feels like my ears start to bleed, and I’m about to shove my fingers in them to drown out the sound when it stops almost as suddenly as it started. The MCs voice beckons through the speakers for us to find our seats.
Noah pulls out my bow-draped chair, pushing it in slowly as I sit. My perfect gentleman. Mine. I do my best to ignore the way that thought pulls in my chest. Cousins—some I know and some I barely recognise—join us at the table. We speed through whispered introductions as the MC continues to outline the events of the evening. Sadik and his bride will enter shortly and perform their first dance, followed by speeches, and only once all that is over will dinner be served. I can’t hold in my groan when I realise how long I’ll have to wait for food. I don’t even crack open the little packet of butter before biting into the tiny bread roll on my side plate.
“Did you eat lunch?” Noah drapes his arm around me, pulling me close and leaning down. He keeps his voice low so only I can hear.
My stomach growls in response as I shake my head and swallow my mouthful. “I was too nervous.”
“About the dress?”
“And … this.” With a finger I gesture between us, finishing my pre-dinner snack.
Noah is being appropriately affectionate. Nothing more or less than how he acted at the last wedding, but knowing it means something now feels heavy on my shoulders.
I whisper to keep my voice under the droning speech by a greying man I assume is the bride’s father. “The last time I brought a partner to meet my father, it was horrible.”
“What happened?”
My cheeks heat and I can practically feel them turning the bright pink of my blush. I turn my face to rest my chin over Noah’s shoulder. So he can’t see how embarrassed I am, but also so I can drop my voice even lower to be sure no one else has a chance of hearing me. I don’t think any of them are trying to eavesdrop, half seem invested in the speech and the other half are engaged in whispered conversations of their own. Plus, I have no doubt everyone at the table heard the story from their families, but I’d rather not risk rehashing old uncomfortable memories.
“He told her he was thrilled I was making friends in the city, and asked if she had a single brother she could set me up with.”
Noah sucks in a quick breath, blowing it out slowly. “Don’t get offended, but your father’s a bit of a jerk, you know that right?”
Half of the tension I’ve been carrying around all day dissipates. I’d geared myself up for a comment about my sexuality, but time and time again Noah is proving he couldn’t care less. It’s the first time I’ve felt so free to just be open about my preferences and my past. Well, maybe not the first considering Cass never skipped a beat no matter who I brought home, but the first since her. The second, I guess. My head tilts, until my forehead rests close to Noah’s temple.
“Thank you,” I say with a soft laugh. “He kind of is, isn’t he?”
I shift in my seat, facing back towards the table but keeping my head resting against Noah’s. It’s funny how one person is all it takes to change everything you thought you knew about your wants. And it’s scary. Incredibly scary. I’m still dreading the moment my father comes by to inevitably berate me for my choice of date and do his best to make Noah feel small and insignificant, but something about having Noah by my side when he does makes me feel like I can handle it.
“Here,” Noah says as the speech comes to an end and everyone raises their glass in a toast. “You can have my roll.”
He slides the little seeded bun onto my plate of crumbs and opens the tiny packet of butter.
“I had lunch,” he adds when I hesitate to pick up the food he is offering me. “But if you get the beef, I’m swapping you for my chicken. Deal?”