Chapter Twelve Odette
Chapter Twelve
Odette
When Izzy suggested meeting here to get the preliminary seating chart in order so we could start mapping out the layout for the reception, it took everything I had not to scream into the phone.
Instead, I calmly agreed so as not to let on that there was a reason I couldn’t be here today.
Now that I’m here and Noah stands a mere hundred feet away, I have major regrets.
I should have told her no and insisted we meet somewhere else, maybe at the diner. I take it over with my family every Sunday; why can’t I do it again?
My eyes drift toward him, and I wish I could say it’s the first time, but it’s not. Far from it. Actually, I have no idea how Izzy hasn’t said anything. How she hasn’t noticed I’m watching her brother like a damn hawk and am barely paying any attention to what we’re doing.
I know it’s not fair to her. I should be more invested in this wedding than I’ve been in any other since I’m her best friend and maid of honor, but I’m not. I’m too damn distracted by the fact that I kissed her brother.
I kissed Noah Stevens.
I kissed my best friend’s older brother.
And I really, really want to do it again.
It’s all I thought of all night. He consumed my thoughts every time I closed my eyes.
The way he looked at me like he was hungry and had never had a satisfying meal in his life.
How he slid his knee between my legs, and I swear I’d never felt anything so damn good before.
How he held me so tight, like now that he had me in his grasp, he was never letting me go.
I didn’t want to let him go, either, but I did because the second his fingers grazed against my bra, I panicked.
Until that point, I was lost in a haze of lust. I was lost in him.
I was lost in the fact that the man I’d been crushing on for over a decade was finally noticing me.
It felt like a dream, and I never wanted to wake up .
. . at least not until he was about to cross a line that we couldn’t come back from.
Kissing is one thing, but going any further? We shouldn’t.
No, Odette. Not shouldn’t. Can’t. You can’t afford to get your heart broken again. You can’t get distracted by a crush that will go nowhere. Focus on your business. The curse is already destroying that. Don’t let it destroy you too.
I zero back in on the wedding planning and drag my eyes away from Noah, who looks entirely too good as he moves around the bar doing even the most mundane things.
“What if we put the deejay over here and move the gift table there?” Izzy points to two spots on the roughly drawn barn layout I sketched. “Then that would leave us more space for the dance floor on this side.”
I think about the barn and its current layout, envisioning how it’ll look once it’s all done. “Yeah.” I nod. “I think that will work nicely. Then we can do the cake table here.”
“Yes,” Izzy says, extending the word and kicking her feet excitedly as I label each table on the drawing.
I’m excited too. It’s all coming together.
Major progress is being made on the barn.
And when I’m not rearranging the taproom, I’ve been booking new vendors, as many have reached out since they heard about the renovation.
My bank account is no longer screaming at me, so it’s definitely all looking up right now.
As long as I can get Izzy and Craig to nail down their seating chart, we’ll be in perfect shape.
“Craig, any objections?”
When he doesn’t answer, I look at him.
His nose is completely buried in his phone. He wasn’t even paying attention.
“Craig?”
Izzy’s voice knocks him out of his stupor, and he nearly drops his phone, barely recovering before it hits the table.
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry,” he says, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “That was a work thing.”
“On a Saturday?”
He smirks at her. “You’re marrying a busy man, babe.” Then he winks, and I swear my best friend melts in her seat.
I resist rolling my eyes at them and shove the sketch between them. “Well, Mr. Busy Man, any objections to the layout?”
He frowns. “We’re having a deejay? I thought we were doing a live band.”
“A live band?” Izzy sounds like this is the first she’s hearing of it. “I thought we’d do a deejay. They’re cheaper.”
“Yeah, but are we paying for it?”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard a groom say something along those lines, and it always annoys the crap out of me, but this time? It really bugs me. I know Brian and Lydia. I don’t like hearing them talked about like that.
“You know what?” I push to my feet. “Why don’t I let you two discuss this in private? I need to use the restroom anyway.”
I don’t wait for any objections—and may not get any since they’re already locked in a heated argument—and make my way past the bar and down the hall to the bathrooms.
Truthfully, I needed more than a break from Craig and Izzy. I needed a break from Noah too.
I can’t seem to stop myself from looking over at the bar with every noise he makes. Every time he laughs at something Ezra says, or every time he scowls. My attention keeps being drawn to him, and it needs to stop. I need to put our kiss out of my mind.
It will never happen again, so why bother obsessing over it?
I finish up in the restroom and pull open the door to find a dark figure leaning against the wall.
My heart leaps right into my throat, but not because I’m scared.
It’s because of who it is.
Noah.
I look down the hall to make sure nobody is coming or paying any attention, but I really don’t need to. It’s dark down here. We’re safely hidden.
“Hey, Odie.” His voice is thick and quiet, and I swear it goes right between my legs, right to that spot he was pressed up against last night.
“Noah. What are you . . .” I swallow around the lump that’s sitting in my throat. “What are you doing back here?”
“We need to talk.”
It’s the last thing I want to do with Izzy sitting in the taproom. She could walk back here and find us, and I really don’t have it in me to try to explain to her what happened between me and Noah last night.
I shake my head. “No, we don’t.”
He scoffs. “The fuck we don’t.”
He shoves off the wall, stalking toward me.
If I were smart, I would flee. I could push right back through the bathroom doors and hide from him.
But I don’t.
Instead, I stand frozen as he inches so close that all I can smell is pine and apple, and it’s overwhelming, yet not enough.
“We kissed, Odette,” he says like I wasn’t there too. Like my lips don’t feel permanently branded. “We fucking kissed, and you ran. What happened?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Nothing happened. I just . . .”
What am I supposed to tell him? That kissing him was a literal dream come true and also my worst nightmare, because how am I supposed to go back after that?
Should I tell him that I’ve been crushing on him for years, and just when I felt I finally got him out of my system, he notices me?
That I’m so damn scared to let anyone in, and it’s all because of my family’s drama that goes back decades?
I can’t tell him any of that, so I don’t.
“It was nothing, Noah.”
He looks completely stricken, like I’ve just slapped him across the face.
He shakes his head. “No. No. That wasn’t nothing, Odette. That was something. I was there. I know.”
Then Noah Stevens kisses me. Again.
And I let him. Again.
He runs his tongue along my lips, and I open for him, loving the way he takes complete charge. He slips his hand into my hair, tugging me closer, and I go willingly. As if I could resist him at this point anyway.
“Fuck, Odette,” he mutters against my lips. “You taste so good.”
I taste good? He tastes good. Like cider and toothpaste, and I don’t even know what else, but damn, it’s addicting.
Then his lips are on me again, and his tongue is in my mouth, and I’m lost. So damn lost that all worries of us getting caught slip from my mind, and I allow myself to enjoy this. I allow myself to enjoy him.
Noah’s other hand curls around my waist, and I love how it fits there like it’s right where it belongs. His scuff scratches against my face, and I don’t care that it’ll likely leave a red mark. It’s worth it for this feeling.
This wonderful, incredible, amazing feeling.
With one throat clear, it’s shattered.
We spring apart like we’ve been doing something wrong, and we were. Something very, very wrong that felt so, so right.
I wipe my mouth—as if doing so will somehow erase what just happened—and find Ezra standing a few feet away.
“Just letting you know that they’re beginning to wonder where you are,” he says quietly. “So now might be a good time to break up whatever this is if you don’t want Izzy—or anyone else in this town, for that matter—to know about it.”
Oh god. How could I forget there’s a bar full of people out there? That Izzy is out there? How could I have let myself get so wrapped up in Noah?
I dare a look at him, but he’s staring straight ahead, posture stiff. His lips—the ones that were just telling me how good I taste—are pulled into a thin line. The red tinge on his cheeks is the only thing that gives away what happened.
“I’ll be in the basement.”
It’s all he says before he walks away, leaving me alone with Ezra and staring after him.
His business partner sighs, shaking his head.
“What a moron.”
That’s what we both are.
“You okay?” Ezra asks.
I nod, even though I feel anything but okay. “Yeah. I’m good.”
He points to his lip. “You might want to fix that.”
Right. My lipstick. There’s no way it’s not smeared at this point.
“Thanks,” I mutter, then duck back into the bathroom.
I stare at myself in the mirror, taking in the red splotches on my cheeks and little marks around my mouth from Noah’s scruff. His hands messed up my hair, and his touch wrinkled my clothes.
I look just like I’ve been kissed thoroughly.
I don’t know how long I stay in the bathroom, but when I finally make my way back to the taproom, Izzy and Craig are laughing and cuddling up next to each other, and a pang of jealousy courses through me.