Chapter 13
Alex
T oday was a long-ass day. Landing in Bangkok, after two very painful flights and eighteen hours later, all Alex had wanted was to sleep.
The tension between him and Noa felt like a rope pulled too tight, starting to fray in the middle under the strain.
It was thick and suffocating, and it had made for an uncomfortable journey, to say the least. He had huffed a sigh of relief when they arrived at the hostel and they’d finally gone their separate ways.
However, as he got to his hostel room—a single because, if he was going to do this for Ryan, he was not going to sleep in a fucking dorm—he soon realised sleep was not on the cards.
It seemed that their hostel came alive at night, with travellers looking to let loose.
So, with the noises seeping into his room, he may as well have been sharing after all.
Realising this, he took himself straight out for a stroll through some market streets.
Well, ‘market streets’ was a big understatement for what he experienced, because these were nothing like the Sunday markets at home.
They were utter chaos as swarms of people weaved through vendors selling all manner of foods that he had never heard of in his life.
His head whipped between each multicoloured stall, threatening whiplash, but he just couldn’t look away.
It was all so intriguing. Scorpions on sticks caught his attention, and he shivered at the prospect of their freaky-looking pincers touching his tongue.
He stifled a gag, trying not to judge something before he’d tried it.
After all, he’d wanted to immerse himself in a new culture, but somehow that seemed like a step too far.
Instead, despite the overwhelming choice, Alex played it safe and enjoyed the best Pad Thai of his life before heading back to the hostel.
When he first arrived back, he noticed that Noa seemed to have made a group of friends.
He wasn’t surprised. Noa drew people in by simply just being herself.
She had always had a magnetising presence, and watching her throw her head back, laughing with people she’d just met, he realised that was something that hadn’t changed.
Alex settled down at a bar stool, with Noa perfectly within his line of sight, deciding to enjoy a few Chang beers before bed. Maybe that would help him sleep, at least.
The bar was basic, but lively, packed with sweaty bodies who were all mingling after their days being tourists.
He didn’t feel like mingling, though, and he was glad to have found one of the only corners in the bar that wasn’t occupied.
He would guess from the wooden furnishings scattered throughout that they’d used mainly repurposed materials and that, paired with the beanbags and pool tables, created a laid-back atmosphere.
He took a pull from his beer, enjoying the mix of the bitter and sweet notes that danced on his tongue before he gulped it down.
Keeping his eyes on Noa, knowing that, for the first time in years, their proximity was inevitable, he had a feeling he was going to need more where that came from.
Another mouthful of his beer took him back to The Brew, before The Brew was even his.
To Ryan venting about a guy from college who had been trying his luck with Noa.
To a conversation that had put yet another brick in the wall that he and Noa had both built between each other.
He’d wanted to rip it down, and the night they’d slept together he’d been close to doing so, but it turned out Noa was a better sister than he was a friend.
She’d been able to do what he couldn’t. She’d re-enforced the foundations with the pact and made sure that neither of them could dismantle it.
‘You know he’s not good enough for her. He keeps turning up at the house at all hours, taking her out in his not-so-impressive wheels that I’m sure makes him think his dick’s grown two sizes, and he flashes her with that stupid fucking grin that might have Noa fooled, but it doesn’t me,’ Ryan moaned as he sipped his pint.
‘Jeeeez, man, tell us how you really feel! I know you never love the guys interested in your sister, and I kind of get it, it’s in the older brother “how-to guide” and all that, but your knickers really are in a twist about this one.’
Noa had always been stubborn, and Alex didn’t know whether Ryan had noticed, but over the years, when they’d given the guys chasing her a hard time or tried to get in their way, Noa had only been more inclined to give them the time of day.
As if in protest to her brother’s interfering.
So, Alex had recently learnt to step back, and he would not be getting involved in anything Ryan had cooking up this time.
Noa had definitely grown into her own person, she was eighteen now and had plans to go off to university in the next couple of years.
And, as much as Alex loathed that it wasn’t him, he knew she was capable of making her own decisions and would date whoever she wanted.
He just preferred not to think about that.
‘He’s pretty much dated the entire netball team and jumps from girl to girl. A bit like you, actually’, Ryan said.
Okay, ouch.
Ryan must have sensed that his words hadn’t landed how he’d intended them to, so he was quick to speak again.
‘No, shit. It’s not just that. He even tried it on with Melody once. The guy’s a snake, and I just don’t like him or want him near my sister.’
Melody had been Ryan’s on-and-off-again girlfriend since school and, even though Alex wanted to focus on that, the idea of Ryan disapproving a guy for showing similar traits as him made his beer feel like it was starting to curdle in his stomach.
To add insult to injury, the next words he spoke felt like a fist in the gut and a knee to the balls all wrapped in one.
‘Not to mention his dad has always been a womaniser. Cheating on his mum for years. The whole town knows it. I don’t think Noa should be getting wrapped up in a family like that. The apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree.’
Alex knew Ryan didn’t know what he just said or why it would hurt. He was Alex’s best friend in every sense of the word, but he didn’t know how deep the cuts ran. Only one person did. And this conversation had just made it clear that she was even more off-limits than he had ever imagined.
Ryan had, within seconds, fed into Alex’s biggest fear that he would turn into the man his dad was just by sharing blood with him. The only person that had ever shown him he was more than that was Noa, and now Alex didn’t know what to do with that.
The sound of hooting and cheers coming from the dance floor as the song ‘Pink Pony Club’ started to fill the room brought Alex back to the present.
The reminder of why Noa had always been his greatest desire, and yet completely out of reach, felt like he’d just ripped the scab off a cut that had just started healing, and he cursed himself for ever thinking this trip was a good idea.
I t was just past midnight when Alex stepped away from the hostel bar and toward the dance floor where Noa immediately had his attention, as she always did.
The way her hourglass figure was currently being hugged by that black and white flowery dress should be illegal.
Her shoulders had the softest glow, the light sheen of sweat-coated skin from hours spent on the dance floor.
She looked so much more relaxed than when he last saw her.
His eyes skimmed over her body, and he was drawn to her pink painted toenails.
They looked so dainty and as perfect as her, sticking out of her little black sandals.
She swayed her hips, drawing his attention to her toned ass, but when she threw her hair back with a laugh, he was frozen and completely captivated.
Her smile really did light up the whole room, as the saying went, and he truly understood what people meant when they said that now.
She was still that beacon of light she had always been, and that meant that he was in trouble.
It wasn’t lost on him that ‘Trouble’ was the name he had always called her growing up. Part of him just loved to see her cheeks flush with annoyance every time he used it, but the other part of him used it as a reminder that he couldn’t cross that line.
He’d first used it after Noa had gotten between him and Joe Rigby, who’d been goading Alex with ‘dad jokes’ until he snapped. Joe’s dad worked with Noa’s, and she’d held Alex back whilst scowling at Joe with a warning, threatening to tell his dad if he didn’t walk away immediately.
The way she’d jumped to Alex’s defence and then looked after him afterwards by helping him get cleaned up at her house so he wouldn’t have to face his mum’s questions had made him want to kiss her more than he ever had.
The way she’d shyly whispered, ‘I hate him,’ as she dabbed his nose. The silent understanding between them that the ‘him’ she was referring to was Joe made Alex want to wrap her up in his arms.
No one had ever made him feel as validated as she did. And that need to kiss her and hold her had only grown with every passing year, until her twentieth birthday when he’d lost the ability to hold himself back anymore. One lust-filled look from her, and he’d been a goner.
Now, as she swayed in time with the music, carefree and beautiful, he couldn’t help but think that maybe that would still be all it took.
He’d hoped she would’ve lost her allure over the last eight years.
But she was a seductress, and she didn’t even know it.
She didn’t need to flaunt her perfect body or use flirtatious words, because her smile was the sexiest thing he had ever seen and watching her laugh made his dick come alive .