16. Noel
16
Noel
O f course, I’d rather be single and happy.
Addison’s words played over and over in Noel’s mind, and as much as he didn’t want to believe what he’d heard, he couldn’t ignore how sincere she’d sounded.
He’d recognized her voice as soon as he’d gotten close enough to hear it, and not wanting to interrupt, he’d pulled up short, waiting for an opportunity to break in. He had not meant to eavesdrop, just as he’d told Claire, but when Addison called herself a man repellent, he’d had to stop from launching himself around the corner to assure her that she was no such thing. At least not where he was concerned. Just the opposite, in fact. As cliché as it sounded, he’d been drawn to her like a bee to honey from the moment he’d seen her standing behind that airport ticket counter.
The rest of the afternoon in the office had been fraught with tension, especially after Paula returned. She’d been gone for over an hour before she tentatively stuck her head in the door, almost like she worried she was going to walk in on the two men duking it out. But both Noel and John were nose-to-the-grindstone at their computers, and although they both acknowledged her, not even John had much to say to her. She settled in behind her desk and got on her own computer, and for several hours, the only sounds in the office were the clicking of keyboards, papers being shuffled, and the noticeably efficient responses to the few phone calls that came into their department.
Noel had kept his head down, his gaze fixed on the charts dancing across his monitor, not even getting up to use the bathroom until it was time to call it a day. Once home, he’d recognized that he’d been in no mood to sit quietly in a theater after the imbroglio with John. But sitting around his apartment, stewing over the turmoil in his life wasn’t doing him any good, either. After the childhood he’d endured, he also knew better than to head downstairs to the resort bar. The alcohol would only fuel the fire that was burning through his self-control.
He could feel Bruno’s rage nipping at his heels, the terror of the boy he’d once been. The man he now was waged war against the memories. Why was his monster of a father haunting him, making him so susceptible to John’s insults these days? A few months ago, he’d been able to let it all roll off his back. He knew he did his job well, and he knew part of the reason he’d been hired was because John couldn’t manage it. Sure, the man’s abrasive nature hadn’t made things fun, but he’d been certain that over time, John would come to accept him as a team mate, even if they never became friends.
So why was Noel rising to the bait, trading insult for insult, jeopardizing this job that he’d worked hard to get, that he really wanted to keep? What had changed? Hadn’t he learned how to handle small-minded, big-headed men like John?
The guy reminded him so much of Bruno; Noel didn’t need a therapist to tell him as much. Unlike Bruno, John was lean and wiry and dressed in a suit and tie, but he was a bully and a manipulator through and through. Although Noel would likely never be victim to the guy’s fists, he knew good and well that John had all but painted a bullseye on him.
He would not let his mind dwell on the image of punching John in the throat… it gave him too much sick pleasure.
How he wished he had someone to talk to. Not a therapist or a counselor; he’d done his time with them, and although they’d helped him find the tools that he needed to put the past behind him, to move forward into his own future without fear, what they hadn’t been able to give him was friendship. It wasn’t just romance he’d shelved over the last decade; his previous role performing audits for corporate had given him little opportunity to make and keep friends. Right now, he could really use one.
He finally opted to head around the lake to the bookstore to pick up the other books in The World on Fire series. Maybe he could get out of his own head and into someone else’s for the evening.
Of course, I’d rather be single and happy.
Was it true? Is that really how Addison felt? And if so, then why had she agreed to go out with him again?
In hindsight, she had been slow to respond to his invitation. She’d been at work, of course, so he hadn’t been expecting an immediate response. She’d also put him off for a day, which hadn’t been a red flag, either, at the time. He had no doubt she had a full life before he showed up on the scene.
But now, having heard from her own mouth how she felt about being in a relationship, he couldn’t help wondering. Had she just agreed to meet him again because she felt sorry for him?
Even worse, had she kissed him back the other night because he hadn’t given her the option of not kissing him?
“Oh, stop!” he berated himself. “Talk about high school.”
In the context of all that he'd managed to overhear before making his presence known, what she’d really said was that she’d rather be single and happy than in a relationship for the sake of a relationship. That was a good thing, a notion in which he wholeheartedly agreed. “Besides,” he said as he closed the book he was struggling to focus on. “It’s a little early in the game to be calling this a relationship, isn’t it?”
Friends. He’d like to think they were at least friends. And he really needed a friend right now.
Not that he’d ever tell her about the monster in his closet. He’d never tell anyone about the father he’d left behind, a man who’d abused and humiliated his wife and son for the sick thrill of it. He’d never ask anyone to help him carry that burden; it was his and his alone to bear. If Noel had his way, Bruno would remain locked away in the dark recesses of his mind until the man did them all a favor and departed from this earth.
He’s asking to see you.
“Wow. You, too?” What was with the women’s voices in his head tonight? Now Aunt Gigi was talking to him, reminding him that Bruno had requested Noel’s presence, only to refuse seeing him when he showed up. More cruel manipulation doled out by the one person who was supposed to put Noel’s well-being above all others.
Maybe that was why he was feeling so vulnerable to John Sheridan’s attacks lately. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Bruno was once again pulling strings Noel had thought were long ago severed.
He couldn’t lash out at his frail, dying father, could he? But John Sheridan? Noel felt an overwhelming desire to heap his thirty-plus years of repressed anger and resentment on the man with whom he shared an office.
Which only served to make him loathe himself. He was not a monster like his father.
Or maybe he was, and all it would take was the right person, the right trigger, to unleash that part of him that had been denied for so long.
“I hate you,” he muttered through clenched teeth, his jaw tight, the muscles in his neck tense with impotence. “Why did you have to poke that stupid part of me that always hoped you’d finally, finally love me?”
To his dismay, hot tears formed in his eyes and began trickling down his cheeks. It had been a very long time since he’d wept for any reason, and even longer still since he’d cried over the loss of the father he’d never had.