Chapter 8
Fox
“I’m starving,” I admitted, after we’d managed another shower and he was rummaging in his suitcase. I was just standing naked in the middle of the room, trying to balance on the side of my big toe that didn’t look like a STOP sign. Red and angry and fuck, it hurt.
“I don’t want to give you more meds for now, eat first. You’ll need another dose for bedtime.”
“We need to ring for maid service.” Obviously.
“I’ll…” he started, and then started pulling at the sheets on the floor. “It’s disgusting.”
“It’s just sex,” I said calmly. “This is a honeymoon resort. I’m sure the staff are used to spunky sheets and finding condoms in the bins.”
“Still,” he mumbled. “I’m the kind of guy who likes biohazard bags.”
“This whole bed is a biohazard.” The look on his face was hilarious. He was hilarious. And I was grinning again. He made me happy, and this made me happy and I was an idiot. That was blindingly obvious here.
“Where do you actually practice?”
“A normal question from a naked man.” I took it back. He was dry as hell.
“I would get dressed if I had clothes. I have no idea where your pants went. Can I possibly borrow another pair?”
“Absolutely. I was going to suggest…that maybe we will attempt to go to your room, if only to grab you some clothes.”
“You can carry me naked across the resort. Would be most romantic.”
Now he just smiled.
“No, Riley.”
“So you’re going to carry me… exactly where then?”
“I was going to suggest I carry you over to the buffet so we can have dinner. Unless you want to have dinner with your friends?”
“They haven’t even missed me enough to try to figure out if I’m still alive.”
“Mum has kept them all updated. Blow by blow.”
“Oh fuck.”
“I dread to think what she’s told them. But anyway, they’ve been at Zumba or whatever.”
“Great. So where do you practice?” He’d avoided it earlier, and in a way, I dreaded his answer. In all of this? I knew it wasn’t real. It wouldn’t last because these kinds of things? They never did.
“Brighton?” He was standing there, absolutely still, looking up from underneath his fringe. Ah. Okay. “I googled you earlier. It doesn’t look good, does it?”
I got it, of course I did. He lived in Brighton. The south coast. Pebble beaches and rock candy. South. Whereas myself? Kilmartin. North of Glasgow. We couldn’t have been placed further apart if we had tried.
“Could have been worse,” I tried. “If you ever fancy a trek up in the middle of fuck-end-of-nowhere? You’ll know where to find me.” I couldn’t even hide the disappointment in my voice. I should have known, though, him with his posh English accent and me with my messed-up speak.
“How the hell did you end up there? You’re not Scottish. You don’t sound it.”
“No. It’s a private school. Pay’s good. A mix of posh kids, army brats and wards of state.
Doesn’t make it simple. The kids I deal with are either loaded, from great backgrounds or messed up to the nines.
The pressure on them is insane, and I still haven’t got the resources to keep them fully on the straight and narrow.
We board a hundred boys from all over the world. ”
I had no idea why I was trying to quote from the school prospectus, standing here with my dick on display. I cleared my throat and tried to keep sane. Speak like a decent human. Dick still on display. I should wear pants. Honestly.
“I went there as a kid, then trained as a teacher and returned up there for the money. The private sector pays well, and I thought it would be good for me, you know. Go back. Face the demons of my youth. Thomas got a job in Glasgow. It was all really good for a while. Until…”
“I get it.”
“Yeah. He ran back down south as soon as I found out about…dickhead-child. The devil’s spawn. Couldn’t have cared less that Thomas was in a very obvious relationship. We had bloody couple’s photos on the walls and…”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
I loved how calm he was. I also hated that he wasn’t shouting at me and telling me to grow the fuck up and get over myself. I needed to hear it.
“I was an idiot. I made my bed. Worked away in the weeks and only came back at the weekends. Thought it was all good, and Thomas said he enjoyed it and it gave us space and freedom.”
“Fuck that.”
Now I grinned.
“Exactly. I don’t want fucking freedom. I want someone in my bed every night, and I want to be together and I want to get married and I fucking want kids one day, Noah. I want the goddamn fairytale.”
“Not easy when you live in the fuck-end-of-nowhere, or whatever you called it.”
“It’s beautiful. Serene and peaceful. I love the job, didn’t think I would, but I do.
I absolutely adore the school and the boys.
Great colleagues. Despite all that, I dread going back now because I’m still a wreck after the whole…
Thomas thing. I live full time at the school now. Not quite the place to host hook-ups.”
“I see.” Okay. There it was. Disappointment. Good job, Fox. Great. I’d put my foot down then. This was going nowhere, and we both knew it.
“Suppose you have to trek down south and see me then.”
“Long distance is a disaster,” I said, before I could stop myself.
“Okay.”
So he agreed? Now I was starting to flail my arms and I was actually hungry and in a second, I would lose my balance standing here on one leg, and the fuck?
“Get dressed,” he huffed, pushing a pile of fabric in my arms. His clothes. Pants. T-shirt. Shorts with a drawstring. We were definitely not the same size, and now I was drowning in fabric, trying to tie the ropey thing around my waist.
“Sit,” he demanded, and I did what I was told. Sat.
Then Dr Fairweather was back in the room, carefully draping my foot in a sock as I breathed in and out through my teeth. Not comfortable, but I got the point of it. And shoes? A definite no-go.
“There,” he said, inspecting my ridiculous self. “I’ll have to carry you. Not far, it’s just about two hundred metres up the beach or so. And you weigh nothing.”
“I weigh plenty,” I grumped.
And then he just leant in and kissed me. Like this was something we did. That somehow the whole we-just-fuck-because scenario was no longer there and we were instead…what exactly?
I didn’t get a chance to ponder on that question because now he was just grappling with clothes and getting himself dressed, and there were Crocs on his feet. Yes, I grimaced. He stuck his tongue out at me.
Bewildering wasn’t even the start of this.
“I know they’re fuck-ugly, but they’re comfy. Simple.”
“Practical.”
“Absolutely.”
And then he hoisted me up in his arms and carried me out the patio doors, letting them slide shut behind us.
“Am I too heavy?” I asked. Like. Fuck. Who was I and what on earth was I letting happen here?
His steady pace in the sand. Not even out of breath as I had my arms around his neck, and my head awkwardly trying to figure out where to go.
I wanted to lay it down against his shoulder.
Kiss the skin on his neck. Just smell him.
The sun setting gently around us, the sky almost pink on the horizon.
Food. I was bloody starving, and here I was being carried…and now he was putting me down.
“You’re too heavy. My back…”
“I’ll walk,” I said, then I tried to take a step on my socked foot. Ehhr. No.
“Get on my back,” he said.
How old were we? Five? But apparently I had lost all free will and did as I was told. Climbed on so I was on his back.
Piggy-back. The laughter spilling out of my mouth was ridiculous. But…
“This is crazy.” I giggled.
“It is,” he said softly.
The thing it was? It was lovely. Because now my lips were pressed to his neck and I could smell him, and nuzzle into him and my arms were around his front so I could even stroke his stubble and he was…
Everything he was. It was a little much.
Overwhelming in the ways I loved. I could even admit that to myself.
And for a little while there, everything was blissful.
Just him and me, walking quietly on the sandy path in the almost dark.
All I could hear was him breathing to the backdrop of the waves against the beach.
Lights blinking in the distance. The soft rustle from the palm trees.
And then suddenly he turned, and we were walking up towards the restaurant, the double doors wide open, a staff member in place to welcome us inside.
I didn’t want inside. I wanted to stay here, with him, where it was just the two of us and I didn’t have to deal with anything on the inside.
I meant that in every way possible.
“Do you…” he started.
“I’ll have to go see them,” I replied. Like we could read each other’s minds when we clearly couldn’t.
“Mr Fairweather,” the staff member said, looking awkward. “Your party has moved to join another table. Will you be requiring your assigned table?”
Poor Noah looked as confused as I felt.
“I’m with table ten,” I blurted out. Because I was. And I had no clue. If he had asked my name? At this point, I wouldn’t have been able to answer it, standing here, my hand sliding into Noah’s.
Like a child. I was a bloody child.
And now the staff guy nodded, and we were… Well, Noah was walking, I was hobbling using Noah as my human crutch, and it was all…
Oh.
Okay?
So. Here was the big table, and a load of people, and where I’d been sat last night was Noah’s dad, who was engaged in some kind of intense conversation with Simon, and then Pawel was next to Noah’s mum and Huw and Andy were pouring wine from a bottle…
which made no sense since the wine came from a machine.
See? There had definitely been drugs involved.
And Thomas was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey!” Huw stood up and met me halfway across the room. Hugs. We always hugged. But now he was half dragging me over, and poor Noah was just standing there.
“Look who’s back from the dead!” Huw shouted at the table as people cheered.
Where I would have normally played along with their jolliness, I was standing there holding my hand out to Noah. Wanting him to come with me. For what reason, I couldn’t have told you, I just…
I wanted him. With me. Perhaps to show off. Maybe to settle the horrible feeling in my stomach where the ground felt like it was dropping under my screaming feet.
Trying to stand on my socked foot, the other one bare, in borrowed clothes with his kisses still bruising my skin, I stood there, and then he turned around as if to leave.
“Sit down, Riley,” someone shouted, pulling up a chair for me.
He was walking away, and I wanted to scream.
Shout. And my head whipped around to find his mum, wanting her to intervene.
Make him stop. He was running away again; I could feel it in my bones, and I hated it.
Hated that I had done this to myself, again, and that I was messing up something I never should have started.
What was I doing? I had no clue. Instead, my arse got plonked down on the chair, and Huw was yapping on in my ear and all I wanted to do was scream.
“Are you okay?”
Huw. Shaking me, like I’d zoned out again. I did this. Everything was too much right now, and I was in pain. My foot, yes, but my head? Everything?
“Yeah, yeah,” I huffed out. “Where did Noah go?”
“Who?” He looked concerned. Like I’d made all this up in my head. And now, finally, his mum was moving and walking away, and everyone was talking and I couldn’t understand how I’d got myself in this state.
“Noah?” I said weakly. “Why are his parents sitting at this table?”
“Oh, we’ve bonded.” Huw laughed, and now Simon was next to me on the other side, talking far too fast and too hushed for me to grasp everything.
“And then Jordyn threw a hissy fit and stormed off, and he was on the first boat out this morning, and then Thomas left to go find him, and they both got back about an hour ago, and we’re all dying to find out what on earth has gone on.
I went to bed early, you see. I missed all the drama last night.
First you disappear, then Thomas and Jordyn cause drama, and now you’re back, and where has that handsome man of yours disappeared off to? ”
Well, here I was, behaving like an owl, my head spinning around the room, scanning for the only thing I wanted right now.
It had been one hell of a day. One day and two fucks and suddenly I had become this? Clingy and desperate when he was probably back in his room, getting the bed cleaned up and thanking his lucky stars he finally got rid of me.
“I don’t know.” I sighed as a glass of wine was placed in my hand.
“Well.” Huw smiled. “A good time was had by all, it seems. You’ve lost your shoes and one sock, and that’s one hell of a hickey on your neck.”
“Hey,” I warned, having regained some of my senses, as Derek luckily missed that incredibly insensitive comment about his son’s…antics with…me. At least his dad was still here, which gave me hope.
“So what happened to Thomas?” I asked, letting myself take a gulp of wine. I needed something. Anything to stop me feeling this weird.
“Jordyn made a new friend.” Simon winked. “Thomas wasn’t impressed.”
“Oh.” I half-heartedly rolled my eyes, wondering why this small piece of gossip wasn’t making my heart sing. Instead, I was indifferent. Shockingly so.
“And there was shouting. It was almost entertaining.”
“Simon may have been clapping at one point.” Huw grinned.
“Over what?” I was just talking here, still scanning the room.
“He’ll be back.” Simon gently patted my arm. “Have a drink.”
I did. I downed the whole glass. Stupid, perhaps.
No. It was definitely stupid. And irresponsible, and here I went again. Right down stupidity lane. Head first. My heart once again shattered into a million pieces, and I had no clue how I’d ended up here again.
.