We need to talk

Chapter 9

Noah

“Darling.” My mum burst through the patio doors, making me jump out of my skin.

I’d just got back, the short walk across the beach a welcome relief, to find the room had been restored to its pristine normality, and now I was sat here with the room phone in one hand and the room service menu in the other, and I was going to go back to normal come hell or high water.

“What?” I barked, all defensive. No clue why.

I knew exactly why, because deep down? I knew what an idiot I was. But then I was a rational human being, and this was not real and would never become more than it was.

“He’s wearing your clothes. He’s also sat there scanning the room, looking like he’s about to cry. What are you doing, Noah?”

“I’m…” I started. Then I had to take a deep breath and put the phone back on the side. “I’m being reasonable. This will never go anywhere, and I am cutting it off before it becomes something I can’t handle.”

“He’s a lovely man, Noah,” Mum said quietly, sitting herself down on the bed next to me. “And you’re doing what you always do. As soon as things get good? You run away. You burn your bridges before you’ve even started building them. It’s really not on, darling.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I… Just leave me be, Mum. I don’t want to…”

“I’m disappointed, darling. Really so, but there you have it.

If you’re not feeling this, if you’re not happy, I will respect your decision.

But they are a nice bunch of lads, we’re all having a laugh.

They are excited to get to know you and would just be thrilled to have you sit at the table.

And Fox? He’s… Well. I won’t say more. Your decision, darling.

Get something nice on room service and relax. Calm down. Let things settle.”

I was so tired of letting things settle.

I was tired, full stop. I was full of weird feelings and adrenaline, and this was exactly why I avoided hook-ups.

Why I preferred to not have sex. Because once you had it?

You wanted more. You wanted the closeness, and the intimacy and the kisses and the goddamn future that looked so alluring.

Just like the sunset. Then once it was there, everything would go dark and disappear.

This was definitely the right decision, to stop things now before they got out of hand, and I just sat there, on the bed, letting the darkness engulf me as Mum left.

The small niggling fact buzzing around my brain that I’d just left him sat at the table and walked out.

I hadn’t even said goodbye. The degree of arsehole behaviour was ginormous.

The lamp above the bedside table was on, the roar of the waves from the beach outside, the quiet nothingness of once again being so utterly alone.

Just me. My phone dark, still attached to the charger on the desk. The kettle cold. Even our teacups had been washed and replaced, new shiny things perfectly placed next to the fresh stack of beach towels provided. Everything back to how it was.

Just me. Just quiet solitude. Did it make me feel better? I wanted to scream into the silence, because no. It didn’t. It made me feel shitty on a grand scale.

I picked up the phone again, intending to follow through with my order, then slammed it back down.

I missed him.

What on earth was going on in my head? No clue. No idea. Just a complete maelstrom of confusion which all funnelled into the one picture in my head.

Him. Fucking Fox Riley. The guy who I had fucked and then let fuck me and then I had carried him back to his friends, him on my back repeatedly kissing my neck.

Like he cared.

My hand was stroking that same neck, like I was trying to feel those kisses, all over again. Or perhaps I was trying to rub them from my skin. Like I ever could.

So I sat there, my chest heaving with pain.

I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t in any medical danger. I was just…

I was confused. So bloody destroyed. Sad.

I was actually sad. Upset to the depth deep down in my bones.

And then I was just sitting there, on the bed, wondering what to do with myself now that I could do whatever I wanted.

I suddenly had no hunger. No need for that bottle of red I had been eyeing up. All I wanted was to lie on this bed and bury my nose in the pillow, the stupid clean pillowcase that no longer smelled of anything.

“Hey.”

Oh fuck. The fact that I flew off the bed, startled to the bone, and the other fact…that he had walked all the way here on that bloody foot, still wearing just one sock?

He was hanging on to the open patio door, pain etched on his face.

And I was just standing there watching him.

“I’m going to come in and lie down because I think I might faint if I don’t,” he declared dramatically, as I half caught him stumbling over the patio door rails. Into my arms, where I gently got him onto the bed, and he lay down, letting his leg move up so he could cradle it.

In pain. Obviously. And I still just stood there.

The complete fool and idiot and all-round imbecile I was.

“Can you just…get the sock off?” he asked. Eyes still closed. His breathing just small hitches, and as I got to rolling the cuff down, it made him grimace and grit out a breath through his teeth.

“You shouldn’t have walked on it,” I scolded him.

“Well, you shouldn’t have fucked off. Not fair, Noah.”

“I…” I started. I had no excuse. Absolutely none. “I…thought it would be for the best.”

“Seriously?” he said weakly. Then he went quiet. Just lay there as my stupid heart broke. Because I wanted just this. Someone who needed me. I wanted what he’d talked about. I wanted comfort. I wanted… Fuck. I wanted everything I couldn’t have.

“Riley,” I said quietly.

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. “We’re way beyond that, Noah. Fucking stop it. Just fucking stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.” Weak. Absolutely disgusting.

I was standing here, and honestly? I hated myself.

I hated my weakness. Hated my complete inability to do this right.

And I hated… Maybe I even hated him for making me realise that I was the idiot here.

I was probably doing the right thing, and I still believed that stopping this now was the correct and rational course of action. Yet?

“Lie down with me,” he begged, still curled up on the bed. His foot angry and red as I took a deep breath. Walked over to my bag and grabbed the burn gel. Sat myself down by his feet and gently moved his limbs.

He let me. The relief that he did was immense. Like I’d somehow passed the first hurdle of making this…not better, but maybe bearable in some way?

I gently covered his battered skin with gel, smoothing down every hiss and gasp from him.

Pain. I knew it well, and he was obviously in distress.

And as much as I tried to slip into my medical role here, treating this as another sign of his injury, or even his…

past trauma manifesting into the need for support?

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I simply… couldn’t.

I walked over to the bathroom and washed my hands, leaving him to just lie there in silence. Perhaps I wanted to gather my thoughts. Maybe I hoped he would say something. Explain what on earth he was thinking and make it easier for me to figure out what I was supposed to think in return.

The towel felt too rough against my hands.

The light in the bathroom far too bright.

Also, I could see myself in the mirror, and my reflection wasn’t a pretty sight.

I looked weirded out and upset, even I could see that.

Also? There was a mouth-shaped dark bruise in the middle of my chest. The way my finger shook as I tried to draw a line around it?

It was him. All him.

“Fox,” I said, walking back into the room.

He hadn’t moved, back to protecting his knee against his chest. His foot gently lying there, deep red against the stark white sheets. A warm breeze drifting through the room. The soft light. Everything making my heartbeat slow down. Calming. Just having him here was strangely calming.

“Fox,” I repeated, crawling onto the bed.

And I had no right. I was in no state to make any decisions here, but I was too close and he crawled into my arms without a word.

Just pressed his body against mine, his leg over my thigh.

That injured foot against my skin. Breaths against my chest as I kissed his head.

Those curls everywhere, making me breathe him in.

“We need to talk,” he said, his voice suddenly stern. “This needs to stop now. Because I don’t think I can take it anymore.”

“Why?” My response was simply as juvenile as it sounded.

“Because you just left me there? Didn’t say a word? Perhaps you could have said, ‘Oh Fox, just nipping back to the room for a sec, I forgot something’? Maybe you could have been honest? There was plenty of time to grab my arm and say, ‘Hey, I’m freaking out a bit, just need some space’.”

He was moving now, getting up on his elbow so he could properly look at me. Stroking hair out of my face. Like we were something we were not. Something I clearly wanted, according to the surge in my chest. Also, a reminder? He was something I couldn’t have.

“You live in bloody Scotland, Fox,” I said, like it was an excuse.

“Long distance is not an option,” he replied softly. “Hence, we need to talk.”

“We’ve known each other for…what. Hours?”

“True.” More fingers on my skin. I couldn’t bear it but leaned into it. My entire existence was a mess of contradictions. I couldn’t even make sense of that statement in my head.

“Yet, I feel like I’ve known you my entire life. I feel like this, meeting you?”

“You said it yourself. It’s a rebound hook-up. We should just leave it at that. You go back to your holiday, I get to read my book. This was great. The sex was…”

“Noah, the sex was… It was exactly what I needed. Don’t make it into something else.”

“See? It was just…sex. Can we agree on that?”

I was desperate for him to say no. To just crawl back into my arms and make this whole conversation go away. Because I knew as soon as he said it? I would break. Just on the inside. Hurt for a while whilst I tried to forget.

Instead, he moved slowly. Adjusted his stance on the bed until we were perfectly positioned.

“How often do you meet someone who just does it for you?” he asked quietly.

“Never.” My response was just as honest. What else could I say?

“But here we are.”

“Yes.” Had I agreed to his madness? The subtle promises in his words?

“Then please let me stay.”

“Have you eaten?” Safe questioning.

“No. How could I? You fucked off? Was I just supposed to sit down and dine with your parents and ignore the small fact that you were nowhere to be found?”

Okay. He had a point.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Because I was. I was an idiot. And despite being a day off forty? I was still a stupid child.

“Apology accepted. Don’t ever run away from me again.

If things get weird, if you feel you need space?

If there are too many expectations—I don’t know what it is that triggers that instinct in you, but please let me find out so I can be there.

I want to. I want to know everything about you, and I want to stay here in your bed, because when I’m here? ”

I kissed him. I had no idea how else to put an end to the words spilling out of his mouth. It was all too much. Too many promises he could never make good on. And despite the things he threw at me?

It would never actually become anything, this fairytale he was somehow building in my head. Because life didn’t work that way.

“Did you order something to eat?” he whispered into my mouth. “And no, sex does not count as nutrition, Doctor Fairweather. You’re going to have to feed me now.”

“How do you feel about red wine?” I kissed the words into his lips.

“Should I drink on those pills you gave me?”

“Probably not.”

Drunk. A few kisses and his pretty words?

Intoxicated. I shouldn’t go near any red wine.

But I still licked down his jaw. Pressed a kiss into his neck.

My cock wanted things, things that once again scared me.

I’d pulled it off once, well twice now. A third time was pushing my luck.

And now? My body felt like a full-on war zone of conflict, and he was just smiling.

“If I order steak? A bottle of Shiraz? Will you eat with me?” The easy way out, maybe. Or was I just about to prolong the inevitable with…food?

“Sounds like a date. Are we eating in bed?”

“I mean…” I cleared my throat. “There’s always the beach, but the thought of sand up my crack and sand in my wine…”

“Noah, we’re eating in bed. Deal done. Now make that phone call and order me dinner. I need veg on the side, can we do that?”

“Chips?”

“Not much of a carbs person, but bring it on.”

“Fox.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed. And somehow? That made everything feel alright.