Chapter 63
Noah
Nothing was much different this time. Almost a year later, and here I was. On a plane, eating food from a plastic tray and trying to follow the film on the screen in front of me.
Yet this time? My parents were in the row in front, with my son in between them. Bay hadn’t stopped talking since take-off, and Mum was showing him the maps of our hotel resort and Dad was asleep.
Fox? He was trying to read some kind of file on his laptop, his eyebrows tightly knitted together like he was trying to figure something out.
“She’s picked up the kid, and they’re now heading back. She’s sent me all the paperwork she has, and it’s…poor kid. This is not going to be easy, but in a way? Perhaps this is exactly what this little boy needs.”
“It will be fine. There are loads of children his age in Kilmartin. He’ll slot in, and Emma will have so much support. Mrs Thakur is great. Did I tell you we had breakfast the other day? Such a nice woman, we talked a lot.”
“She’s fantastic. But I am wondering if this is what Emma needs. It’s sudden and…”
“Have you seen us, Fox? Sudden? We’d spent four nights in total together, and then I moved in and then Bailey sorted his room and then? Four nights, Fox?”
“Yeah, but we’d like…talked every night for weeks, and we knew each other. You knew all about me and I knew all about you, and the sex thing was a certainty and…”
“You loved me.”
“I did. And you loved me right back.”
“Sometimes, it’s just right.”
“It is. And I think Emma needs this. She can try to be all independent woman-Beyoncé-whatever, but at the end of the day? She’ll have her kid. And he’ll have the best mum. He won’t even know how bloody lucky he is, sitting in that car with her. Both of them…”
“She’s terrified. He’s terrified. She made a playlist with all the songs she loves. I hope he’s…into music.”
“He’s seven. He’ll be… Are you into music at seven?”
“Ask Bay, he’ll know.”
“Bay will be great with him. We’ll have to make plans.”
“The first plan is to have a holiday. Just us. No drama, no stupidity and lots of sunscreen.”
“Yup.”
“And we’ll eat and drink and relax. No work allowed.”
“Promise. And I want cocktails this time. And wine. Good wine.”
“Tea. We need tea.”
“All the tea. And a bit of exercise. No Zumba. Just…swimming and walks.”
“I need to start running in the mornings because Mrs Cook’s afternoon tea has been terrible for me. A bad habit. I need to stop going, but I love it.”
“Terrible for our waistlines, I agree with that. The trick is to cut everything into small pieces. Pick at the cake. Crumbs in the napkin. Feed the chickens. Don’t tell anyone.
” He rubbed my stomach. “And anyway, I love your tummy. Love you. Love everything you are. Eat the cake, Noah. Live. Enjoy what we have.”
“Fox,” I whispered. Smiling. Yes. Maybe.
The cakes were insane, and I was putting on weight.
I needed to figure out how not to, and anyway, from September, I would be employed again.
Full time at a surgery outside Inverary, and the drive wouldn’t be too bad, and the practice was small, and I would be running all the clinics, but I was looking forward to it.
Getting stuck into work and using my skills. Dealing with the public and…
I would miss…afternoon tea. My stomach wouldn’t. And I would be home every night in time for dinner and would be able to sit with Bay and do homework and see Mum and Dad on the weekend, and everything would become…a nice new routine.
And maybe having Mum and Dad a little too close for comfort was a blessing, because at least we had…help. We had a night off every weekend when Bailey went to stay with them, and we could…well. Have wild sex.
“I really want to fuck you on this holiday,” Fox whispered in my ear, making me jump.
“You’d better. I have expectations,” I whispered back.
“And I have lube. Good stuff. And I am not sunbathing barefoot. Ever.”
“I’ll still carry you, it’s tradition.”
“I’ll help,” Bailey said, his little head popping up over the headrest. “We need to carry you to and from dinner. Grandma said it’s a Fairweather tradition now.
Dad doesn’t get to walk anywhere. Grandma said there’s a buggy.
Granddad and I are going to sit at the front.
And we need to go and find Coke Floats.”
“And play golf,” my dad said, waving his hand over his backrest. “The hotel has a fabulous course.”
“They have Zumba classes and water aerobics.”
“I’m not doing that.” Bay grimaced. “Not dancing.”
“We’re going to eat at a restaurant underwater.”
“That’s freaky, Dad.”
“I know. I’ve never done that either.”
“It’s our honeymoon. We need to do really cool things.”
“Absolutely,” Fox agreed. “We’re going to have the best time.”
“They have a pianist on a Thursday. And a cover band on a Friday,” my mother declared, holding up a leaflet. “I printed all the information from the website.”
“You can look it up on the website, Mum.” I sighed. “Save the trees instead of printing everything.”
“Yes, but then how do I make my holiday scrapbook? Bailey and I have it all planned out.”
“Sex,” Fox whispered in my ear. “Just remember all the sex.”
Oh, I intended to. So I kissed him, sat there in his seat with his laptop and a gin and tonic in a plastic glass. Double lemon slices. I knew him now. I knew every little thing about him.
There were so many things I knew now. I knew Angus and Eileen down at the hotel.
I knew Dr McDougall at the surgery. I knew all the teachers and staff at Kilmartin School.
Most of the boys. Some were wary of me, and I couldn’t claim to remember all their names, but they still said hello and high-fived me in the courtyard and yes…
I knew the dogs. Took them for walks on the fells, and scratched their backs and threw their balls and…
I loved them. I loved everything about my life now, and I wondered how I’d lived before.
When I’d been stuck in a rut in a shoebox house and I’d not seen any way out.
The way out? It was right here, and I’d taken it and run with it. I had no regrets. Not a single one.
“Dad,” Bailey said, his head once again popping up in front of me. “Can I really swim in the sea and see fish? Real fish?”
“You can.” I nodded. We were snorkelling…
apparently. A first for all of us. One of many.
I liked our firsts. It…it made life interesting.
Trying new things. Like Fox and Bay tried spices.
Like I would get them in the car and we’d go driving to find new pubs for evening meals.
Try guest ales. Sample local whiskeys. Not Bay of course, but we’d let him sniff them and tell us what grade on Bailey’s disgusting whisky scale they had hit.
I had to smile. The way I smiled when we got to our resort, and loaded our bags on the buggy.
Flashbacks to a different me, because I’d been someone else the last time I’d gone on holiday like this.
I’d been a mess on the inside, and deeply unhappy.
I knew that now. I wasn’t unhappy anymore.
I was exhausted most of the time, and learning new things and figuring life out, and I was having so many firsts.
Every day, it seemed. I was happy. So enormously happy.
“We have half an hour,” Fox whispered when we finally got settled in. “Mum and Dad have taken Bay for a walk around the island. They are scouting out the bar and the restaurant and coming back in time for the buggy to pick us up for dinner. Half an hour. Any ideas for how we could pass the time?”
“Oh…” I teased. “We could have a quick nap? Shower to get all that travel grime off? Or maybe?”
“Fuck off, Noah.” He grinned. “I think you need to pull your shorts down and bend over the bed like the good boy you are.”
For the record? I wasn’t a good boy. So I did as I was told and pulled my shorts down. Turned around and faced the bed.
“On all fours. On the bed.”
“Lots of lube.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Don’t hold back.”
“Do I ever?” He grabbed my hips and put me where he wanted me. A firm grip. His hand around his dick. Lined up. A gentle push.
“You want this?” he asked.
Did I? I wanted all of it. Every little part of him. Of life. Of whatever it was we had. I wanted a lifetime. Every little scrap of it.
“Do it,” I whispered. “Fuck me.”
“I love you,” he said.
And then he did. Gave me everything I asked for. Because this was my life now, and there was nothing else in the world I needed. The push. The pressure. The insane fullness. My dick throbbing against the bed.
Him and me. Our kid. Our life. And this. This absolute bliss.
“I love you,” I huffed out. I meant it. Every single word.