Chapter 23 Noah Today #2
“No. I mean, I actually don’t believe you guys got stuck. Did you really? Or was it just an excuse to escape the un-bridezilla and all of us for twenty-four hours?”
“Why would we want to escape you?” I say.
Sabrina shakes her head. Points a finger at me. “You’re good, Williams. Too good.”
A server comes by with another tray, this one holding hors d’oeuvres.
“Oyster with toasted sherry mignonette?” the waiter offers.
“The oysters!” Nell exclaims.
“The oysters,” I nod.
“They made it,” she says.
“Sort of,” I say.
I realize we’re grinning at each other like idiots when Sabrina says, “Some people say oysters are aphrodisiacs.”
Nell snickers, shoots me a private smile.
“Some people do say that,” I say.
Sabrina studies us with narrowed eyes. She looks at me, then at Nell, then at me again. She raises her eyebrows knowingly. Sucks her teeth. But she doesn’t say a thing.
Which wins her points in my book.
It’s warm tonight, especially compared to how it felt on the coast. And instead of loose and floral like the others, tonight Nell’s dress is short and black. It’s tight and low across the top, flares into a miniskirt.
She is wearing it like nobody’s business.
It would be so easy just to reach right up under it and… fuck. I swipe a hand across my eyes. I have got to get my shit together.
After everything that happened, it’s just hard to be near her and not touch her. I restrain one hand with the other.
That’s when Damien and Lydia saunter up together, the bad news bears. I shift away from Nell, so as not to attract attention, and find myself right up against Lydia.
“Hey, stranger,” she says.
“Hey… Lydia,” I say back.
I glance at Nell, who is now wearing a consternated look. But not for long.
“Damn, girl,” says Damien. “You look smokin’.”
“Oh.” Nell looks down at her dress, up at Damien, and smiles. “Thanks.”
I can’t tell if she’s actually flattered. I want to end him.
Damien is wearing one of his specials. A white polo and white pants with a white baseball cap. What I once thought was idiosyncratic, even charming, is suddenly dumb as hell.
Also, who wears white to a wedding?
There’s an awkward silence. The crickets get their moment.
“So, what did we miss yesterday?” Nell asks, maybe to draw attention away from herself.
“Nothing!” says Cara, popping into the circle with Ben close behind. “But we missed you!”
“Aw shucks,” Nell says, giving her bestie a squeeze. “Hey! We should have a toast! Sab?”
“Yes!” Sabrina seconds. We all raise our glasses. “To our luminous friends who we love so dearly! Congratulations on being the cutest! May the best of your past be the worst of your future together! Cheers.”
“To us all being together!” Cara says.
I might be projecting, but Nell looks less sure.
We all clink glasses.
“Hey, Nellie,” says Damien. “You need to make eye contact when you toast, girl. Otherwise, you get cursed—seven years bad sex, starting now.”
I nudge her lightly so no one can see.
“Oh,” she says, suppressing a smile, and maintaining eye contact with Damien. “I’m all good.”
Cocktails lead to dinner, dinner to a cheese course (the goat cheese!) and then dessert—the pies! By the end of it all, everyone is toasty, dancing to “Real Love” (old-school!) and Taylor Swift (new-school).
The cheese factor is high.
Like it’s a real wedding.
I’ve managed to keep my distance from Nell to an extent, hanging with Ben and a couple of his work dudes, when he’s not dancing with Cara. I’m dodging Lydia’s advances without outright insulting her, though they get more overt with every sip she takes.
But no matter where I am, I find myself stealing peeks at Nell from across the space. And it’s only when I approach the bar solo to grab myself and Ben another scotch that I lose sight of her. From the other direction, she sidles up next to me and taps me on the shoulder, catching me off guard.
“Hey, you,” she says, smiling. She seems relaxed, loose, happy.
“Hey,” I say, feeling a grin spread across my face. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going good,” she says. Then she looks me up and down. “I feel like I haven’t seen you at all.”
I shrug. “I’ve been around.”
“Not around me.” She is clearly a bit tipsy—and, frankly, so am I.
“Gotta keep my distance,” I say quietly. “Stay well behaved. Keep my hands to myself.”
“As it turns out, well behaved is not as fun.” She scrunches up her nose.
A breeze blows past, billowing Nell’s skirt. She catches it like she’s Marilyn Monroe—but not before I catch a glimpse of the curve of her upper thigh and ass.
She sees me see. Giggles. Sighs.
“You look pretty incredible tonight,” I say.
“You look pretty incredible yourself.” She tilts her head, looks up at me. Bites her lip. I wish it was me.
The bartender crosses over to us. “What can I get you?” he asks.
We straighten up like respectable citizens, and I gesture to Nell like, after you.
“May I have another glass of that orange wine? It’s kind of amazing!”
The bartender peeks under the bar, picks up a bottle, shakes it, holds it up to the light. “I’m so sorry, but it looks like we’re all out,” he says. “I can grab some more bottles in a bit, but the other bartender is on break right now, so I can’t leave my post until she gets back.”
“You know what?” Nell says. “It’s just in the pool house shed, right—beside the barn? The overflow fridge? Cara pointed it out to me. I’ll grab them myself.”
“Really? Thanks so much,” the bartender says.
“No prob.”
She looks up at me again, shoots me a wistful smile. Like another place, another time, and heads toward the shed, humming some song as she goes.
I watch her leave. I survey the scene. Everything is… less without her.
“Whatcha getting?” Lydia asks, suddenly beside me out of nowhere.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just running to the bathroom.”
And that’s truly my intention. At least I think it is. Until I find myself stopping by the pool house, afterward, to see if Nell needs help. I’m not sure how much wine she has to carry, and I don’t want her to re-aggravate her shoulder. It’s been feeling better.
I find her just outside on a path between the shed and the back of the barn, struggling with a box.
“Hey, need some assistance?” I ask.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, and sets the carton carefully down in the grass. I try not to watch her bend over, but I definitely watch her bend over.
And she sees me do it. Stares at me long and hard. Leans back against the barn wall behind her.
She looks up at me, standing in front of her, hands in my pockets.
“Hi, Noah,” she says.
“Hi, Nell.”
“I hate that we can’t just hang out.”
“I hate that too.” I cock my head. “We could though.”
“We could?”
“Just for a minute.”
“Here?”
“Here.”
“But shouldn’t we get back?” She stays rooted to the spot.
“I don’t think anyone is looking for us.”
The moon is big and bright. It casts spells in the dark. Softens the edges, turns everything otherworldly.
Nell sighs. “I like it here.”
“Me too.”
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
“It is,” I say. But I’m looking at her.
I’ve got visions of last night flashing in my head in succession like a stereoscope slideshow from when I was a kid. Click, click, click.
I wonder if she can see it in my eyes.
She reaches out her hand to touch me, weaves her fingers through mine. Swings our hands lightly back and forth.
And it’s like a conduit, electricity crackling on a loop between us.
I take a step closer, forgetting the case of wine in the grass.
And it’s not a choice. It’s gravitational pull.
She tilts her chin up toward me, shoots me a sly smile as she brushes her thumb up the side of my hand. “Hey,” she says, a little breathless. “What are the rules again?”
“The rules,” I say, “are that there are no rules.”
And then I’m stepping within an inch of her and leaning in and pressing my mouth lightly against hers, teasing her bottom lip until I make her say my name.
She is sweet and tart—and I think I like that orange wine too.
I’ve wanted her so badly all night, I can barely contain myself. And, judging by the way she’s grinding against me, she feels the same.
My hands are tangled in her hair, my mouth is on her neck, my fingers are unbuttoning the front of her dress until she gets frustrated and just tugs it down.
“Christ,” I mumble. “It’s so fucking hard to keep my hands off you.”
“You should definitely keep them on me,” she says, breathing ragged.
“You mean, like this?” I ask, slipping a hand inside her bra.
She hums against my mouth. “Yup. For starters.” I slide the straps off her shoulders and unhook her bra, so it drops and she’s exposed in the light. Rake my hand back across her ribs and up and brush a thumb over her nipple.
“Holy fuck,” I say, dazed, looking at her.
“Holy fuck,” she says, looking at me.
We hear a creak to our right and both freeze. Turn in slo-mo. But it’s just a chicken.
“What if someone comes?” she whispers.
“Then they’re going to get a show.”
She laughs. But then she doesn’t.
Because there is no way either of us are stopping. No matter what happens. Because then my mouth is on her chest and she’s arching against me, her hands clawing at my shoulders, at the bulge in my pants.
And then I’m slipping my palms up under that skirt I’ve been trying not to fixate on all night long and pinning her hips against the slatted wall.
My hands are rough against her insanely smooth skin.
Our breath is heavy, in sync. My hands slide to cup her ass, as my fingertips graze the lace edge of her underwear and I pull her closer to me.
I slip my thumbs into either side of her underwear at her hip bones and drag them down, so they fall to her ankles.
“Here?” she asks, surprise in her voice.
“Here,” I nod.
And she doesn’t protest.
Because then she’s stepping out of them in her heels and I’m bending to kneel in the grass, dropping between her legs and resting her thigh on my shoulder as I kiss up her inner leg and get to work.