Chapter 2
Noah
Being on planes sucked. Being on planes when you were a poorly functioning adult with an ADHD brain was one step short of torture.
I could have cried when I heard my brother Ollie’s voice over the din from the crowd that spilled out of customs.
“Noah! Over here, by the door!”
I hadn’t been back to Scotland in three years, and this time I didn’t know how I’d be able to keep up the facade of how great my life in Bali was.
Not after that breakup and … everything else. On top of that, I had a harrowing journey behind me, having lost my cool in an airport somewhere in Germany where I had to change flights.
Everything had been packed with people who had pushed and complained.
I was still deep in sensory overload, and I needed a wee.
I was this close to crying when Ollie hugged me.
He was as handsome as ever with his hair short and cheeks shaved.
The scent of his aftershave was strong in my nose when I collapsed against his chest.
“Ollie,” I sniffed, hugging him back and letting his tall frame shield me from the hustle and bustle of arrivals.
The feel of his arms around me momentarily took me back to our childhood, to the years when my bad dreams had peaked.
Our parents had insisted I was too old to be comforted at night. Ollie had stepped in without hesitation. He had held me to him, my small body shaking with sobs, and had told me stories to distract me from the night terrors.
Our parents weren’t bad people per se, but he and I had to grow up quickly. We had to take care of each other. I hadn’t seen Mum and Dad in ages, and wouldn’t until Christmas Eve. They were on a motorcycle tour from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Whatever updates I had were from their ArgoS account.
“We just can’t stay in touch with everyone, Noah,” Dad had said in a phone call a couple of weeks ago.
No, not everyone, but maybe your son.
Their social media was plastered with pictures of them beaming arm in arm in front of landmarks, being fed by locals, or watching sunsets together. Their tens of thousands of followers loved it. I was happy for them.
It was just … I missed having someone to take care of me. I shouldn’t; I was twenty-nine, a grown-ass adult who should have his shit together by now.
I didn’t need to be babied. Didn’t want to be. But sometimes I longed for someone else to help me carry the burden.
What burden? You live on a paradise island and make money with pictures of your body.
“Hey little bro, come on. Let’s get you home, okay?” Ollie muttered, rubbing my back.
“Good idea, people are bonkers. You’d think it was Christmas already.
” That always seemed to bring out the worst in people.
My voice was muffled by his sweater I was pressing my face into.
I wanted to hide from reality for a bit longer.
Our lives—as different from each other as possible—had made Ollie and me drift apart in the past couple of years.
I knew he didn’t really understand what I did and didn’t follow my account because the content wasn’t for him.
I secretly thought Ollie resented me a little for our parents’ behaviour even though he might not realise it. And who could blame him? Stuck with the neurodivergent mess I was, he’d never fully been free.
That was one of the reasons why I left Scotland almost as soon as I came of age. That and wanting to get away from the tight-knit community we’d grown up in.
When my boyfriend broke up with me a few weeks before my nineteenth birthday, I’d taken it as a sign from the universe to move some place new. I’d picked Bali on the other side of the world. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
For a decade I’d lived and worked on the island, and I still kinda liked it.
Yet once the novelty had worn off and routine set in, I’d realised that even though I was a world away, I was still the same person I’d been at home.
All the problems I had had in Scotland travelled to Bali with me, and no amount of beach and sunshine made them evaporate.
It had been great to explore my sexuality away from the people I’d grown up with, and a nice change not to have my boyfriends pestered by my brother’s best friend, too.
I still had no idea why Lewis had taken it upon himself to make our lives shitty. He, his mother, and his brother had moved here a few weeks after one of my closest friends, Madeline Gallagher, left town with her dad. I’d been devastated when one of my closest friends had gone.
My heart lightened a bit when I thought about her. She was back in Scotland now, and married to Fitz. It would be so good to see both of them again, especially Mads. Where Ollie had been the brother Lew needed, she was the sister I’d never known I missed.
Lew and I had got along as well as you could when he was your older brother’s best mate and you had a terrible crush on him. Then it had all turned to shit.
For the longest time I had wondered if Lewis had been jealous of my boyfriends, and had perhaps wanted him to be.
I’d been so in love with him. The moment I’d seen Lewis Sinclair for the first time, my little eleven-year-old self had decided he was the man I would marry one day.
Yet, the only move Lewis had ever made on me had been a stupid kiss the summer after he moved here.
After that he had only treated me with indifference and, when my heart had healed enough so I could move on, he’d taunted my boyfriends—the ones I’d picked purely on how much they differed physically from Lewis Sinclair.
God, you sucked, Noah.
When I finally let go of Ollie, my brother shouldered the larger of my two bags and—after a trip to the bathroom—we left the airport.
October drizzle greeted us as we hurried across the huge car park.
“Grand. Cannae say I missed the weather in Scotland.” I heaved a sigh and tried and failed to bundle up more effectively in my way too thin clothes.
“Yeah, I suppose after Bali this must be a real treat for you.” Ollie huffed. “Lew is waiting for us in the car.” He pointed to the far end of the row of cars.
“Lew? Lewis Sinclair?” At the look on my face Ollie burst out laughing.
“Come on, you’re not still nursing that old grudge? You’re both adults now, and I couldn’t borrow Fitz’s car. He needed it today, so Lew offered us a ride.”
“Is he visiting with you at the moment?”
“What? No, he moved back here a year ago. He’s working for Lone Fox, too. Didn’t I tell you?”
No, brother dear, you did not tell me that Lewis was back home.
The boy I had loved for almost all my life, and who had broken my heart in more than one way... It was weird thinking that Lewis was only a couple of yards away from me, when I had avoided him successfully for over a decade.
Literal minutes before everything between us went down the drain, we’d made one of those stupid pacts that we would get married if we were both single at thirty. As pre-teens, thirty had felt like a million years away. I still remembered the day we’d sworn it, too.
It had been a hot summer’s day. We’d been swimming in the river, me in my favourite orange swimming shorts with the tiny rainbow print—foreshadowing me coming out as queer, perhaps?
Lewis, almost three years my senior, had been wearing fashionable wide swimming trunks. I’d thought he looked so cute basking on the warm rock while the scent of his wet fur drying in the blazing sunlight had tickled my nose.
We’d snuck out once Ollie had fallen asleep in the shade of a beech tree, up to the flat rocky surface by the waterfall. After a few moments of silence, Lewis had rolled around and looked at me intently out of his bright blue eyes.
“What is it?” I had asked. “Do I have sunscreen on my nose?”
“No.” He’d shaken his head so furiously that warm droplets of water had hit me and I’d giggled. I’d been barely twelve and Lew had had another month or two of being fourteen. “I want to marry you, Noah,” he’d said, an earnest expression on his face.
“We’re much too young for that, Lew,” I’d giggled again, rolling on my back to dry the front of my body as well.
“Then when we’re old. Say twenty-five?”
I’d closed my eyes. “Let’s say thirty. That’s, like, super old.”
“Deal.” A shadow had fallen over me, and before I could open my eyes, his soft furry lips pressed a chaste kiss on my sun-warmed mouth.
My first kiss.
After the kiss he’d jumped up and ran back to where Ollie slept, had pulled on his clothes, got on his bike and rode away without another word. To this day, I still don’t understand why he left.
Did he hate the kiss that much?
He had never mentioned it again, or showed any more affection towards me. Then puberty had hit both of us hard. I’d watched him get his first girlfriend. Every one of their stolen kisses in the school hallway had carved out an aching hollow in my chest.
Later, when I’d gotten together with Noel, a Nixen boy, Lewis had turned downright nasty to him.
He’d never bullied me—that wasn’t his style and perhaps he’d not wanted to alienate Ollie over it—but he intimidated and ostracised every single guy I was seeing until they broke up with me and stayed away so Lewis would stop pestering them.
Although I’d never been sure if Ollie would have picked me if Lew had made him choose.
Lewis and I hadn’t spoken in years, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to change that.
Not that avoiding him and leaving our hometown had worked well for me.
I was still single, with hardly anything to show for it but my small online business.
I wasn’t even rolling in the dough. It paid my bills, and then some, but successful I was not.
Ollie kept talking about how he had connected his boss and Lewis, and other bits of the story I didn’t hear.
I followed him to a huge black Moth Motors truck with tinted windows.
My lips pressed together to hide my smirk.
With a car like that Lewis was definitely compensating for, uh, a lack in other departments probably.
Before I could overthink it more, the car door opened, and out jumped …. Holy. Shit. Lewis Sinclair.
“Sorry, it took him a while to get through customs.” Ollie threw an arm around me, and I couldn’t do anything but stare at my brother’s best friend, way too aware that I was distinctly dishevelled after over a day of travelling.
That one patch of hair that never behaved stuck up, and I wore a hodgepodge assortment of the few clothes I had for this weather.
None of what I owned after living by the beach for over a decade was suited for autumn in Scotland. Let alone winter…
Also, I was fucking dead on my feet.
“Hi Noah, good to see you,” said the massive chunky monkey I barely recognised except for that same black-and-white fur and those beautiful aquamarine eyes.
Wow, could you try and sound a bit less excited to meet me again? Cheers!
Lew extended a paw to shake mine in the briefest handshake I had ever received.
I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t do much more than stare.
Cuffing season is on, and I am so screwed.
“Mum and Dad rented out their farm house while they’re away. I don’t know if they told you?” Ollie said once we’d all climbed into the car.
My eyes clung to Lew for a moment as I turned in my seat to look at my brother.
“No, they didn’t say.” The eye roll was audible in my voice.
Breathe, Noah. “Where am I supposed to stay?” I asked.
“You can stay in the cottage. I turned on the heating and the fridge yesterday. It should be okay. Might need dusting,” he said, barely looking up from his phone.
“The old cottage? Didn’t they use it as a storage space for ages? I swear if there are rodents I’ll go straight back to the airport.” Rats were my hard boundary. I just couldn’t deal.
“It looked okay. It’s just for a few months, anyway,” Ollie brushed off my concerns. “Mum and Dad cleared it out before they left for America. They donated most of it. And there’s a stray living in the barn. It needs to eat something.”
I huffed and turned back around. “I bet they got rid of the things I had in there.”
“Probably.” Ollie clearly hadn’t caught the note of disappointment lacing my words. “Lew offered to take you to the shops, by the way. I need to get back to work. We have some guests coming today and I don’t want Ariah to have to deal with them.”
Oh wow. I didn’t know if Ollie’s lack of care or Lew being okay with chauffeuring me around surprised me more. I didn’t own a car, and our parents sure as shit didn’t care enough to make sure their younger son wouldn’t starve.
I needed food and warmer clothes. I froze in my thin clothes even though the seat heater Lew had turned on for me helped and the insides of his truck were toasty. For a moment, I considered snuggling up to the big, fluffy Tiger hybrid next to me. I bet he was so warm.
Bad Noah! He’s Ollie’s best mate. Keep your hands to yourself. I whistled through my teeth when Lew drove up to Lone Fox Distillery.
“Wow, I forgot how huge the Hall’s estate is.”
“Yeah,” Ollie agreed half-heartedly. I glanced at him over my shoulder and saw his eyes still fixed on his phone.
Can’t he stop working for an hour when he’s not seen me in years?
Ollie wrenched the car door open the minute the car stopped in front of the restaurant and accepted a call as he did.
“Bye. I’ll see you later, okay? Yeah, hi, Grace.
” He gestured at Lewis to wait and fumbled a bunch of keys from the inner pocket of his smart jacket.
Ollie handed them to me, then slammed the door shut before he hurried away without a second glance.
I sat motionless in the passenger seat and looked after my brother for a long moment.
“Uh, Noah? I’ll take you to the cottage now, okay?” Lew said in a gentle tone.
“Okay,” I breathed through numb lips, but kept my eyes fixed on the door Ollie had vanished through. “Thanks.”