Chapter 8 - Noelle
I blink, and bright lights dance across my vision and a babble of voices makes my head spin. Where am I?
“Oh hey, look who’s awake. Nice of you to join us.”
I turn my head and Sarah is sitting in a lawn chair next to me and I’m sprawled out in a wooden chaise lounge by the pool. It’s dusk and a string of hanging lights around the patio wink at me. People splash around in the water, and it looks like a lot more people arrived while I was “gone.”
My throat is dry, and I croak, “How long was I asleep?”
Sarah hands me an unopened bottle of water. “Over an hour. You must have really needed it.”
I take a sip of the water, and the drink refreshes me. As my head clears, the reality of the situation settles in.
MOTHERFUCKER! Emotion wells up and I don’t know if I want to scream because I’m pissed or cry because I’m unhappy. Every… single… fucking… time. I start the holiday out with such good intentions and then somehow I get swept up with Nick and we keep messing it up.
He might live close to me, but finding a Nick Miller who just moved here and wouldn’t be in any listings yet will be next to impossible. And I still don’t know if he’s Nick or Nicholas. My emotions threaten to overwhelm me. I need to get home so I can cry alone.
I sit up abruptly, causing Sarah to exclaim, “Hey, you OK?”
I’m practically trembling, and I give Sarah the brightest, fakest smile possible. “I’m fine, but I’m going to head home and see if I can get more sleep. When the sandman calls, you gotta answer.”
“Oh.” She looks like she’s about to say more, but I wave her off. “I’ll message you tomorrow”
I’m close to breaking down, so I pivot and head towards the side of the house while Sarah weakly calls out, “But I wanted to introduce you to someone.”
Nope. Sorry, Sarah, not happening. It only takes a few steps for me to realize my panties are missing, and I snort.
Of course, he always gets my panties and I get a big fat nothing except the one time I got the egg that stopped working.
None of this seems fair. I’m absorbed with feeling sorry for myself and not watching where I’m going and when I turn the corner, I crash into someone.
I wobble on my spiked heels and almost tip over. A pair of sturdy, familiar hands steadies me.
“Noelle?”
My heart skips a beat as my vision fills with Nick. He blinks at me, incredulous, and we both freeze while everything around us fades away for a moment. Is this a dream?
I blurt out, “Nick?” and the noise of the party fills the air once again. Oh my God. He’s really fucking here! Happiness floods through me.
He tugs me into his arms, and our mouths fuse while my pulse races. I’m too overjoyed to do anything but cling to him as our tongues dance.
A person coughing doesn’t even stop us, and Sarah’s husband Max speaks. “Oh good, I see you found each other without our help… Have you two met before?”