Chapter 40
Alex
H olding a mug of steaming hot coffee in his hand, Alex leant against the windowsill in his living room, watching people go about their day on the street below.
They meandered through Main Street, dipping in and out of the small independent shops, in what seemed like slow motion after the busy streets of El Nido.
There was no rush. No blaring of horns or raised voices.
And he was reminded of why he loved home.
The peace and tranquillity of a sleepy town, nestled in the mountains.
What he did not love, however, was the space that Noa had put between them when they first arrived home a month ago.
Even though he’d done his best to bridge that gap over the last four weeks, and he knew they were moving in the right direction, he still couldn’t ignore what had felt like her initial instinct to run.
Maybe that was his own fear, skewing reality and letting the past bleed into their future, but it played heavy on his mind.
The only thing he knew, though, was, unlike when he was twenty-one, he knew she had real feelings for him now. And, if she tried to leave him this time, he wouldn’t just watch her walk away again. He would put up the fight of his life. So, for the past few weeks, he’d been playing the long game.
Things felt a little tense and awkward when they first arrived home, like neither of them knew how they should behave. The feeling gnawed at him, and he ached to be close to her, but he fought to be patient, to give her some time to catch up with her friends and family.
Eventually, after a week of being home, he pressed Noa to come to his for dinner. He wouldn’t allow her any more time to overthink, and he certainly wouldn’t allow her to put any more space between them after the progress they’d made toward the end of their travels.
The feel of her lips was imprinted on his mind forever now. He still felt the ghost of them there, and he had no desire to go another eight years before he got to feel them again. Been there, done that, bought the ill-fitted and scratchy T-shirt!
He tried to cook her new favourite dish, Pad Thai, which, in reality, had been nothing like what they had eaten on their travels.
But Noa politely ate it and complemented him on his cooking the entire time.
He had planned on talking to her after dinner about what was going on between them, but when she licked her lips clean after finishing, he lost any train of thought and, instead, fucked her on his small dining room table.
Then, against his living room wall, and again in his bed, until they had crashed there and woken up wrapped around each other the next morning.
All awkwardness and tension had dissipated, and they were just them again.
That thought had him smiling as he took slow sips of his coffee. The filter coffee he’d grabbed from the machine downstairs at The Brew didn’t taste anywhere near as nice as the sweet coconut coffees they’d been drinking in Vietnam, and Alex wondered if he’d be able to source that somehow.
The movement of the trees swaying outside his window pulled his attention back to the present.
The leaves had started to turn dry in the summer heat, shrivelling in on themselves.
When he first came home, he remembered thinking they were mocking the state of his and Noa’s relationship.
But now, they reminded him of the passing of time and the changing of seasons, which he noticed so much less in the places they had travelled compared to here.
He'd always loved the changing of the seasons and, actually, found himself looking forward to when it would soon be autumn. The thought made him smile. That had always been Noa’s favourite season.
He’d caught himself smiling a lot lately, usually triggered by thoughts of her.
But, unlike before they left, these thoughts were welcome.
As everything in Freymoor reminded him of her, he guessed his jaw would soon start to ache.
He hoped they’d get to do some of her favourite autumn traditions, like pumpkin-picking at Mr Morley’s farm, followed by carving them in front of a scary movie. Growing up, she used to insist that she, Tes, Ryan, and he take part in the activity. This year, he craved it .
But, despite nights spent together having become a regular thing, they still hadn’t talked about what it meant, and had continuously danced around the subject of Ryan. So, pumpkin-picking was probably out of the question.
Instead of addressing how to come clean to Ryan, their new routine involved Noa coming to open mic night at the bar every Friday, with Tes, as an excuse to see him in public.
More than a few times, he’d been unable to control himself as he watched her swaying her hips on the dance floor and had taken her to his office to bury himself in her and show her, no matter how many men’s attention she drew out there, it was him she belonged to.
If she had called him a ‘caveman’ before, then the possessiveness he felt toward her now was a whole other level, and he had to constantly reign himself in.
Any time Ryan had been around, though, they, somehow, managed to behave normal. Maybe? He wasn’t sure how they’d pulled it off, seeing as he couldn’t remember what their normal was now. But Ryan hadn’t mentioned any suspicions, so Alex took that as a good sign.
He didn’t know if it was wishful thinking on his part, but he’d started to wonder if, maybe, this was okay.
Maybe, if they continued as they were doing, everything else would just fall into place before they knew it, and he would be left feeling like an idiot for ever worrying about it in the first place.
Noa had been trying really hard to live in the here-and-now, and he didn’t want to be the one to ruin it.
He’d seen the change in her and was proud of how far she’d come.
All he’d ever wanted to do was build her up and support her, never adding to the anxiety she carried around on a daily basis.
He knew now that they were meant to be together.
Everything would be okay if they faced it together, but he needed to let her come to that conclusion in her own time.
So, he would love her in secret for as long as he had to.
And, despite needing to fight his instincts to make sure everyone knew that she was his and he was hers, he wouldn’t rush her.
Because he did. Love her that is.
A few more weeks passed by just like that, the two of them sneaking to find any amount of time together.
Evenings spent, when he wasn’t at the bar, on his couch watching movies under a blanket, him cooking her meals whilst she wrote at his table.
Stolen glances over his bar whilst their friends were around.
And the moments of passion, where they got lost in each other’s bodies, fucking like it was both the first and last time they would ever have each other like that.
Alex continued to run through all the scenarios where this could go wrong in his head, all the ways he could be hurt if she left.
Whether he was good enough for her. But she never made him feel that way, and it made him realise that, maybe, he had internalised his father’s abandonment when he was a child.
Maybe Alex had lived with the idea that his dad had left because he hadn’t been good enough to make him stay.
But Noa had made him see that was just a negative thought pattern, because under her attention, he knew he was good enough.
Noa was not his dad. She was not a selfish person who would be careless with his heart.
She was beautiful and kind, thoughtful when it came to the people around her.
She protected those she loved, even gave parts of herself she shouldn’t just to make them happy, and he knew in his heart that she would never intentionally hurt him.
More importantly, she’d seen all of him—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and she wanted him anyway.
She had been showing him that every day, and he believed her.
But that didn’t stop the evil voice that liked to slip into his head from time to time, ever since he was a kid, from rearing its ugly head and reminding him of his biggest fears and insecurities.
Some days, he thought, if he became the man she deserved, worked his ass off to be everything she needed, gave her everything she could ever want, that it would be enough to make her stay.
But he knew love and relationships didn’t work like that and, at some point, he would have to take the leap of faith, put all his trust in her, consequences be damned.
Even so, if anyone was worth working through his messed-up thoughts for, then it was her. She’d always been worth the risk.
Kicking off the wall, Alex strode away from the window. Despite having spent most of the morning watching the world and being lost to his thoughts, he was intent that he, too wanted to live in the moment. And he wanted to do it with Noa.
T hey lay in his king-sized bed, not an inch between them.
Noa curled into him under the covers and Alex watched her as she scrolled manically through her phone, sighing defeatedly every so often.
He’d been busy at the bar the last few days with stock take, so this was the first bit of quality time they’d managed to squeeze in for nearly three days.
It was irrational how much he’d missed her in such a small period of time, but nothing he did could free her from his mind.
He’d ached to have her in his arms with every day that passed.
Nuzzling into her neck now, breathing in her vanilla scent, Alex pulled her even closer. It would never be close enough.
He kissed the top of her exposed shoulder where her T-shirt had slipped down, and then the crook of her neck .
He pulled back before asking, ‘What’s wrong? You sound like your phone has personally offended you in some way.’