Beers And Banter
NATE
By the time we get to Sonder, the place is already loud—filled with the conversation and laughter. The boys are with me: Julian, Levi, and Sonny. No one has seen or heard from Tommy and my growing concern is starting to get the better of not just me, but all of us.
We claim our corner booth, order drinks, fall into the easy rhythm of shit talking that doesn't require performance.
"Oi!" Jay's voice cuts through the noise before I see him, and then he's there, Ollie right behind him, both grinning like they own the place.
“Well if it isn’t the devil himself.” Julian says, sliding over to make room.
“You missed the word handsome there, Thatchy,” Jay says, dropping into the booth.
Ollie settles in beside him, already reaching for the pitcher of beer in the center of the table.
"Mia's let you out?" Levi says to Ollie.
"More like she kicked me out. Apparently all I do is hover." He pours himself a glass, grinning. "Her exact words were 'go, before I murder you.’”
"Wise woman," Jay says. "Knows her limitations."
The conversation flows easily after that—Jay asking the boys about the album, Julian launching into a story about a disastrous recording session last week, Levi arguing with Sonny about some football match I wasn't paying attention to.
Ollie leans back, lets the sports debate rage around us, then turns to me with that look—the one that says we're about to have a conversation I don't want to have.
"So," he says quietly, just loud enough for me to hear over the noise. "Mia tells me Nora's staying at your cabin lodge."
I take a drink, buying time. “She is."
"How's that going?"
"Fine."
"Fine." He repeats the word like he's testing it. "That's all you’re giving me?”
"What do you want me to say, Ollie?"
He's quiet for a moment, watching the boys argue about whether Manchester United is better than Arsenal.
Then he leans in closer, voice dropping.
"Have you actually talked to her? About—"
"We've talked. Not about that.” My stomach twists. I set the glass down carefully. "It's not something that needs to get brought up now."
"Isn't it?"
"Ollie—"
"I'm not trying to start shit, Nate." He holds up a hand. "I'm just asking if you've been honest with her because you won’t let me be.”
The words hang heavy between us.
"No," I say finally. "And I'm not going to because it's too complicated now."
“Man, when hasn’t it been complicated with you two." He takes a drink, eyes never leaving mine. "Look, I know what happened at the wedding still sits heavy with you. I think it’s time you just told her the truth.”
He stops, and we both know what he's not saying. The things I said to her that night. The lies I told to protect him.
"Time has passed and you're both in very different places now," Ollie continues. "I'm just worried she's going to make the biggest mistake of her life because she doesn't know the whole truth."
I don't answer because he's right.
Five years of replaying that night—Nora's face when I told her I was done with us, the way she looked at me like I'd betrayed her all over again.
"She's back. She's here," Ollie says. "And maybe—maybe this is your chance to actually be honest with her."
"She's engaged, Ollie. I think you're all forgetting that little known fact."
"To a guy I know for a fact she doesn't love." He meets my eyes. "Because the idiot that actually does love her is too afraid to be honest with himself and her."
The words hang there, heavy and impossible.
Around us, the boys are still arguing—Julian's now making some ridiculous point about tactics that has Sonny in tears laughing—but it feels miles away.
"And if I tell her and it makes everything worse?" I ask quietly.
"Worse than what? Worse than watching her marry someone else? Worse than spending another fifteen, twenty years wondering what if?"
He pauses, and something shifts in his expression—guilt, maybe, or regret.
"Nate, I fucked up. I know I did." His voice drops lower. "I made choices that weren't mine to make. I thought I was protecting both of you, but—" He stops, shakes his head. "I should've trusted you both to handle your own lives."
My throat tightens. The memories are flooding back—things I've tried not to think about all these years.
"You were trying to help," I say. "And if I was in your position, I probably would have done the same if it meant protecting her."
“You know,” He looks down at his beer. “Some days I think this would be easier to handle if you hated me for it.”
“I don’t hate you Ollie. And anger never got me anywhere either, so just leave it alone.”
“I wish I could go back and—”
“That’s just it Ol, you can’t. I can’t. None of us can.” There’s a hint of frustration in my voice now. “We can only move forward, so please. Just let it go.”
He doesn’t. Because it’s Ollie and I know the guilt of what happened still eats him alive.
“I was trying to control the outcome. And look where that got us. You lost her anyway."
The admission sits between us, weighted with everything we're not saying. Everything she still doesn't know.
"The past is the past, Ol," I say finally. "There's no going back, yeah?"
He nods, respecting the boundary, but the damage is done. The guilt is back, settling under my skin where it's lived for five years.
Because he's right. I did lose her anyway.
And she never knew why.
She never knew that I was trying to protect her from the truth—that telling her everything would've destroyed her relationship with her brother. That I chose her family over her heart because losing one brother was already more than anyone should have to bear.
She thinks I just stopped caring.
That I got clean and realized we were toxic together. That she was part of the reason for every downward spiral I had. That recovery showed me how broken we were.
She doesn't know I was screaming into the void while she heard only silence. And maybe that's the worst betrayal of all.
"I can't do that to her again," I say finally. "Can't ask her to believe me when last time—"
"Last time I complicated things," Ollie interrupts gently. "But this time, it's just you and her and whatever truth you're willing to tell."
He pauses.
"And if the truth is that you still love her, maybe she needs to hear that."
"Or maybe she needs to make her own choices without either of us complicating things."
Julian's laughter pulls us back to the present—he's doing some ridiculous impression that has the whole table in stitches.
The moment passes, and Ollie shifts back into the group conversation like we weren't just excavating old wounds. But his words stay with me.
Settle under my skin where they'll fester until I do something about them.
I drive home later, the road slick with night dew and thoughts I can't quiet. The boys caught rides with each other, Julian giving me a knowing look as he left that I pretended not to notice, Ollie clapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Think about it, yeah?"
Her cabin is dark when I pass it.
She's asleep, probably, or reading, or doing whatever she does when she's alone with her thoughts.
I park and head into my own place—the cabin on the other side of the studio, more isolated than the rest.
The same one I've lived in for three years because it's easier than going home to an empty house every night.
Strip off my jacket, run a hand through my hair, try to shake off the conversation with Ollie and the weight it added to everything I'm already carrying.
I need a shower. Need to wash off the pub smell, the residue of conversation, the feeling that I'm standing on the edge of something and can't decide whether to jump or step back.
The water runs hot, steam filling the small bathroom, curling around me like it can provide some kind of answer. I let it pour over my shoulders, my neck, trying to relax muscles that have been tense for days.
And then, because I'm only human, because she's so close and so far away all at once, because the want has been building all day until it's physically painful, I let myself think about her.
Really think about her.
I'm going to hell for this.
I know I am.
She's engaged. Wearing another man's ring. And I'm about to jerk off in the shower thinking about her.
But I can't stop myself.
Those fucking shorts.
The way they ride up just slightly when she reaches for something, exposing the curve of her thighs—thighs I know intimately, thighs I remember wrapped around my waist, trembling against my shoulders, soft and warm and perfect.
The memory hits me like a punch to the gut.
The way she used to look at me when I'd drag my hands up those thighs, slow and deliberate, watching her breath catch. The way her hips would lift, seeking more contact, more friction, more of me.
The curve of her neck when she tilts her head, the same curve I used to trace with my lips, my teeth, until she'd gasp my name and grip my hair so hard it hurt.
The freckle on her collarbone I'd memorize in the morning light before kissing my way down, down, until she was arching off the bed.
The way her waist dips in, soft skin I used to grip when she'd roll her hips against me, when she'd ride me slow and deep while I watched her come apart, watched every expression cross her face, committed it all to memory like scripture.
Heat pools low in my stomach. My cock hardens instantly, achingly.
The need is unbearable.
Seven years of wanting her. Seven years of denying it, burying it, pretending I could function without touching her.
And now she's here. Sixty feet away. In those shorts that are driving me insane.
Engaged to someone else.
Fuck, I'm definitely going to hell.
But I can't make myself care.
I want to peel them down her legs slowly. Want to hook my fingers in the waistband and drag them down while she watches me with those green eyes, pupils blown wide with want, that little gasp she always made when she knew what I was about to do.
Want to kiss every inch of skin I expose—hip bone, inner thigh, higher—until she's gripping my hair and begging me the way she used to. Until she's trembling and breathless and saying my name like a prayer.
God, the sounds she used to make.
The way she'd gasp when I'd kiss her there, when I'd use my tongue exactly how she liked it, when I'd make her come so hard she'd shake.
My hand wraps around my cock, already hard and aching.
This is wrong. I know it's wrong.
She belongs to someone else now.
But in this moment, in this fantasy, she's mine.
The fantasy takes over completely—the one where she's not engaged, where years didn't pass, where there are no boundaries between us.
Where I can slide those shorts down her hips and remember the exact way she used to tremble under my hands. The way her nails would dig into my shoulders when I'd touch her just right. The way she'd arch into me, desperate and needy and so fucking perfect.
I imagine pushing her against the wall of this shower. Water streaming down her skin, her legs wrapped around my waist as I grip her hips and bury myself inside her the way I've been dying to since the moment I saw her in that chapel doorway.
The tight, wet heat of her. The way she'd clench around me. The way she'd gasp my name, broken and desperate.
My hand moves faster, gripping harder.
I can almost feel it—her thighs trembling against my hips, her nails raking down my back, her breath hot against my neck as she'd whisper exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it, driving me out of my fucking mind.
The way she'd roll her hips, taking me deeper. The way she'd bite down on my shoulder when she got close. The way she'd come undone completely, falling apart around me while I buried my face in her neck and tried not to follow her over the edge too fast.
But I always did. She always destroyed my control.
I imagine fucking her hard against the tile. No patience left after years of wanting. Just raw need and desperation and the unbearable ache of finally, finally having her again.
Her voice breaking as she begs—"Please, Nate, please, I need—"
I know exactly what she needs. I always did.
My hand moves frantically now, the fantasy so vivid I can almost taste the salt on her skin, almost hear the way she'd moan my name when I'd hit that spot inside her that made her see stars.
I want to fuck her until she forgets her own name. Want to make her come so many times she can't walk straight. Want to hear her scream my name the way she used to when I'd make her come on my tongue, my fingers, my cock—over and over until she was boneless and trembling and completely wrecked.
Want to watch her fall apart and know I'm the one who did it to her. That I'm the only one who knows exactly how to make her lose control.
Those shorts on my floor. Her thighs shaking. Her back arched. Her eyes locked on mine as I drive into her, deep and relentless, giving her exactly what she needs.
"Nate—oh god, Nate, right there, don't stop, please don't stop—"
The memory of her voice, breathless and desperate, sends me over the edge.
I come hard, bracing one hand against the shower wall, her name on my lips even though I know I shouldn't, even though she's engaged, even though this is wrong.
But I can't stop.
The want is too much. Too consuming. Too fucking unbearable.
I stand there for a long moment, breathing hard, water pouring over me, reality crashing back in.
She's not mine.
She's engaged to someone else.
And I just jerked off in the shower fantasizing about fucking her senseless.
Yeah. Definitely going to hell.
No question about it.
But if this is damnation, at least the fantasy was worth it.
I'm reaching to turn off the water when I hear it.
"Nate?"
I freeze.
That wasn't in my head.
"Nate, are you in there?"
Her voice. Coming from just outside the bathroom door.
My heart stops. Starts again too fast.
Fuck.
"Yeah," I manage, voice rough and wrecked. "Yeah, I'm—hold on."
I scramble for a towel, water dripping down my chest, hair plastered to my face, cock still half-hard and very obviously affected.
Wrap it around my waist with shaking hands and open the door.
And there she is.
Standing in my cabin.
Pyjama shorts—those fucking shorts—and a loose tank top that's doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact that she's not wearing a bra.
Hair falling in waves around her shoulders, bare feet on my floor, lips slightly parted, eyes wide.
Every detail sharp and real and devastating and doing absolutely nothing to calm down the blood still pounding through my body.
She's looking at me—at my wet hair, my bare chest, the water still dripping down my abs, the towel slung low on my hips—and I'm standing here soaking wet, half-naked, cock still responding to the fantasy I was just having about doing unspeakable things to her in this exact shower.
Her eyes drop for just a second—down my chest, to the towel, to the very obvious evidence that I'm affected—before snapping back up to my face, cheeks flushing pink.
She knows.
And I'm still going to hell.
The cosmic joke that is Nora and I never fucking ends.