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Jack throws up his hands. “Can you hear yourself, Noah? Can you?”

God I’d like to wipe the smug, self-satisfied tone from his voice with my fist in his face.

The offended look on Mr. Robertson’s face isn’t lost on me though. Dad’ll be devastated when he hears about this, and he will. I wipe a hand over my face, but the room is still gently spinning.

I need to get the fuck out of here. I should have left the moment Jack came in rather than let him draw me into this argument that I didn’t want. “Go to hell,” I tell the room at large.

I turn myself in the direction of the doorway and I’m more or less moving in a straight line. I might bump into one bar stool, but in my defense, it was pushed out way too far.

Jack tries to stop me as I get close to the door. I speed up.

I’m so busy concentrating on getting away from my brother that I slam right into a familiar soft and curved body, and as I reach out to catch her and steady us both, I get a whiff of her hair—that particular perfume that she has—and need rises like a riptide to suck me under like I haven’t had her all day yesterday and again just a few hours earlier.

“Noah!”

I don’t let her go. I just stand there in the street outside the pub, holding her like my life depends on it.

“Noah, are you OK?”

I realize belatedly that she’s clutching a pizza box from the pizzeria next door. She’s not here to find me like she somehow knew I needed her in my arms right this second. I still can’t make myself let her go.

“Noah, would you just stop, you can’t drive like—” Jack stops outside the door to the Cove Inn, taking in the picture of Olivia in my arms.

She looks carefully at me. “Have you been drinking?”

“Just a few.”

The way her brow lifts tells me she pays that statement exactly as much attention as it deserves.

“Noah, would you just let me drive you home?” Jack’s tone has softened, and the pity there makes me sick.

“I don’t need your help, you prick. I’ll walk.” Taking my keys from my pocket, I toss them at his feet, forgetting that the keyring also has my house keys on it.

“Can I walk with you?” Olivia says softly.

My gaze snaps to hers. “No. You don’t have to do that.”

“I know, but I don’t mind, and I think it’ll make your friend feel better.”

“His brother,” Jack butts in. “And it would. I’d come too if I thought this stubborn asshole would let me. Can I give you my number in case he gets difficult?”

“No!” I throw my hands up, but no one is listening to me. “I don’t need—”

Jack takes Olivia’s phone and types in his number, and I want to snatch it and erase it just because a hot anger creeps up my neck at the sight of another guy putting his number into her phone. I simultaneously want to go jump off the cliff behind the golf club and hurl myself onto the rocks and tear that phone from Jack’s hands and put my fist in his face. I’ve become so pathetic.

It’s just the booze. This isn’t me.

Only I’m pretty sure it is me. The side of me I’ve been quietly nurturing for the part of my life post-Charlotte.

“Come on.” Olivia tugs on my arm and we turn away from Jack, who’s still standing on the street watching us like he’s my dad and not my brother.

I hold up my middle finger to him as I let Olivia lead me away.

“Are you hungry?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I shove my hands in my pockets and trudge along beside her trying to make sure I’m not weaving like a drunk.

She opens the box and I get another smell and my stomach rumbles reminding me I haven’t eaten since the lunch I walked out of.