Page 19 of Starting Over With The Sea Monster (Kraken Cove #2)

EIGHTEEN

Noah

Against my better judgment I let Olivia make me cum and then slink home like a coward.

Or at least, that’s my intention, but instead of going home where I’ll only have hours to sit with my nagging conscience, I stop my bike out front of the pub on main street and stalk inside to find the darkest, emptiest corner I can.

Sunday is snooker night and some of the local guys my dad’s age are part way through a game. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I avoid making eye contact with any of them. I pull up a seat at the far end of the bar and order a beer.

What am I doing?

No matter what Olivia wants me to think, I know I’m hurting her, and her brave face only makes that worse. The fact that I fucked her anyway today makes me feel every bit as low as I’ve been acting.

This is why I don’t do this. I should have turned her down in the first place, before anyone had the risk of getting hurt. Only by that stage, I’d already glowed for her. Doesn’t matter what happens now, there will always be a part of me that wonders what if.

What if I’d never asked Charlotte to marry me? What if I’d somehow met Olivia first before I was a jaded prick?

What if I could just let down my guard and imagine what things could be like—

I drain the glass and slam it down on the bar in disgust. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I’ve set a course and I’m sticking with it. I can’t be that guy again.

I’m four beers in, thinking I can’t even really remember what that guy used to feel like—the guy who looked forward to his future, who had hopes and dreams—when a familiar voice accosts me. “So this is where you ran off to.”

My older brother Jack pulls out the bar stool next to mine and sits without an invitation.

“Fuck off.” I order another drink. A shot this time. I down it when it comes and order another.

Pete, the bartender, gives me a look, and I glare right back until he shakes his head and gets it for me. “Slow down, Noah,” he says as he places my shot on the counter.

“Fuck you too.” I tap my card to pay.

Jack puts his hand over the shot glass before I can drink it. “What are you doing, Noah? What’s gotten into you? I know you’re an asshole, but you’re not normally this bad.”

I push his hand away and drink my shot. The room has taken on a pleasant buzz and the thoughts of Olivia have gone all fuzzy, which I take as a good sign.

“I don’t want to talk to you, OK? Didn’t I make that clear earlier?

Why can’t you take a hint?” I try to make eye contact with Pete, but he’s gone out back somewhere or else he’s avoiding me.

I’m seriously considering reaching over the bar to help myself to another when Jack grabs the back of my collar and hauls me back into my seat. “Well now I’m not giving you a choice. Stop acting like a dick and tell me what this is really about.”

I shove to my feet, flinging him off and almost losing my balance as I do.

I guess those drinks caught up with me faster than I thought.

I shake my head to clear it, but Jack is right in my face, finger pointed at my chest. “Can’t you see Mum and Dad need you right now?

The family needs you. Pull your head out of your ass and man up for a change. ”

I swipe his hand away. “Oh, you think you know huh? You always think you know everything. Well you’ve got no fucking idea about my life, Jack. You never had.” I’m shouting at this point. We both are. Standing in the middle of the Cove Inn two seconds from taking a swing at each other.

A hand closes over my shoulder, and I wheel around, head spinning.

Frank Robertson, who owns the local tourist boat, takes a step back. “Hey, boys. I know your dad wouldn’t want to hear you’ve been laying on each other like this. Whatever it is, why don’t we all calm down and stop shouting at each other?”

“Why don’t you mind your damn business?” I retort.

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.

Olivia holds it out for me.

“Fine.” I grab a slice and take a large bite and register exactly how hungry I am. Brenda’s pizza bases are average at best but tonight they taste like Michelin Star cooking.

Olivia takes out a piece for herself and I take the box, tucking it under my arm so she can eat.

We’re quiet for a while. The street is dark apart from the bright spots where the streetlights fall onto the path. We turn up the hill and soon we’re both licking greasy fingers and reaching for another piece.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble after we make it past the nursing home and after my third piece of pizza.

“What for?”

“For stealing half your dinner?” It’s a cop out answer.

Olivia laughs. “I was never going to eat this whole thing anyway.”

I sigh. “And for that. Back there. You didn’t need to see that.”

“I didn’t see anything. But if you wanted to talk about it…” She doesn’t look around, and I know why. I know I’ve put up a million brick walls in the way of anyone trying to get close to me. I know I’ve made her feel like she can’t ask.

She walks me all the way home, and like the stubborn prick I am, I can’t make myself admit to her what got me so riled up in the first place. She walks me to my door, and by the time we get there and I realize I’ve got no key, all the pizza is gone and so is my anger.

I’m just left with this gnawing empty feeling where the anger used to be like I’m hungry for something other than food.

Olivia takes my key out of her pocket, and I try and fail to remember giving it to her. She opens my door. “Can I leave the garbage here? I’m going to call a cab. I know you won’t let me walk back to Bella Vista by myself, will you?”

“Stay.” The word escapes me before I can call it back, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to call it back. I want it out there. I need her tonight. I need her scent on my pillow and her body tucked against mine.

“But—”

“Fuck it. Fuck the rules. They’re bullshit anyway. I should know. I made them up.”

I see her biting her lip, debating with herself, and I do the stupidest, most selfish thing of all.

I pull her against me and lower my mouth to hers and claim the kiss I’ve been thinking about for days.

The second she’s in my arms, she lifts herself up to meet me, giving me back all the passion I’m craving.

Then I pull her in over my doorstep and somehow manage not to fall over myself in my hurry to have her naked. To feel her skin against mine. Clothes go flying. I stumble out of my jeans and thunk into the wall behind me tugging at Olivia’s top.

The moment she’s undressed, I lift her into my arms and carry her to my bed and dive into her as if I’m ducking under a wave right before it crashes over my head.