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TWENTY FOUR

Noah

I’m pulling up in the carpark at work when my phone buzzes. I stash my helmet and pull it from my pocket to find a message from Olivia.

Olivia: hey, can we talk?

I run my hand through my hair, glancing in through the windows to see that Billy is already here, switching on the lights.

Noah: I just got to work. What is it? You good?

Three dots appear on the screen, then disappear, then reappear again.

There’s a really long pause and I start getting a nasty feeling low down in my belly that I push away. This is Olivia. She’s not going to call and berate me for doing something wrong or hurting her feelings. Or have a go at me for the way I am. She gets me.

Besides, I asked her at least a hundred times today if she was OK and she told me she was.

When she still hasn’t replied three minutes later, I lose my nerve.

Noah: babe, you good? Want me to come round after work?

Her reply is almost instant.

Olivia: yeah. I need to see you

Ordinarily I’d send back something dirty about what a nasty girl she is booty calling me as I’m about to start work, but something tells me there’s more to this than that. And I’m not a big fan of that feeling.

I’m distracted through service. Halfway into it I get so pissed off with myself that I have Billy take over the steak I’m cooking and step into the coolroom for a breather.

Leaning my hand on the shelf at head height, I slow my breathing and squirt some water over my drying skin.

This is exactly the sort of bullshit I have spent the last five years trying to avoid.

But this is Olivia. She’s not a game player.

That’s something I like about her. I can rely on her not to get weird and emotional.

To tell me what she’s thinking. Isn’t that how this whole thing started?

I try not to think about our impending deadline.

The date she flies back to the States. It has to happen, and when it does, it’ll be for the best. I wouldn’t say this about anyone else, but I think with Olivia, I’ll want to keep in touch.

It’ll be easier with some distance between us.

Less intense if I don’t see her every day.

I let myself close my eyes for a moment and imagine arranging annual getaways where we meet halfway and I remind her all the ways I touch her and make her come like no one else.

Only then I get to thinking about someone else trying to make her come and my blood boils so much I have to give myself another spritz of water.

Fuck .

Why am I such a mess over this woman?

The coolroom door opens and Billy sticks his head inside. “Hey, chef. There’s a new group on table five and they’ve requested fish of the day. You want me to do it?”

I shake my head, pushing myself upright and mentally pulling my shit together. “No, you’re right. I’ve got it.”

I grab the stuff I need from the coolroom and head back into the kitchen, letting the distraction of the final dinner rush stop me from brooding.

When everything is cleaned down and the front of house staff have gone home, I’m already impatient to be gone myself. I leave Billy to brief the rest of the kitchen staff about tomorrow’s specials and jump on my bike, heading up the hill to Olivia’s bed and breakfast.

She must hear my bike because she appears in the doorway to her room as I’m climbing the stairs, face pale in the glow from the sensor light and expression drawn.

I hurry over, smile of greeting dropping from my face. “Hey, what is it? Tell me.”

She chews her lip, pulling me inside the room and closing the door. “I have to tell you something and I need you not to freak out, OK?”

“OK.” I search her face, but I can’t work out what she’d have to say that would make me react like that.

I know where we stand. She’s not about to surprise me if she’s going to say she’s booked her flight home.

I’m not ready for her to leave yet, but I know it’s coming. “Liv, I won’t freak out, I promise.”

She sighs. “I’m probably worried about nothing, only I tried to take the test today and then I dropped it in the toilet and I can’t make myself do another.”

“Huh?” Test. What test? I’m mentally retracing her words but can’t put the pieces together in a way that makes sense.

“My period is late.”

Those words hit home with the finality of a coffin lid closing and I physically recoil before I can stop myself. “Your period?” I know what it means only I can’t quite make my brain believe it. “But you haven’t taken the test yet. You’re not…” I break off, unable to spit out the words.

She’s not.

She can’t be.

Because if she is, then that means… “Olivia, have you been with anyone else?”

Her mouth drops open and I growl in frustration. “I’m not trying to be a dick about this, I’m just asking, would it definitely be mine? Is there a chance that it might be someone else?”

She just stares at me for a long moment. Then her bottom lip starts to tremble until she grips it between her teeth. “No. There’s no one else. God, how could you even ask me that? Don’t you know—” She breaks off, turning away. I still catch the hitch in her voice.

I swipe my hands over my face, trying to clear my head, but the acrid note in her scent isn’t helping. I’m not that far off panicking myself. I promised to keep calm and here I am losing my mind.

“Look. Like you said, we don’t even know. Let’s not freak out. How many weeks late are you?” I put my hand on her shoulder and she relaxes a little but still doesn’t turn around.

“Maybe six or seven. I’m not sure.”

“OK. OK. Well, there’s still time.”

Now she turns, blinking up at me. “Time for what?”

“Well, time to take care of it. It’s going to be OK.”

There’s a long, awful silence.

“You are going to take care of it if you are, aren’t you?”

Now it’s Olivia’s turn to recoil. “Take care of it? You mean have an abortion? I don’t even know. I don’t know if I could. For heaven’s sake, I can’t even take a pregnancy test!”

Fuck. Bile rises in my throat and my hands are shaking.

This is everything I was afraid of. The worst part is it’s my fault.

I think back to that moment in the Tuross inlet when we had no condom.

Then again in the bay. I let my need for her in the moment get the better of me and made two stupid fucking choices. “Fuck.”

Suddenly I need to hit something, to break something. I slap the wall, wishing I could put my fist through it, but it’s not my wall or Olivia’s. “Fuck.”

She’s watching me with wide eyes. The bitter note in her scent has risen to drown out all the sweetness, and now I’m cursing myself as much as the situation. I’m scaring her.

I’m scaring myself.

Fuck, Olivia is scaring me. I can’t be a dad. I just can’t. Kids change everything. I can’t be tied to someone like that for the rest of my life. We’ll both end up with broken hearts and a broken family. It’s not good for anyone.

“Don’t you see this is exactly what I was afraid of?” I’m shouting. My voice echoes through the quiet apartment and Olivia winces.

“Please don’t be angry.” Her voice trembles and I hate myself, but I can’t stop the rage boiling through my insides at how fucking unfair this is.

“What am I supposed to feel? Am I supposed to feel happy? This is a disaster! There is nothing good about this situation.”

“Noah!” She looks like she wants to reach for me, but I don’t let her.

Turning, I pace toward the door then back again.

I don’t know what to do with my body. It feels too big for the space.

“There is no we, Olivia. There never was. You do what you need to, but you know where I stand. I can’t be a part of that. I’m sorry.”

Her mouth drops open and her eyes fill with tears. “Then I guess there never could be an us either.”

I want to spit the bitter taste from my mouth, tear apart the room, feel the sting of the cut as I purge my feelings with a razor blade on my arm like I used to when I was a stupid kid. Instead I shake my head. “I guess not.”

I leave without looking back. I know if I look back now, I’ll see the hurt on her face and I will want to comfort her. I’ll want to stay and wrap her in my arms and tell her I’ll make it alright, but I won’t, will I?

I’ll just make it worse.

Because I can’t be the man she wants me to be. The man she needs.

I can only be this monster whose only strength is shutting everyone and everything out so nothing can ever hurt me again.

The roar of my bike cuts through the awful sound of her crying I still imagine I can hear. I race up the hill, hardly caring where I end up, just knowing that I can’t stay here.