Page 31

THIRTY

Noah

I spritz myself with water to counteract the heat of the late spring air. It’s not arid like an Aussie outback summer, but it’s warming up and I still haven’t found Olivia.

Every day I think I see her on the street or in a shop. I’ll catch a glimpse of red hair or the sound of laughter and turn my head only to find it’s not her.

Turns out a kraken isn’t much of a tracker and my internet stalking only got me so far. I should be happy. I’d hate to think any loser online who’s watched too many of her videos could find out where she lives. Only if that loser is me, well that’s different.

In the video on my phone, she smiles and lifts a huge forkful of pasta to her mouth. She’s so adorable. She looks happy.

Maybe that’s my sign. Maybe I’m once again being selfish, pursuing someone who is happier without me. I don’t hit like. I don’t want her to see I’ve been watching. Somehow that feels wrong. I think if I messaged her she probably wouldn’t answer.

I won’t say I haven’t been tempted. The sappy draft messages sitting on my account are evidence of that. But I think the right way has got to be face to face.

Pocketing my phone in the small shorts I bought to accommodate my tentacles, I head back inside, break over. I’ve been at work since seven this morning which was brutal on a Sunday, but Sunday is our busiest day and the pay is barely enough to keep me in food and accommodation. I need the hours.

I could go back home, of course, but I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. Not without Olivia.

The longer it takes, though, the more I start to wonder if I’ve made yet another mistake.

While I’ve been on break, the dirty dishes have stacked up in the kitchen. I put my head down and get stuck into them, hastily scrubbing a large pot while I stack plates and cups into the commercial dishwasher tray with my tentacles.

There’s a particularly stubborn stain on the rim of the pot.

Reaching into the sink with the tip of a tentacle, I use my suckers to keep it in place so I can get a better look at it, then I pause.

There’s something strange about the color of my tentacle.

It seems brighter. More luminescent. As I watch, a soft light within the tip begins to glow.

I drop the pot with a splash that splatters dirty dishwater all over the floor.

If I’m glowing, then she must be close.

I run from the kitchen on four tentacles, looking frantically around the café.

There! Sitting at a table in the window are three women.

Two older ladies in yoga gear and my beautiful Olivia.

Her long red curls seem to glow like my tentacles in the mid-morning sun.

She’s facing away, talking to the other women, so she hasn’t seen me race out here like I’m on fire.

Taking a calming breath, I wrest some control over myself. I should act like this is a causal encounter, shouldn’t I? That’s been my plan.

Act like I just happened to run into her and wondered if she would like to catch up over a coffee.

Only now she’s here, I don’t think I can do that. The intensity of my need for her feels like an ache in every limb. I can’t wait a moment longer.

Ignoring Mandy, who is making coffees, and the line of customers at the counter and the servers who give me weird looks, I make straight for that table and stop, palms sweaty and mouth dry.

One of the older women with dark straight hair and a strong chin looks up at me and then at Olivia. “Hey, Liv, I think you’ve been spotted.” She jerks her head at me while I stand behind her trying to compose my thoughts into something witty or charming to say.

I’ve never been good at this. I always say the wrong thing. I can’t put people at ease the way my brother Luke can. I never know the right thing to say like Jack does.

I clear my throat.

Olivia turns. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open, and for a moment we just stare at each other. “Noah?”

“Liv.” My voice comes out as a croak. I don’t know what else to do, so I lower myself to crouching height and take her hands in mine and give her the most earnest look I can muster.

“Noah, what are you doing here? I thought you’d gone home.”

“I couldn’t. I can’t go. It won’t be home if you’re not there.”

She stares at me. “You’ve been here this whole time?”

I nod.

“Why didn’t you contact me again?”

“I—” I pause. I don’t have a good reason. Only fear. But she needs to see that side of me too. “I was scared you’d reject me again. I was looking for a way to run into you. To see you without the pressure, and now I’ve gone and messed that up. But I couldn’t help it.”

She laughs in disbelief, but she still hasn’t pulled her hands away. “I was scared too,” she says at last. “That’s why I never called either.”

The woman on her right, the lady who I now see has the same color hair as Olivia, nudges her friend. “So this is Noah. Liv, do you want to ask your friend to join us?”

Olivia looks around at the two ladies and then back at me. “Do you want to have brunch with my mom and stepmom, Noah?”

I balk a little. I’ve made it a rule to never meet friends and family ever since Charlotte, and I’m not sure I was prepared for this to happen today with Olivia, but I need to show her I’m serious.

“I’d love to, only I’m supposed to be working.

” I cast a guilty glance over my shoulder at Mandy, who is glaring at me from behind the coffee machine.

“Oh. You’re cooking here?”

“Cleaning. Liv, please let me call you after my shift is over. Would you give me your number again?”

She chews on her bottom lip, but then she smiles. “Yeah. OK. You can do that.”

If I thought I was anxious before seeing Olivia at the café, I’m about to shit a brick standing on the driveway outside her house in the dark, wondering if I can bring myself to ring that doorbell. We’ve messaged back and forth all afternoon, every second I got.

Understandably, she had a lot of questions, and I owe her an explanation. I’ve saved the biggest one for last because I’m not sure how to break the whole fated mates thing to her. The last thing I want is for her to think that’s the reason for all this. It’s not.

She’s the reason.

From now on she’s my reason for everything. The fated mates thing is just luck, but I’ve fallen for her, despite my reservations, despite my unwillingness. Because of who she is.

I brush a hand over the button-up shirt I chose for dinner with her moms. I still don’t think I’m meet-the-parents ready, but I’m not going to be late. I remember that much of the manners my own parents tried to drill into me before I turned into the most obnoxious person in Kraken Cove.

I knock three times on the white door before I realize there’s a doorbell and curse my own stupidity. I’m just debating whether to ring the doorbell or wait in case they think that’s rude when the door opens and my breath catches in my throat.

It’s cliché and trite, but that doesn’t make it any less true. My mouth is dry and my fingers twitch with the urge to slide over her waist and haul her close.

Olivia’s long red hair is bound up in a loose plait that trails over her shoulder. Tiny curls have sprung loose to coil around her forehead and ears, and she grins at me with her sunshine smile.

Thank god it’s back.

I’ve really missed that smile.

“Hi.” I feel a bit sheepish standing on the doorstep, not knowing if I’m allowed to hug her. Not knowing if she’s going to give me the chance I so desperately need.

There’s a moment’s hesitation and then Olivia springs forward, throwing her arms around my neck to hold me close. The hug is tight. I feel and hear the sigh she lets out before she releases me and steps back and it’s everything. “It’s good to see you.”

I want to tell her it’s better than good. It’s plunging into the salty sea after spending days dry. It’s the moment my legs split apart to form my true shape and I’m free to be just who I am.

“Yeah,” is all I manage.

She leads me into the house and into a bright white kitchen with colorful paintings hung on all the walls.

At the stove, the dark-haired woman from the café is setting a hot dish from the oven on top.

She shucks off her oven gloves and turns to me with a smile.

“Hi, Noah. I’m Trish. So lovely to have you. ”

I shake Trish’s hand and ask what she’s cooking, and she shows me the recipe she’s been tinkering with for vegan lasagne. The cooked lasagne on the stove smells delicious, and I read over the recipe with interest.

“The trick is soaking the lentils just long enough,” she says. “They still need to have some body, but you don’t want them dry or crunchy.”

“Noah?” I turn, and Olivia’s mom is standing in the kitchen behind me. With her gray-sprinkled hair bound in the same way Olivia’s is, I instantly see the similarity between them, though she’s taller and heavier built than Olivia.

I smile. “Mrs. Zeston?”

Olivia’s mom laughs. “Oh I haven’t been Mrs. Zeston for a long time. Just call me Rose.”

Another faux pax. I should have realized since Olivia introduced Trish as her stepmother.

“Sorry, Rose. Nice to properly meet you.”

“And you. You know I might not have recognized you if I’d walked past you on the street. I didn’t realize there were supernaturals who had two forms, but Olivia tells me that’s pretty common.”

I shift uncomfortably. “Yeah. The shift happens for krakens when our skin gets wet. It’s not something I can control. There are other types of monsters who can, though.”

“Fascinating.”

“Mom!” Olivia nudges her mother then gives me an apologetic smile. “Mom is a socio-anthropologist currently writing a thesis about how monsters have shaped human culture throughout history. Mom, you can’t make Noah a test subject, OK?”

I laugh. “Well I think for monsters, we’ve been shaped more by living in human society. Or hiding from it.”

Rose gives me a serious smile. “Yes. I think supernaturals have faced persecution from humans for many years.”

Of course it’s true. Olivia’s mother might be the first human I’ve heard say it out loud though. Maybe this dinner won’t be as tense as I had imagined.

When we sit down at the table and Trish serves the lasagne I’m impressed.

It’s got a depth of flavor she’s built through stock and herbs and spices.

She tells me shitake mushrooms and MSG give it the umami taste on the back of the palate, and I’m mentally taking notes.

I might have to add more vegan food to my menu back home.

The conversation flows as smoothly as it can while I stumble over myself trying to think of small talk, and Trish saves the day by talking to me about cooking.

By the time it’s time to clean away the plates, I stand quickly. “Let me help with these. I am a professional after all!”

Rose gives me a wink. “Well that’s an immediate point to you, Noah. Thank you.”

Olivia follows me into the kitchen. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

She turns on the tap and fills the sink with hot water.

“That’s fair. But I’m serious when I say I want to see you. I want a second chance.”

She sighs. “I’d like that, Noah, but I’m so conflicted about it. Obviously I still have feelings. I realized that as soon as I saw you.”

I grin and try to hide it in case she reads it as being cocky. “Well, I should have told you before that I have feelings too. And not seeing you has only made them stronger. I was an idiot not to realize sooner how much you meant to me. How much you mean…”

There’s a long moment where we just look at each other, and I’m too scared to push for her reaction.

She bends and retrieves rubber gloves from under the sink, and I laugh as she tries to fit them over my big hands. “So you don’t have to ruin your nice trousers,” she says, giving them an appreciative look.

“Thank you.” I was prepared to do it, but since I spent a whole week’s salary on this outfit I’m glad not to have to.

We wash the dishes in silence. Olivia dries them and stacks them away.

Finally she turns back to me. “If I say yes to seeing you, what then? I don’t think I can go back to the way things were. I don’t want that anymore.”

“I know. I don’t want that either.” I want so much more.

My heart is beating fast and I’m having this surreal moment standing outside myself watching this scene unfold, knowing I have very little control.

“Would you start over with me? Would you go on a date with me and pretend we’re starting from scratch?

You could tell me what you do want. What you need, like we’re meeting for the first time and talk about the future and—” I duck my head.

“Well all the things that might entail.” I can’t help the way my eyes stray to her belly.

I haven’t let myself think about it too much, but after she left I’ve thought more than once about what it would be like if she had been pregnant.

“Really?” She stares at me.

I sigh. I’ve more than earned her distrust. “I’m sorry, Liv. I’m sorry for the way I handled it. I was an ass. But I didn’t come for you because I thought you were or weren’t. I came because I had to. I have to know if I can make this work.”

She nods. “I understand. I think there’s a part of me that’s still wondering too. Despite everything.”

There’s a pause. She lifts her hand to wipe a soap bubble from my cheek and the touch of her skin on mine sends a pulse through me.

“I’ll start over with you, Noah Wilson. Of course I will.”

I can’t help scooping her up into a hug even with the rubber gloves still over my hands. “You won’t regret it. I promise. Can I take you out tomorrow?”