Not funny. Not even remotely so.
“I’ll take you back to your room.” I was still in a mood. Perhaps I just wanted peace. A small chance to gather myself up. No chance of that today, even my dad had given me grief for behaving like a brat. I was an adult. Apparently, I was behaving like a plonker. I agreed. I fully agreed.
“No,” he said, sipping his tea, and my mum looked like I had just kicked a puppy.
“Mum, can I have a moment please?”
“As long as it’s a good moment.” She winked.
I hated her.
No, I didn’t. I hated myself. Hated everything right now. She stood up and walked out, and I stayed silent until I was sure she had given me some distance.
“I like your mum,” he said. Like it would make any difference.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted. A truth. I was good at truths. Bad at pretending I was something I definitely wasn’t. So truths it apparently was. “I feel absolutely out of my depth here. No idea what to do or what you expect.”
“That’s okay.” He shuffled on the bed, tapping his hand on the covers next to him. Like he wanted me to join him in bed. “Sit the fuck down, Fairweather.”
“Riley,” I warned. Like we were playing charades. A small smirk on his face. A weak one on mine. Truths? I was lying faster than I could admit it. He was gorgeous. I was smitten. Disaster. An absolute certain one.
“I don’t do things like this,” I started, having lost all my senses, climbing onto the bed still holding on to the goddamn tray. “I don’t hook up with people. I don’t go on dates. I gave up on all that years ago.”
“You still brought me food.” His voice was so smooth. He was reeling me in with pretty little smiles. Accepting the tray as I sat awkwardly next to him. Tried to hide my too-long legs somewhere where my feet weren’t right in his line of vision. Sand everywhere.
See? Disaster.
“I think we should just admit that it would be better if I took you back. Then I don’t have to worry about making a fool out of myself. Because I will. Eventually I’ll say or do something, and this…”
“Stop with the doom and gloom.”
I could suddenly see the teacher in him. His stern voice coming through. I could almost imagine him scolding me for being silly and threatening to cane my arse. The thought made me smirk. He laughed.
“Want me to pretend you’re in detention? I can do that. Whip those slutty little swim shorts down and give you a good spanking. I mean it, Noah. Stop dooms-daying here. We’re good. You’re a nice man. I’m a nice man. We like each other. Nobody is getting hurt here. Apart from if you want it. A good spanking, that is.”
“Fox, stop.” I had to say it. “The fuck?”
“You were thinking it, weren’t you? You blush whenever I talk dirty.”
“You don’t even know me!” I half shouted.
“Oh, but I do. Don’t come at me with rubbish like that. We’ve landed ourselves right in this mess together, and we’re talking. I think I know you, at least a little. You’re funny and shy and feisty and strong all at the same time. And you blush as soon as I look at you, which is just very…fetching.”
“I’m not a dog.”
He laughed out loud, letting the tray settle on his lap, picking up a piece of dried fruit with his fingertips and popping it in his mouth.
“No, you’re not. But you’re a very attractive single man who invited me into his bed. Now you’re trying to kick me out because you’re scared, and that part? That’s not okay.”
He just kept eating. Picking up little pieces of dried junk food and devouring them like truffle-infused little pieces of gourmet edibles. I said nothing. I had nothing more to say.
“Please don’t be scared of me,” he continued, his voice back to that soft drawl he did. I couldn’t even place the accent, apart from that he’d probably moved a lot. Picked up and lost bits and pieces along the way. “I’m not the kind of person who will turn this into anything it’s not. You should probably know that all the guys I came here with? Right now? They will be sitting around the bar, laughing at me. Oh God, what has Riley done now? Silly old stupid Riley, always getting himself in a pickle. Thinking his boyfriend is being faithful, thinking he can just hook up with some random and get away with it. See? Can’t even do that. I got myself drunk and lost and sunburnt and now I’m stuck here. If you want rid of me, you’re going to have to carry me because my foot hurts like hell when I try to stand on it. I almost screamed when I had to go to the loo earlier.”
“I’ve got more painkillers.”
Romantic as anything, me.
“You’ve looked after me, and you haven’t laughed at me once. At least not at me being the complete tool I am. I trust too easily, fall too fast and mess everything up because. Well.”
