“Yes.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. And somehow? That made everything feel alright.
Chapter 10
Fox
“Do you think, at some point, you could nip over to my room and grab my stuff? Like…I haven’t brushed my teeth in the past twenty-four hours. And I might need my phone.”
He laughed at my silly demands, and that in itself was a relief.
“I did think about that, but then…”
“Yeah, you fucked off.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Your friends…”
“My friends can fuck off too,” I grumped, picking up a chip from the plate in front of me. We now had food, which Noah was busying himself organising on a tray between us. On the bed. Because, yes.Food in bed. “They didn’t seem too bothered to figure out where I’d been,” I continued, both talking and stealing chips off his plate. “Like, I go missing for twenty-four hours, and they were more concerned with Thomas and his bloody drama with the man-child.”
“What’s up with the man-child?” he asked, as I grimaced wildly.
“Flirted with someone else around the pool, again. He’s young, and Thomas is an idiot. Always was.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About my ex and his awful taste in twinks or the fact that I latch on to people far too quickly?” I didn’t bother waiting for his response to that one. “Truth is, I meet someone and think I’ve found the love of my life, and then I become clingy and obsessive and assume they want to be with me as much as I want to be with them.”
“Sounds… I want to say familiar.” He swallowed loudly, then smiled awkwardly. “Now I want to take that first word back so I can say something nice and supportive instead of agreeing with that being your entire personality summed up in a few words. I get it. You come across exactly like that. Even after just knowing you for a day or whatever.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding, and weirdly appreciating all the words he’d said. They made perfect sense. “I’m like that. And I can see what you’re thinking, you want to run away again, but this is me, okay? And it sucks and it’s shitty, and I trust people far too easily. The strange thing is…at work? I’m nothing like this. I become someone completely different.” I'd only had one sip of a drink earlier, and now I was weirdly word-vomiting feelings. Like I was frightened that he’d disappear again before I could tell him everything that was festering in my head.
“I know that.” The way he nodded was…maybe concerning? Or perhaps he was just always this honest. “I know exactly what you mean. I’m pretty confident and straightforward at work. I can trust my instincts, and I absolutely talk the talk and walk the walk. But with…you know. Dating. Meeting people. I’m terrible.”
“You’re just scared. But what I am trying to say here is…”
“You’re a good person,” he interrupted, sitting himself down on the bed. Weird. The two of us, and a tray full of food.
“I’m irresponsible with my feelings.” More honesty, from me this time. “And sometimes with other people’s feelings. I fall too fast, and I go headfirst into situations and make them big and complicated and then.”
“Then you…” He stopped again, like he’d said too much. “I can swap into work mode and psychoanalyse your personality and give you advice, if that is what you need here.”
I wanted him to smile. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted. Fuck. I was doing exactly what I shouldn’t do, and I was still doing it, reaching out and letting my fingers stroke along his face.
“You can. Or you can just tell me to fuck off back to my hotel room and leave you alone.”
“No.” He looked like he meant it. Then he suddenly looked like he regretted everything.
“If you want my advice? Then here it is. This is going to end badly, Fox. Because you’re going to go back home and I will go back home, and we won’t have this again. Whatever we have here between us right now? It’s…just this…holiday. A temporary…insanity.”
“Absolutely.” I did agree. “But it’s too good to ignore. Too lovely not to take advantage of, don’t you agree?”
“But then, in the end? I’ll be a complete wreck.”
“Why?”
The question was as stupid as the way I’d burnt my foot, which now throbbed against the mattress. I was just trying to adjust my position, to get closer to him, but he sat up and moved away. Just a few inches, the trayclattering alarmingly between us, but still. And I followed despite my foot screaming in pain with every brush against anything. But I took it, tolerated it, because I was not having this. Also? I was an idiot. I was exactly what I’d said. Clingy. Childish. Rushed headfirst into anything.
