For the longest time I had wondered if Lewis had been jealous of my boyfriends, and had perhapswantedhim to be. I’d been so in love with him. The moment I’d seen Lewis Sinclair for the first time, my little eleven-year-old self had decided he was the man I would marry one day. Yet, the only move Lewis had ever made on me had been a stupid kiss the summer after he moved here. After that he had only treated me with indifference and, when my heart had healed enough so I could move on, he’d taunted my boyfriends—the ones I’d picked purely on how much they differed physically from Lewis Sinclair.
God, you sucked, Noah.
When I finally let go of Ollie, my brother shouldered the larger of my two bags and—after a trip to the bathroom—we left the airport.
October drizzle greeted us as we hurried across the huge car park.
“Grand. Cannae say I missed the weather in Scotland.” I heaved a sigh and tried and failed to bundle up more effectively in my way too thin clothes.
“Yeah, I suppose after Bali this must be a real treat for you.” Ollie huffed. “Lew is waiting for us in the car.” He pointed to the far end of the row of cars.
“Lew? Lewis Sinclair?” At the look on my face Ollie burst out laughing.
“Come on, you’re not still nursing that old grudge? You’re both adults now, and I couldn’t borrow Fitz’s car. He needed it today, so Lew offered us a ride.”
“Is he visiting with you at the moment?”
“What? No, he moved back here a year ago. He’s working for Lone Fox, too. Didn’t I tell you?”
No, brother dear, you did not tell me that Lewis was back home.
The boy I had loved for almost all my life, and who had broken my heart in more than one way... It was weird thinking that Lewis was only a couple of yards away from me, when I had avoided him successfully for over a decade.
Literal minutes before everything between us went down the drain, we’d made one of those stupid pacts that we would get married if we were both single at thirty. As pre-teens, thirty had felt like a million years away. I still remembered the day we’d sworn it, too.
It had been a hot summer’s day. We’d been swimming in the river, me in my favourite orange swimming shorts with the tiny rainbow print—foreshadowing me coming out as queer, perhaps?
Lewis, almost three years my senior, had been wearing fashionable wide swimming trunks. I’d thought he looked socute basking on the warm rock while the scent of his wet fur drying in the blazing sunlight had tickled my nose.
We’d snuck out once Ollie had fallen asleep in the shade of a beech tree, up to the flat rocky surface by the waterfall. After a few moments of silence, Lewis had rolled around and looked at me intently out of his bright blue eyes.
“What is it?” I had asked. “Do I have sunscreen on my nose?”
“No.” He’d shaken his head so furiously that warm droplets of water had hit me and I’d giggled. I’d been barely twelve and Lew had had another month or two of being fourteen. “I want to marry you, Noah,” he’d said, an earnest expression on his face.
“We’re much too young for that, Lew,” I’d giggled again, rolling on my back to dry the front of my body as well.
“Then when we’re old. Say twenty-five?”
I’d closed my eyes. “Let’s say thirty. That’s, like,superold.”
“Deal.” A shadow had fallen over me, and before I could open my eyes, his soft furry lips pressed a chaste kiss on my sun-warmed mouth.
My first kiss.
After the kiss he’d jumped up and ran back to where Ollie slept, had pulled on his clothes, got on his bike and rode away without another word. To this day, I still don’t understand why he left.
Did he hate the kiss that much?
He had never mentioned it again, or showed any more affection towards me. Then puberty had hit both of us hard. I’d watched him get his first girlfriend. Every one of their stolen kisses in the school hallway had carved out an aching hollow in my chest.
Later, when I’d gotten together with Noel, a Nixen boy, Lewis had turned downright nasty to him. He’d never bulliedme—that wasn’t his style and perhaps he’d not wanted to alienate Ollie over it—but he intimidated and ostracised every single guy I wasseeing until they broke up with me and stayed away so Lewis would stop pestering them. Although I’d never been sure if Ollie would have picked me if Lew had made him choose.
Lewis and I hadn’t spoken in years, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to change that. Not that avoiding him and leaving our hometown had worked well for me. I was still single, with hardly anything to show for it but my small online business. I wasn’t even rolling in the dough. It paid my bills, and then some, but successful I was not.
Ollie kept talking about how he had connected his boss and Lewis, and other bits of the story I didn’t hear. I followed him to a huge black Moth Motors truck with tinted windows. My lips pressed together to hide my smirk. With a car like that Lewis was definitely compensating for, uh, a lack in other departments probably.
Before I could overthink it more, the car door opened, and out jumped ….Holy. Shit.Lewis Sinclair.
