He’s an adult like you. And he wanted it. Gods, he wanted it.
I sat in the dark outside the staff house for an age and vowed to ask him what he wanted next time. This new thing between us was too precious to fuck up, yes, but five months were too short to waste weeks I could spend with him.
Chapter 14
Lewis
Then life with its usual shitty sense of timing kept me away from Noah for nearly a week. Perla and I had to get serious on planning the beer brewing workshop and talk hotel bookings for our participants with Ollie and food with SweetPea andClara. On top of that Fitz asked me to go over my plans for the next year and map out the goals I had for the brewery.
Ollie took Noah to the shops again midway through the week so I knew he wasn’t starving. But I still missed him and hated myself for being too wiped in the evenings to head over to see him.
“I can’t believe he went and got himself a cat,” Ollie complained to me when I ran into him on Friday. “What’s going to happen to that animal when he’s back in Bali? But of course he doesn’t—” Ollie took a deep breath. “If he thinks I’m taking that stray in he’s fooling himself.”
“I think Noah will make sure the cat has a new home,” I shut his lamenting down in a voice so harsh Ollie gave me a surprised look.
“What’s up with you? You know how he is, Lew. He—”
“He’s an adult,” I repeated what I kept telling myself when I thought about how wrong it was that I wanted to fuck him. “He grew up and he’s going to take care of the cat. It does him good.”
My best friend contemplated me for a long moment. “Anyway, can you check on him? I’ll be out of town for a few days.”
Gods, no. I saw it in his eyes that “out of town for a few days” meant a visit to his former colleague. The guy was an asshole and had only used Ollie, but somehow he couldn’t stay away from him.
He deserves better.
“Of course. Have fun,” I said through my teeth.
He huffed, gave me a half-hearted wave, and disappeared inside the hotel.
When I left the brewery that afternoon a thin carpet of snow lay like a blanket over the estate. I stopped in the middle of the yard and the tiny snowflakes swirled around me.
Without overthinking, I walked straight to my car and phoned ahead to my favourite small restaurant in Kincardie.
An hour later I parked my car in front of Noah’s shack, which looked almost scenic in all that snow.
He opened after a few moments. His face lightened when he saw me.
“Hey. I didn’t expect you today.”
I hated the tone in which he said it, like he’d resigned himself to crumbs. I wanted him to have the entire cake, to expect it, and to know he was worth it all.
“Sorry, I had a super busy week and I thought ….” I was on the verge of telling him that Ollie had asked me to check in, but that wasn’t why I was here. “I wanted to see you.” I chose to tell him the truth instead.
Noah beamed and stepped aside to let me in. I moved in to hug him, but stopped when my breath plumed in front of my face. The shack was ice cold. Then my eyes took in Noah’s outfit. He wore what looked like all his clothes, and he had set up a nest of blankets on the couch from which Mr Pickles purred happily at me.
Seeing his cat reminded me that I wanted to arrange for someone to feed him while we were gone. All the work and admin stuff had driven it clean out of my head.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I filed finding Mr Pickles a sitter away as a task for tomorrow.
“Oh, uh, the heating stopped working two hours ago. I tried to call Ollie but couldn’t reach him.”
Yeah, he couldn’t. Ollie had left LFD after noon and would stay away over the weekend. Why hadn’t he told Noah?
I cursed. “Next time something like this happens you call me, okay?”
“I didn’t want to—”
I interrupted him with a hand on his shoulder and pressed my thumb under his chin to shut him up.
