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“I know,” he said in the softest of voices. “I just…”
His eyes dropped to my mouth, and my stomach did a backwards flip, sending adrenaline bolting through my body with anticipation.
He was focused on my lips.
His hand was on my cheek.
So close. He was so close to me. His fingers twitched on my arms, and for a moment, I was sixteen again.
It was midnight, three days before his birthday, and I hadn’t spoken to him for two days because we’d had a stupid fight about something. I couldn’t remember what, but it was an overreaction, a typical teenage mistake. He’d finally had enough of waiting for me to come around and snuck out to fix things.
And still, I’d argued with him, telling him to go away, that I didn’t want to speak to him, that he didn’t get the message.
He’d walked up to me, grabbed my face halfway through my ranting, and said, “You’re so stubborn. Shut up,” and then kissed me.
It’d been just like this.
No.
This was too much.
This was bad.
This was not going to happen.
“You need to leave,” I said, shrugging off his touch. I stepped away from him and turned my back to him, grabbing the drain unblocker again so I could focus on that. “Shut the door behind you, please.”
I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and he dropped his chin to his chest, then took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair before turning away and walking out. The door closed with a thud, and I stared at the bright orange bottle in my hands as the rush of adrenaline slowly subsided and my heartrate returned to normal.
If I’d stayed quiet, would he have kissed me?
No. He wouldn’t have. He had a girlfriend, and that wasn’t who he was. Even if I thought for a second he might have done.
Actually, I was more worried aboutmebeing the one to mess up like that.
Despite how many times I insisted it’d been ten years and that we’d changed, the fact was that the Noah I knew was still in there. His eyes, his smile, the way my nerve endings came to life when he touched me—that was all the same boy I’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
Not that he was a boy anymore.
I finished unscrewing the cap on the drain unblocker and squeezed it hard, squirting the thick gel down the plughole with a sigh.
Bollocks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Iwas in a staring competition with a cat.
Except this cat was wearing a tuxedo jumper, complete with 3D bow tie, and was most definitely judging me for the bucket load of Jelly Babies I was scarfing down.
Despite the insanity of my personal life, the reason we’d gone to Declan’s wake last night had not been to get absolutely shitfaced on cocktails, as Gwen had been reminding Ash all day, but to get information about who could have killed him.
Me and Ash had done a terrible job.
Gwen had also not been shy about mentioning that more than once.
However, the oldies had not followed our wayward lead. They’d taken that as an excuse to exploit Ash into letting them continue the painting of their garden gnomes despite it not being a Monday, and I wasn’t going to lie, I kind of wanted to paint one myself.
You know, for the bed and breakfast.
