Noah and Me

by Beckie Stevenson

  “Why would you think that?” he asks.

  Ruby laughs. “Because the boys have been telling us all about your sex life and the women you’ve been shagging. Why would we not think that you were doing it?”

  Noah frowns and rubs the back of his neck. “This feels like school all over again,” he says.

  I try not to smile.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to him. “Ruby just gets a little defensive.”

  “Hey,” she says. “You don’t have to apologise to this cheating little git.”

  “Watch your mouth,” he hisses.

  Ruby opens her mouth to say something, but I put my hand over it. “Shh,” I say into her ear. “Stop it right now, Ruby.”

  “You are the only woman that’s been to that house,” he says. “Ever.” I look up and lock eyes with him as I raise my eyebrow. I know I’m not the only woman that’s been to that house.

  “Well, apart from Tara, but it was only the once, and it was the night after we fucked for the first time,” he says without hesitation, “and you were there to witness it.”

  They were supposed to be going back to the house for the reception that was going to be held in the big marquee. I start to frown. “But I saw you,” I say.

  He steps down the steps until he’s level with us. “What did you see, Ariel?”

  I sift through my memories. “She had her back to me, but she was in her wedding dress and you were in your suit. You were hugging her and kissing her.”

  “I was consoling her. She was upset and I only kissed her forehead.” He takes a deep breath, but he doesn’t break eye contact with me. “Where were we supposed to be at that exact time?”

  “Getting married in the church,” I whisper.

  He nods. “Exactly.”

  “Wait a minute,” says Ruby. “You didn’t marry Tara?”

  Noah shakes his head. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why the hell not?” she asks.

  Noah gives me a small smile. “Because Ariel messed up my mojo.”

  “Hang on,” says Ruby, “that’s all lovely and all, but why were you even considering marrying her just four months after you and Ariel broke up?”

  “That’s a story for Ariel to hear,” he says. “Not you.”

  Ruby rolls her eyes at him and turns to me. “He’s pissing me off. Let’s go and get drunk.”

  I let her pull me away from him. I know his eyes are following me, but I can’t look at him. He didn’t marry her. He isn’t married. I start to consider the possibilities this little bit of information has just opened up for me, but something is niggling. I know I heard him on the phone with her, talking about flights. Why is he still in contact with her if he didn’t marry her?

  “I got your postcard,” he calls to us as we walk down the stairs. “Strange place to go when you’re running away, but Zante is lovely. I’d like to go back there again.”

  I freeze. “Oh my God,” I breathe.

  “What now?” asks Ruby, sounding annoyed.

  I hear Noah’s footsteps disappearing up the stairs. “He was there.”

  She frowns. “Who? Where?”

  “Noah,” I whisper. “He went to Zante to find me.”

  Chapter 31

  THEN

  Tsillivi Beach

  I’m literally sweating in every crevice you can imagine. It’s constantly running from my face, between my breasts and down my stomach. I’ve been to some hot countries, but this is ridiculous heat. It’s suffocating and I feel like I’m melting.

  “Juicy Lucy! Fan dabby dozy! Coconut and banana!” The Greek man that trawls up and down the beach twice a day selling his platter of fresh fruit while reciting catchphrases from Only Fools and Horses stops and smiles at us.

  “I’ll take a slice of watermelon, please,” I say, handing over my euros.

  He nods and hands me a single slice. I unwrap the cling film from it before he’s even given me my change and take a big bite from the centre. The cool, fruity juices trickle down my throat, and it’s so refreshing that I can’t help but shut my eyes and groan.

  I hear him chuckling. “Change, Miss?”

  I open my eyes and grin at him. “Thank you,” I say, taking my money.

  “See you tomorrow for Juicy Lucy,” he says.

  I nod and watch him walk away, putting the note in his bum-bag.

  “I’m going for a swim,” I announce once I’ve finished my watermelon.

  “Oui,” says Jasmine without taking her eyes off her book.

  Jasmine is a girl that I’ve met while I’ve been here and she’s staying in the same hotel as me. She just turned eighteen, lives in France and is on holiday with her dad and her two younger brothers. Her mum and dad split up last year and this is her dad’s idea of cramming a family holiday in before she gets too old to want to go with him. “I’m staying here to read my book. It is good,” she says, her English thick with her French accent.

  “Will you watch my stuff, please?” I ask.

  She leans forwards and pulls my sunbed closer to hers. “Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks. See you in a bit,” I say, and then I take off across the hot sands. I plunge straight into the cool sea and begin to swim. When I’m a fair distance away from the shore, I look up to see Jasmine staring out at me. I give her a little wave and then swim horizontal to the shore.

  Jasmine is nice. Even though we’re the same age, I can tell that I’m much older in ways that she’s not. I have to watch what I’m saying around her because I don’t want to corrupt her innocent little mind. I think she thinks I’m cool because I’m here on my own and that’s why she’s shackled herself to me, but I don’t mind really. She’s funny in her own little way and I like her.

  I also like her dad, who is a six-and-a-half-foot trained martial arts hunk. I’ve been out to dinner with them a few times and I think he looks at me in a way that tells me he wants me. I’d definitely take him to my bed and get him to talk dirty to me in that accent while he teaches me a few things.

  I’ve figured out that older men know a little bit more about sex. Not all of them, but some have definitely picked up a thing or two as they’ve gotten older. Unfortunately, some of them are so excited to be shagging a young woman that they don’t even get a chance to get it in me before they come in their boxers. I feel sorry for them when they do that, so instead of walking away and making them feel even more pathetic, I stick around and let them play with me until they get hard again. I never realised that some men have a problem getting hard when they’re older.

  Later that night, I head to the bar of the hotel, which is conveniently situated right on the beach. I only have to walk down three steps from the pool and I’m on the sands, which are only wide enough for three rows of sunbeds. Apparently, the sea is creeping closer and closer in each year, making the beach shrink. Soon, there won’t even be a beach here. I think that’s sad.

  I’m wearing a bright orange vest top and a long, black maxi skirt with black flip-flops. Over the last eighteen days, the sun has darkened my skin and it’s as dark as it’s ever been while my hair is the lightest it’s ever been. My teeth look dazzlingly white because of how tanned I am, and I feel amazing. Zante has refreshed me and it will always have a special place in my heart for that.

  I walk up to the bar and smile at Feodor. His jet black hair is slicked back off his forehead and his tanned face looks older than it actually is. “Can I have my usual, please?”

  He grins at me. “Do you mean your usual drink?”

  I slept with him on the third night. He was good and surprisingly unselfish. “Yes, please,” I say. Most of the men I’ve slept with are more than happy to just have sex and nothing more. Feodor is clearly a ladies’ man and that suits me just fine.

  He pushes a small glass of Bacardi and Coke across the bar and makes a note of my room number. I got the all-inclusive plan so I can have as many drinks as I want. “Thank you.”

  I turn around and find a pair of deep brown eyes staring
at me. “Ariel,” he says.

  I give him my best flirty smile. “Mr. Dubois.”

  “Please,” he says. He has the smoothest, sexiest accent that I’ve ever heard. “Call me Alain.”

  “Good evening, Alain,” I say slowly, sucking my straw while looking at him. “What do you want?” I’ve figured out that the best approach is to just get it all out there. No point beating around the bush. I’m not looking to be chased, or to chase them for that matter.

  His mouth pulls up at the corner and I immediately know what he wants. “Do you know who I am?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “No, should I?”

  “No,” he says. “You don’t seem like the kind of girl who has an agenda. I just don’t want you poisoning my daughter.”

  I laugh and twirl the straw through my fingers. “So you don’t want your daughter behaving like me, but you’re quite happy to misbehave with me?”

  He shrugs.

  “Some would say that’s hypocritical,” I say.

  He rolls his sleeves up his bulging forearms and smiles. “You’re far too wise of the world for an eighteen-year-old girl,” he says. “I wonder what’s going on in that head of yours.”

  “You don’t want to know,” I say quickly.

  “You have pain in your eyes,” he tells me. “It’s there even when you smile.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve seen me smile,” I say.

  His hand reaches up and brushes against my cheek. “You should not joke about depression,” he tells me, “especially when it is ripping your insides out.”

  I look up at him. Why is he saying this to me? Why now? “It’s not,” I say, but I can hear the hesitation and defeat in my voice.

  He smiles and takes my drink out of my hand, putting it back onto the bar behind me. “I’m saying it to you because of how sad I would feel if Jasmine looked at me with eyes as full of sadness as yours. Your parents would be worried if they could see you now. I’m saying this as a father.”

  I huff. I don’t want this to be a heart-to-heart. And I certainly don’t want him reminding me of how ashamed my parents would be if they could see me now. “I don’t want you talking to me like you’re a father,” I tell him. “It’s not what I was looking for.”

  “I know what you were looking for,” he says.

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “And?”

  He shrugs. “I just wanted you to know that I know.”

  I’m not entirely sure what he’s on about, but I nod anyway. Then I suddenly realise that he’s giving me control. “I’m going for a swim,” I tell him, “and I’m not going to be wearing any clothes.”

  He knocks back his brandy and sighs. “I am Alain Dubois,” he says. “I am the owner and the managing director of the biggest telecommunications company in Europe. I have more than a few zeros at the end of my bank balance and I own fourteen different houses, three different apartments and two yachts. Then, of course, there are the cars and the land and the other companies—”

  Then why is he holidaying in a four-star hotel in Tsillivi? “I really don’t care,” I interrupt. “I don’t want your life story.”

  He smiles and nods towards the beach.

  “Do you have a wife or girlfriend?” I ask.

  “Ex-wife and no current girlfriend,” he says. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t sleep with men that are in a relationship.”

  He smiles at me. “Then let’s go for a swim.”

  I step around him and run across the cool sands while undressing myself. I see someone sitting on one of the empty sunbeds as I jog past. Lit up by nothing except the moonlight, their profile looks hauntingly familiar, but I know it can’t be him. For a start, my postcard wouldn’t have gotten there yet. I shake my head, trying to ignore my thumping heart, and push my skirt down just enough so that it starts to slip down my legs all by itself.

  “I’m coming,” Alain calls from behind me.

  I start to giggle and unclasp my bra. By the time my toes touch the water, I’m completely naked.

  I learned a lot from Alain Dubois. He made me realise that I can’t keep running for the rest of my life. He told me that I should think about a career, decide what I want to do and go after it. He also taught me how to fly fish.

  But the thing that I’ll never forget is the horrendously bad case of vaginal thrush that I got from having sex in the sea.

  Chapter 32

  NOW

  Friday 14th December – 10.30pm

  I stare at him. Why have we spent the last thirty minutes talking about all this rubbish from my childhood? I know I’m not a counsellor or a psychiatrist, but surely he’s supposed to be finding out what’s going on with me right now. I can’t figure out where he’s going with this.

  “You’re not asking the right sort of questions,” I tell him after staring back at him for over four minutes.

  He smiles. “And what are the right sort of questions?”

  Dr. Giorgio is a twerp. He hasn’t got a single hair on his head—none at all. He has no eyebrows and no eyelashes. His eyes are pale hazel and not very interesting to look at. And he constantly nibbles the scar on his lip, which looks like it was sustained from cleft lip surgery. But that’s not why he’s a twerp. He’s a twerp because he thinks he’s better than me.

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Just not ones about my pet rabbits, I guess.”

  “I’m doing it to get a better idea about you,” he tells me.

  “By asking me about something that has nothing to do with what’s actually happening in my life right now?”

  He smirks. “With all due respect, Miss Miller, I’m the one with the qualifications to make that decision.”

  I have nothing to say to that so I sit back and await his next stupid question.

  “About ten minutes ago, you said you stopped running,” he says.

  I don’t answer him because it’s not a question.

  “I think this is very significant,” he continues. “You were on the verge of being an Olympic champion, Ariel.”

  I roll my eyes. “I apologise if this sounds rude,” I say, “but—”

  “It will be rude, but you’re going to go ahead and say it anyway, right?” He smirks and writes more stuff on his paper.

  “That’s not fair,” I say quickly. “Just because I sleep with lots of men and I do it in a way that doesn’t seem to be acceptable to anyone these days, it doesn’t mean I’m rude or that I’m not a nice person.”

  “So you think you’re a nice person?”

  I stare into his eyes and nod. “Yes, I do. I’m a good midwife. I care for my patients as best as I can and I try to do it in a way that isn’t patronising or condescending so I can make an already special moment even more special. I donate money each month to charities, and I volunteer at local charities whenever I can. I do nice things,” I tell him. “I care about other people.”

  “What charities do you donate to?” he asks without looking at me.

  “Various ones,” I say.

  “Like?”

  I really don’t understand why he wants to know this, but I reel them off for him anyway. “Macmillan, Cancer Research UK, The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and Make-a-Wish Foundation.”

  He writes them all down and then looks up at me. “How much do you donate?”

  I take a deep breath. “Each month?”

  He shakes his head. “Each year.”

  I mentally calculate it in my head. “My charity contributions for the last twelve months are probably somewhere around twenty thousand pounds, but I wish it could be more.”

  He looks at me for a second and I think I see his eyes soften. “Why do you donate so much money to charity?”

  I shrug. “Because I believe in what they do. Forty-four percent of the population will get cancer,” I tell him. “Six out of ten people who get cancer will die from it. Child cruelty is something no child s
hould have to go through. Ever.” I shuffle on my seat and feel a trickle of anger seep through my veins. “Did you know that if you wanted to adopt a bloody cat from a shelter that you have to have a home visit and fill in a questionnaire and get evidence that your landlord will allow you to have a pet, but anyone can conceive a child…anyone,” I say. “Even if you’ve previously been in jail for child abuse, you can come out and have sex and conceive a child. Then what happens once that baby is born? An innocent life is immediately catapulted into a fucked up world with fucked up people.” I huff and sit back in my chair. “Sorry, it just really bugs me.”

  He nods. “That’s okay, I like seeing a bit of belly fire.”

  I nod and take a few deep breaths.

  “You alright to carry on?” he asks.

  I take a sip of water and nod. “Yes.”

  “Good,” he says. “Just now you said that you sleep with lots of men and that you do it in a way that doesn’t seem to be acceptable with anyone these days,” he says, scratching the back of his ear.

  I nod, wondering if he has an eidetic memory. Probably not, but I’ve been looking for something else to think about while I sit here. I’m going to start counting the amount of times he repeats what I’ve said exactly right.

  “Do you think it’s an acceptable way to behave?” he continues.

  “Yes.”

  He blinks at me. “No hesitation?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you think it’s acceptable?” he pushes.

  “Because I’m honest about it from the start,” I say. “I tell them exactly what’s going to happen so they can’t accuse me of stringing them along or dangling a fake carrot in front of them. I always ask if they’re married or if they have a girlfriend, so it’s not my fault if they lie about that. Plus, I use protection every single time.”

  “So who do you think would say it’s unacceptable?”

  “Noah. Ruby. Other women, mainly. Most men high-five me, so I know they don’t have a problem with my behaviour.”