Page 16 of The Fate of Us

“Okay.”

I pull her chair out as she goes to sit down. The table is small but I manage to fit all the dishes on the table. I chuckle as she dives into the pasta.

“Oh my god, this is fucking delicious. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Thanks.”

She grins at me after swallowing a piece of garlic bread. “Look what happens when you actually have a kitchen. You made it seem like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

I shrug. “I knew what to do. I just didn’t care. I survived just fine.”

“And now you care?”

“Now I have you.”

Her cheeks blush and I want nothing more than to wipe everything off this table, set her on top, and make the rest of her body blush as I devour her for dessert. But I restrain myself even though my dick is begging for it.

“So how did you find me here, Noah?”

I set my fork down and take a sip of water. “It wasn’t easy. I got lucky, really. I looked for you everywhere, Anna. I went to the daisy field. Everywhere in town your sister and parents said you might be. I called Seraphina and even Liam. No one had heard from you. It wasn’t until my conversation with Jed that I remembered you telling me about this place. Of course, I had only a vague recollection of where it was. When I talked to Tyler, I mentioned the color and he knew this place.”

“It kind of stands out a bit.” She smirks.

“Yeah it does. But I was willing to drive up and down the entire Carolina coastline looking for you.”

She grabs my hand. “I’m glad you found me.”

“Now tell me about this place. I saw the pictures of you on the wall. Probably would have been a lot easier to find if I just talked to Jess.”

Anna sips on her wine before answering. “Jess wouldn’t have known.”

“She’s been here though,” I say.

Anna nods. “She has, but no one knows I own it.”

I raise a brow at her and she continues. “It was my great-aunt’s house. I used to come here for a few weeks every summer with my sister. She hung out on the beach all day. I learned music. Aunt Sheila was the one who bought me my first guitar. She was a musician herself. She taught me everything. Tempo, melody, songwriting, guitar, piano, saxophone.”

“You play saxophone?”

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to hear me try.” I laugh as she tells her story. “Aunt Sheila got me into music. Taught me how to find the passion behind a song. She was my mentor and my best friend growing up. She passed away ten years ago. I was surprised as hell when a lawyer showed up at my apartment on campus. She left me this house. I came here all the time when I needed to get away from school. I wrote some of my best music here.”

“When you were in the band with Kyle?”

She nods. “Yeah. I wrote all the songs. I never let anyone come to this place. No one in the band ever knew about it.”

“You said Jess wouldn’t have known you were here?”

She eats the last bite of her food and sets her fork down. “My parents had a falling out with Aunt Sheila when I was sixteen. They wanted me to be a scientist or a doctor. I wanted to pursue music. She was my dad’s aunt and they never had a good relationship. But they let me and Jess come here because it gave them time to take a trip every year. Once I told them I wanted to be a musician like Aunt Sheila, they stopped talking to her. She didn’t have any other family, no kids, just the ones she taught music to. So the last few years of her life she spent mostly alone. Whenever I was able to make it out here, she would be so happy.

“I never told my family she left me this place. And they never asked the lawyers from what I know. They probably assumed it was sold on behalf of the executor to her estate.”

I clean up our plates and carry them to the sink. “When was the last time you came here?”

Anna brings our glasses to the sink then leans against the counter. “I’m going to need a lot more wine for that conversation.”

She helps me clean up from dinner. She washes the dishes while I dry them. We make small talk while we clean. I don’t want to pressure her into talking about what I am sure is going to make her upset.

The storm outside quieted down for a bit but a huge crash of thunder outside makes us both jump. Within minutes, the power goes out.

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