Page 43 of My Kind of Trouble
Her raincoat clung to her skin as they ran to take shelter in the bamboo hut that their class would be held in. The temperature was significantly lower in Vietnam than it had been in Thailand and, even though it had been comfortable so far, her wet skin cooled her to the bone, causing her to shiver. She suddenly wasn’t looking forward to the next four hours.
Despite them being warned at their hostel that there was the potential for a monsoon this week, Lola had insisted they still book the trip, adamant that they shouldn’t let something as unpredictable as weather make them waste their trip. But, right now, as her matted hair stuck to her forehead and water droplets trailed down her face, she wished she hadn’t listened.
A sudden, welcome warmth crept up her back. She wanted to lean into it, her eyes momentarily fluttering closed. But when that same heat brushed across her neck and made it to the shell of her ear, that shiver was back. The earthy scent of the coconut forest was replaced by notes of tobacco and vanilla, and Noa’s eyes flew open again.
‘We can go back, you know. I know this isn’t what you planned,’ a husky voice whispered in her ear.
His fingers came up to pull her jacket over her shoulder, where it had fallen down, and the brush of them against herarm sent a spark of electricity through her. Her body was a traitor. She couldn’t stop it from reacting to him.
She jumped forward then, like he had burned her, and, had she been watching from the outside, she would have found the whole scene overdramatic and comical.
Alex’s eyes widened, but then his expression softened like he understood her need to put space there, to find a way to dampen this attraction between them.
Like he understood her fears.
And he did.
Because, surely, he had the same ones that she did.
She was suddenly thrown into a memory from twelve years ago. She’d known her and Alex had a special connection growing up, but she had always been Ryan’s little sister, a little too young for him, and anything beyond friends had felt out of reach. He and Ryan loved tormenting her, scaring off any boys who looked her way. And she had thought that was all it could be.
Until, when she turned sixteen, that two-year age gap suddenly didn’t seem like a barrier. And neither had Ryan, until the night she had spiralled into a panic attack on the living room sofa and Alex had been there to comfort her. It was the most intimate moment she had ever experienced with anyone, letting him see her in such a vulnerable state. But she hadn’t felt any fear letting him see her that way.
She’d been so lost in that moment with him. He was all she saw, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he’d ever seen her as more.
They sat close enough to share a whisper between them when Ryan had walked in. He turned on his heel, claiming to have forgotten something in his room, and Alex had followed him. To this day, Noa didn’t know if either of them knew thatshe, too, had followed and overheard the conversation that came next.
Ryan had asked Alex what he’d walked in on, and then warned him not to cross the line and make their friendship ‘weird’. Her heart had sunk. And she’d never forgotten it since. It had been on repeat in her mind the night they had indeed ‘crossed the line’ and why she’d panicked and withdrawn.
‘Noa?’
Alex’s voice cut through her thoughts, and he looked concerned. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flicked across her face as if assessing what he could see on it. How long had she stood lost in that memory? It had, however, acted like a bucket of cold water over her head, a reminder of why she needed to ignore the desire she felt whenever he was around.
Looking around, she saw Thea and Lola were getting their life vests ready to jump into their boat.
‘Guys, wait up,’ Noa called, ignoring Alex’s concern completely and tugging to fasten a life vest over her shoulders as fast as possible. The pre-cooking class outing suddenly felt like a wonderful idea if it got her off this dock.
Now the rain felt like the least of her worries, and she jumped into the coconut boat like it was her route to safety. Lola and Thea jumped in beside her and the boat rocked back and forth in a see-saw motion with the movement, until their weight balanced, and they were ready to set out onto the river.
Noa stared ahead as a man paddled them through the grey-green water that snaked a path through the densely packed forest. Tall fans of vibrant green leaves curled outwards over the river like umbrellas, but it wasn’t quite enough to shade them from the rain that lashed down, bouncing off the water. The grey sky mirrored her own sombre mood and Noa turned to the girls, who were staring at her with questioning gazes.
‘Don’t,’ Noa warned, hoping it would deter them from probing her to talk.
Instead, Lola and Thea shared a look that made her think she was about to be part of some kind of intervention.
‘Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like whatever you’re about to say?’ she groaned.
Thea nodded at Lola, and it made Noa laugh. They had all very much settled into their roles within the group and Lola, the most outgoing one of them, had somehow become a kind of spokesperson. But, if they needed Lola’s tendency to not beat around the bush here, Noa worried about where this conversation was about to go. She shifted in her seat with anticipation.
‘Well, I’d like to remind you that we are your friends, and we say this because we care,’ Lola began.
Noa felt her heart pinch at that, because she knew it was true.
‘We only speak the truth, and we have absolutely no control over how you react to that truth,’ Lola reasoned in a manner that made her look like she was delivering some kind of presentation.
Noa almost burst out laughing at her serious expression but, somehow, managed to keep a straight face.
‘Yeah, we wouldn’t be very good friends if we didn’t point out the glaringly obvious truth that you seem to be ignoring. Whether you like it or not,’ Thea shrugged.
