Page 53 of My Kind of Trouble
He lifted his eyes to the sky, continuing to slowly swing back and forth.
‘I bet you can’t count the stars,’ he challenged, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Noa saw it for what it was, a distraction. She took his cue, if for no other reason than he knew she couldn’t back down from a challenge.
Gazing at the twinkling lights in the sky proved harder than she thought, though. They lulled her into a relaxed state, her concentration waning, and she constantly lost track of where she was. The more she tried to focus, the more stars seemed to appear.
He chuckled next to her, like he thought he’d won. Her eyes cut to him, and she narrowed them.
‘You know, you’ve caught me on a bad day. I’m tired. But I promise you this Alex Fletcher, I will count all those stars one day.’
From the beach, Alex watched her, and she thought maybe he had been lost in the memory, too.
‘I thought you’d have counted them ten times over by now. You’re never usually one to drag your feet when it comes to a challenge,’ he joked.
But, for some reason, the joke made something inside her feel like it was sinking. It was a reminder of how much she had lost herself.
A light from a boat caught her attention in the distance as it rocked in time with the waves. That was what her twenties had felt like, she thought, being lost at sea with no idea which direction to take. She wasn’t where she had pictured herself being when she was a young girl. But then, did she want that? Or did she want to forge a whole new path and set off in a different direction with a destination she had never plannedfor? Or would continuing on the same route she had been be the safest bet?
She, honestly, felt like she could imagine ten different versions of her life for herself, and she was running out of time to do them all. And the prospect of picking one felt overwhelming.
This had always been her problem, her inability to go with the flow and let life work itself out. It was something she longed to be able to do.
‘There are a lot of things I thought I’d have done, that I said I would do, but have been forgotten, somehow,’ Noa whispered, not knowing if she was only talking to herself.
But Alex heard, and his eyes softened. But not in pity. Understanding.
‘Whatever you want to do, Noa, you can make it happen. But just know, you don’t need all the answers right now. Maybe just being here and enjoying the moment can be enough?’
She nodded, because for some reason, she felt like if this was all she had, moments in time like this with him, then it really would be enough.
When Noa wrote that list almost three months ago, she could never have envisaged this in a thousand years and yet, Alex had. He had remembered what she had written and made it happen.
And the fact that it felt like a déjà vu moment made it even more significant.
The longer they lay there, the closer their bodies seemed to move toward each other without their permission, like there was a gravitational pull between them, until they were practically cuddled into each other on the beach.
‘Alex.’
‘Yes, Trouble?’
There was something she’d been dying to ask him, but every time she’d tried, the words got caught in her throat and she’d been too embarrassed to speak them aloud.
‘Why have you never been in a relationship? I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I promise, I’m not judging. I’m just curious is all. I know there have been a lot of women and…’
‘You been keeping tabs on me?’ Alex smirked towards the sky, like he had been loving every second of her ramblings and he was not going to put her out of her misery just yet.
‘Well, when you and my brother practically live in each other’s pockets, it’s not exactly hard,’ she quipped. ‘In fact, it’s impossible not to.’
He turned his head from the stars to look at Noa then, ‘You really want to know?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,’ she whispered, because the moment felt too intimate to be shared.
‘Well, as you so politely put it, there have been a lot of women, but there has only ever been one who felt worth working on my insecurities for. It feels embarrassing to admit at age thirty, but when your dad leaves like that, like it’s the easiest thing in the world and you mean nothing, you believe it for a while. Like, if the one person who is meant to love and support you endlessly can cast you aside without a second thought, then what does that say about you? And then you start to think that, if he can, then everyone else can, too. So, keeping everyone at arm’s length, lashing out in anger and making yourself harder to love, just seems like the easiest choice.’
Those words wrapped claws around her heart and squeezed.
‘But there was one girl who was worth making the hard choice for?’
