by Tasha Jones
“Noah, did you find all your answers this afternoon?” Aaron asked. Noah and I both snapped our heads up and looked at him. “With Tamika,” Aaron said to clarify, like both of us didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I uh… yeah. I think so,” Noah said, glancing at me.
“When did you see Tamika?” Vanessa asked. Her voice was accusing.
Noah’s face turned a slow shade of red. I hadn’t seen him stuck like this in years. If it hadn’t been such an uncomfortable situation I would have thought it wasfunny.
“Noah came round the hotel this afternoon to talk to Tamika. About the assets. Apparently you were upset,” Aaron said.
“You told her that?” Vanessa asked Noah. Her voice was high-pitched, her face pinched into a scowl.
“No, I didn’t.” Then he corrected himself. “I mean, yes, I did. I just wanted to know when you were going to get your share.”
“I’m getting a share?” Vanessa asked, her eyes lighting up.
“No,” I quickly interrupted. “What Noah means to say is that he came to ask why you couldn’t get your share.”
Aaron pulled up his eyebrows at Noah, who shrugged and looked at me.
“It wasn’t really a long discussion. He was worried about you.”
“Yeah, quick in, quick out,” Noah said. I blushed crimson. I was glad no one could see it on my dark skin. Noah realized what his words sounded like, and his face went bright red, too.
“What is he talking about?” Vanessa asked me, eventually pulling her eyes away from Noah and his blush.
“He just came to understand how it works. It was nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing to me,” Aaron said. “You two were going at it good when I came in.”
Again the sexual reference had me scrambling desperately for words. Noah rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, splitting his hand wide across his face, hiding his eyes.
“You were what?” Vanessa asked, her voice shrill. She looked at me, mouth hanging open.
“We just had a small argument, that’s what Aaron means,” I said.
Vanessa looked like she was going to have a nervous breakdown. Noah was leaning forward on his elbows, still hiding his face. He looked like a guilty teenager. Aaron leaned back, hands hooked into his pants pockets, and then the waitress arrived with two plates of food. She put them down in front of Noah and Vanessa. Another young waitress brought the other two plates.
“All of this sounds a lot like sexual innuendo,” Vanessa said with a grin. She thought she was making a joke.
“No!” Noah and I both cried out at the same time. Vanessa narrowed her eyes. Our reaction to the joke was too serious.
“I mean, nothing happened.” I took a deep breath and tried to get myself back under control.“It was a professional meeting.” I thought of his tongue around my nipple.
“I wouldn’t touch her with a stick,” Noah said and picked up a fork, poking his steak.
“Excuse me?” I said, glaring at Noah. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Yeah, that sounded a lot like an insult,” Aaron said. Why was he stirring? He leaned forward over the table, the steam of his food in his face. His hands were still in his pockets, but his attitude was hostile now. He’d gone from passive to active.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize your girlfriend was so sensitive. She was fine throwing insults my way a moment ago.” Noah’s green eyes blazed emerald.
“Noah, don’t,” I said. I reached my hand out and put it on his arm. “He’s not my..."
“Keep running your mouth. Keep going at Tamika like she’s the enemy and you’re going to get it,” Aaron interrupted me. His hands were on the table now.
“Aaron, calm down,” I said. “Vanessa?” I looked at her, hoping she could diffuse the situation a little. It would have been great if I didn’t have to try keep both men on their leashes. But Vanessa stared at everything with wide eyes, despondent and uninvolved.
“For a psychologist you’re not very good at dealing with messy situations,” I blurted out.
“Don’t you talk to her that way,” Noah said to me, jabbing a finger in my direction. It felt like a physical offense even though he wasn’t touching me. He was sticking up for her.
“That’s it,” Aaron said, pushing his chair out. The next moment he launched at Noah half over me and half over the table. Knives and forks clattered to the floor and Noah’s chair splintered underneath him with the impact.
Vanessa screamed. The two men rolled on the floor, tumbling over each other. Aaron threw a fist and connected with Noah’s jaw. Noah cursed a string of colorful words, and swung for Aaron, who managed to duck out of the way. The movement threw him off balance, and Noah kneed him in the ribs. Aaron groaned and went down. Noah climbed on top of Aaron, pinning him down, and slugged him in the face. Noah’s face was red, with a white line around his mouth, and his pupils were pinpricks of black in a sea of light green that radiated anger.
Vanessa jumped up, finally spurred into action, and tried to pull Noah off Aaron, but he wouldn’t budge. He kept punching, arms pounding like jackhammers, pumping one after the other. The sickening crunch of bones sounded through the restaurant, and I knew that everyone was looking at us now.
Noah wasn’t stopping. He wouldn’t. He’d blanked out and he was in a world of his own. He wasn’t fighting Aaron anymore. He was fighting his own demons, and Aaron was the unlucky guy to be in the crossfire this time. I’d seen Noah do this so many times. It was the side of himself he hated.
“Stop it!” I yelled. Aaron’s nose was bleeding badly, with blood spatters on both their shirts. I grabbed Noah around the shoulders and shoved him off balance, grabbing his face between my hands, and forced him to look at me.
“Stop it, Noah. This isn’t you. You don’t have to be like him.”
His eyes were still wild, his hands curled in sledgehammer fists, but he’d stopped hitting. Aaron held his nose and swore bitterly, trying to roll to the side. I looked Noah in the eye and shut out the world around us. This had happened a million times before. Noah had lost it every now and then while we were dating. He’d gotten in so many fights it was ridiculous at some point. And the only person that had ever been able to bring him back was me, because I wasn’t scared of him. Because I was crazy enough to climb into a fight and pull him out.
“Look at me. I’m here, baby. Let it go. He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.” My voice was soft, soothing. Noah’s eyes were still void. “Come back to me,” I said. “You don’t have to do this.” His eyes focused on me, and his face crumpled. He buried his face in my shoulder. He wasn’t crying, but he would need some time to bounce back from this.
“You lot had better get out of my restaurant, and fast,” a deep voice said behind me. It was Mr. Elgar. I knew him. He was old and grey, and hunched over with the weight of time. But his voice was still as commanding as ever, quiet and firm, and in his hands he had a rifle that spoke a lot louder than he did, with the business end pointed in our direction.
Chapter 6 - Noah
I stood on the river banks, with the dim lighting of the River Café lighting up the sky that was starting to turn an inky color. The water lapped softly against the sand just ahead of my feet. I had my hands in my pockets.
A lot had happened tonight. A lot of things I hadn’t wanted to show the world. I’d thought that side of me had died with my dad. And now it turned out that it wasn’t him that brought that out in me. It was me. I would never be rid of it.
I sighed.
“Noah?” Vanessa called behind me. She stood at the top, where the grass only started sloping toward the river. When she spotted me she headed down towards me, walking awkwardly with her heels sinking into the grass.
“Hey,” I said softly, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Aaron needs to go to the hospital.”
I swallowed hard. That had been my fault.
“I’m coming,” I sa
id, but she shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take him. He doesn’t really want you to drive him there.”
I didn’t blame him, although it seemed to me with as little friends as he had in this place he couldn’t exactly afford to be picky. Well… that was beside the fact that Vanessa quite obviously didn’t have a problem taking care of him. I guess I didn’t blame her.
I nodded, confirmation. “Thanks for doing this.”
“It’s not like I have much of a choice. Tamika is nowhere to be found, and it’s my job to show them that at least one of us can be civil.”
“That’s not fair,” I said, but my brain was still turning around the fact that Tamika wasn’t around. Where was she, then? Had she left?
“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said. Vanessa didn’t respond, no nod of acceptance or a kind word or anything like that.
“Are you out of your mind?” she finally asked, just when I’d thought she would walk away without bringing it all up again. Her voice was demanding. Accusing. It felt like it was more pain on a previous injury. An already-bruised bit of skin that was poked again.
“I’m really sorry about what happened in there,” I said. I hated referring to it. I hated admitting it happened at all. But Vanessa deserved an apology. “I was wrong to lose it that way. I… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She shook her head, looking across the river.
“I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. I don’t know what’s happening, and that Tamika… what’s going on with her?”
I took a deep breath. I hadn’t told Vanessa because I thought I could keep it all under wraps. Obviously I’d failed at that.
“We dated for a long time when we were kids,” I said. It felt strange talking about it when I’d pushed it away for so long. When we were kids… it felt like ages ago, and when I looked at her it felt like no time had passed at all.
“You what?” Vanessa stared at me incredulously. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me at any point this week? Do you know how embarrassing it is to find out that my boyfriend went to some other women’s hotel room?”
“Sweetheart, I was only trying to help..." I started, but her face turned to stone.
“Don’t you ‘sweetheart’ me. I don’t know who you are anymore. And that stunt you pulled in there? That’s not the Noah I thought I knew. What the hell was that?”
I shrugged. There was a lot about me that Vanessa just didn’t know. I figured that what was in the past had to stay in the past. I didn’t think it was still going to be in the present.
“It won’t happen again,” I said. My voice sounded strange to me, different, distant. “It’s just been a weird week for me.”
Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest and she reminded me of an angry schoolteacher. I didn’t feel like she would be there for me or try and understand what I was going through. I guessed I couldn’t expect her to. How would I have felt if the roles were reversed? If Vanessa had been the one that had a long lost lover return? I was already murderous towards Aaron; I had a lot less right to be upset with him than Vanessa had to be about Tamika.
“Things will be different now, I promise.” Not just because I was pretty sure Tamika would never see me again, but because I had to try and get my head in the game. I had to stop looking back, and see things for how they were now. Tamika wasn’t my girlfriend anymore – she hadn’t been for a long time – and Vanessa was right in front of me, willing to sacrifice a lot of her time for me.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said and turned away from me.
“What do you mean?”
She stopped and spoke to me without turning to face me. “I can’t do this Noah. I can’t sit here watching you become someone completely different, and think it’s fine. I work with troubled teenagers. You’re a bit out of my age bracket.” She walked away from me, and I was left behind, standing alone at the water.
I stood for a long time, the sound of the water the only thing keeping me company. Cheer and laughter floated down from the River Café.
The whole scene earlier had been embarrassing after I’d pulled myself together enough to care. Mr. Elgar kicking us out like that, after I’d known him my whole life. Aaron had crept back with his tail between his legs to pay the bill and damages.
“Are you okay?’ I heard a soft voice behind me. When I turned she stood behind me, almost as dark as the falling night itself. Her light green top was the only bit of color in the night. Where had she come from? I wondered if she knew how unbalanced she made me feel.
I shrugged, unsure if she could see me.
“Where did you disappear to? Vanessa said you’d disappeared.”
“I went to talk to Mr. Elgar, see if I could smooth things over a bit after the spectacle in there.”
“How did he take it?”
“Not too well. It’s a family restaurant. There were kids in there. I think it’s safe to say that none of us are really welcome there anymore.”
I sighed. “That wouldn’t be a first.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, walking to stand next to me.
“For what? I was the one that ended up being an asshole.”
She shook her head. “It takes two to tango. It was just a bad situation, and I didn’t really do much to make it better. I know that Aaron and Vanessa being there made it even worse, but I could have controlled the situation if I really tried. I didn’t try.”
I sighed and we stood together in silence for a while.
“Is Vanessa alright?” Tamika asked when the night was so dark around us I could only see the reflection of the moon on the moving water.
“She’s okay, I think. She’s got something to fuss over. She’s good at that when it doesn’t involve confrontation.”
“I noticed that’s not her strong point. I gather she fixes messes, she doesn’t prevent them.”
I nodded. She didn’t do anything helpful tonight. There were more and more situations where I realized I hadn’t actually known her at all.
“I’m not even sure what’s happening right now,” I admitted. “We might have broken up, or be on a break, or something. She’s mad at me, but she’s so cryptic sometimes I feel I have to have a psychology degree of my own just to understand her.”
“I feel like it’s all my fault,” Tamika said softly, putting her hand on my arm. Her skin was warm through my shirt material. Warm and familiar. I suddenly wondered how I’d managed without her for so long.
“You know what? I’m not sure I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s a bit of a relief, in a way, and I don’t think it was right if I feel that way about it. A relationship should be about how you can’t live without someone, shouldn’t it?”
I couldn’t read her face in the dark. Her eyes held a lot of thoughts I didn’t have any access to, and I wondered if she tried to take my words and relate it to the things that had happened in the relationship between us so many years ago.
“I screwed everything up, didn’t I?” she said and for a moment I wasn’t sure if she was talking about tonight or what had happened between us long ago.
“If things had been the way they should have, it probably wouldn’t have happened.” That was the safest answer I could think of without asking her outright what she was saying. The truth was I was too scared to talk about the past. I was scared it would remind her that she hated me. I was always tip-toeing around the topic, trying to keep her forgetting that it was me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I told myself I was fooling myself thinking she was stupid enough not to know what all of this was about, but as long as I could pretend she had forgotten what had happened between us, I could look her in the eye.
Tamika didn’t answer. Instead she stepped closer to me and leaned her head on my shoulder. I took a chance and put my arm around her. It was friendly, companionable. Nothing suggestive, nothing more than it was. And it was perfect. I had her at my side again, and at that very moment, it was all I
cared about.
***
I opened my eyes, blinking against the sunlight that sliced across my pillow through the crack in the curtains. I couldn’t remember when last I’d woken up so long after sunrise. Usually I was out of bed, driven by some unrecognizable force to keep moving all the time.
Someone stirred next to me, and I turned my head. Tamika was wrapped in the sheets, her shoulders visible. Her smooth caramel skin was flawless and rich against the cream sheets. I smiled.
She’d come home with me the night before, and we’d fallen into bed. Everything had been perfect, the way it used to be. And waking up next to her now was like Christmas morning.
She rolled over and draped her arm over my chest. I didn’t feel tied down the way I usually did when someone’s arm was wrapped around me. Tamika was more like a partner, an equal, not a ball and chain. She was warm and soft, cuddly with a night’s sleep. She nuzzled my neck, and my body responded to her immediately. I was rock hard right away, every fiber in me calling out to take her again. She was here, and I wanted every little bit of her as many times as I could have it.
I kissed her face, planting kisses all over her cheeks, her forehead, and finally on her lips. She smiled, eyes still closed.
“That’s a nice way to wake up,” she said. Her voice was husky with sleep.
“You’re a nice way to wake up,” I said and ran my hands under the sheets, over her body. Her skin was warm, and her breasts were soft under my hands. Her nipples responded lazily to my touch, taking their time to tighten and standing at attention. She pulled up her knee and hooked her leg over mine, pulling her hips against the side of mine.
I kissed her, exploring every part of her mouth like I hadn’t tasted it all before. And she kissed me back like she would never kiss anyone else again. Somewhere deep inside me I hoped that that would be true. I wanted to stay in this surreal bubble forever.
I ran my hand over her side, following the S curve of her body and doubling back to grab her ass. She had the best backside I’d ever come across. Even before, it had been amazing. She was curvy and soft and she was a goddess.