Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
And still, I’d argued with him, telling him to go away, that I didn’t want to speak to him, that he didn’t get the message.
He’d walked up to me, grabbed my face halfway through my ranting, and said, “You’re so stubborn. Shut up,” and then kissed me.
It’d been just like this.
No.
This was too much.
This was bad.
This was not going to happen.
“You need to leave,” I said, shrugging off his touch. I stepped away from him and turned my back to him, grabbing the drain unblocker again so I could focus on that. “Shut the door behind you, please.”
I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and he dropped his chin to his chest, then took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair before turning away and walking out. The door closed with a thud, and I stared at the bright orange bottle in my hands as the rush of adrenaline slowly subsided and my heartrate returned to normal.
If I’d stayed quiet, would he have kissed me?
No. He wouldn’t have. He had a girlfriend, and that wasn’t who he was. Even if I thought for a second he might have done.
Actually, I was more worried about me being the one to mess up like that.
Despite how many times I insisted it’d been ten years and that we’d changed, the fact was that the Noah I knew was still in there. His eyes, his smile, the way my nerve endings came to life when he touched me—that was all the same boy I’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
Not that he was a boy anymore.
I finished unscrewing the cap on the drain unblocker and squeezed it hard, squirting the thick gel down the plughole with a sigh.
Bollocks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I was in a staring competition with a cat.
Except this cat was wearing a tuxedo jumper, complete with 3D bow tie, and was most definitely judging me for the bucket load of Jelly Babies I was scarfing down.
Despite the insanity of my personal life, the reason we’d gone to Declan’s wake last night had not been to get absolutely shitfaced on cocktails, as Gwen had been reminding Ash all day, but to get information about who could have killed him.
Me and Ash had done a terrible job.
Gwen had also not been shy about mentioning that more than once.
However, the oldies had not followed our wayward lead. They’d taken that as an excuse to exploit Ash into letting them continue the painting of their garden gnomes despite it not being a Monday, and I wasn’t going to lie, I kind of wanted to paint one myself.
You know, for the bed and breakfast.
He could live in the overgrowth with God knows what else.
This situation was how I’d ended up sitting at the counter, eating my way through two packets of Jelly Babies, while staring into Tofu’s eyes.
I couldn’t say I’d ever planned to have a romantic stare down with a hairless cat, but I’d done weirder things in my life.
Sadly.
“Gwen, your cat is starting to scare me,” I said, plopping another Jelly Baby in my mouth.
“Stop eating the Jelly Babies, then,” she retorted, focused on her little gnome’s shoes. “He’ll go away if you stop.”
At least they were painting and not drinking.
I was pretty sure I’d throw up if I had to smell alcohol right now. I might have gotten away with the headache part of the hangover, but the longer the day went on, the more unsettled my stomach felt.
The Jelly Babies probably weren’t helping.
“I can’t stop,” I said to Gwen, grabbing another. “It’s like a compulsion.”
“I get that with Pringles,” Barb said, nodding. “You really can’t stop once you pop.”
Viv eyed her. “Isn’t it ‘once you pop you can’t stop?’”
“I don’t know, Viv. I just pop them.”
Ash rolled her eyes and scooped up Tofu, finally bringing our rather unsettling eye contact session to an end.
Thank God. He was starting to give me the heebie-jeebies.
Tofu meowed in protest, and Ash put him down on the floor, then walked over to me and leant against the counter.
“Have you really eaten all those Jelly Babies?” she asked.
I peered into the bag. “No. Not yet. I’m probably about to, though.”
Gwen eyed us both. “If you’re done, we need to discuss what we learnt last night.”
“That’s what we’ve been waiting for you to do,” Ash pointed out. “You’re the ones with the information.”
“Because you two were drunk tarts.” Betty put her paintbrush in the water pot and turned around. “Didn’t Noah take you both home last night?”
“Against my will,” I said, shoving another sweet in my mouth. “I had no say in the matter.”
“I have no idea,” Ash said.
“That’s because you passed out on the backseat.”
Gwen clicked her tongue, tutting. “My good name is besmirched in this town thanks to that.”
Ash rolled her eyes. “Please, Granny. If anyone’s sullying your name, it’s you and your bloody cat you take on walkies. Not to mention your not-so-secret flirting with Montgomery Spencer.”