Finding North (4 page)

“I’m not my mother,” I snap, striding back to the table, my finger pointed at his face. “But is it any wonder she killed herself with a husband like you?”

My father’s eyes are quiet and contemptuous, but his bloated jowls redden from more than just a lifetime of fishing in the elements. I embarrassed him.
Wouldn’t be the first time, I guess.

It’s no secret that my mother killed herself. When I was six years old she got up early one morning and walked off the wharf in front of our house. I’m told she suffered with depression. All I know is that the second she was gone, all of my father’s anger transferred off of her and onto me. And he hasn’t let a day slip by since where he hasn’t showed me in some small way that I’m the reason his existence is so fucking miserable.

“What did you say, you little shit?”

“Hey, come on, boys.” Smithy—a skinny red-headed Millwright from work—says, patting my dad on the back. Smithy’s what I like to call a smoother-over. He hates tension of any kind, so drinks at the bar with me and dad practically see him having fucking kittens most days. “He didn’t mean nothing by it, Rob. He’s just blowin’ off steam is all. You were giving him a good ribbin’, so let’s lighten up, okay?”

“Get your hands off me,” Dad says, and he takes a step towards me. I just look at him. It isn’t the first time in my adult life he’s wanted to throw down, and I’m not the cowering boy I was once, and I’m not little any more either. I’ve put him on his arse several times since I became a man, and he doesn’t recover as quickly as he once used to. Must be a terrible feeling that—a father’s strength overthrown by his son’s.

Like the worthless dick he is, Dad spits on the floor and stalks out of the pub, and I head over to the bar because I’m done with the accusing glances his buddies throw my way.

“Still a mean old fucker, isn’t he?” Will mutters, as he wipes a rag over the bar.

“Yeah, well we weren’t all fortunate enough to be blessed with Mike Brady for a dad,” I say.

“You gonna buy a drink? Or should I pull up the couch so you can lie down and tell me all about your feelings?” Will smiles in that cocky way that only Will can. If he were anyone else, he’d get his skull beaten in because of that douche-kebab smile.
Always the shit stirrer
. “It’ll make a nice change from bottling them up for the last twelve years.”

“Gimme a beer,” I say, attempting to hide my grin by scrubbing my hand over my mouth and chin and scratching at my stubble.

“Tell you what.” Will rests his hand on the counter, piercing me with those big dark eyes. “Why don’t I give you a scotch and a piece of advice instead?”

I glance around to see who’s watching, and lean closer when I notice no one gives a shit about what I’m doing. Except maybe Will’s work colleague, Jenny. Yeah, that Jenny. We fucked a handful of times after that Christmas, the last being two days before her wedding to some arsehole from Valentine—another small fishing community not far from here. Jenny called off her wedding, but that had little to do with me and more to do with the realisation that she didn’t wanna be a fishmonger’s wife, popping out babies and scooping up scales from inside the washing machine. Jenny watches the two of us closely, but when her gaze meets mine, her cheeks flame red, and she turns away, busying herself with cleaning down her side of the bar.

“And what would that be?” I say softly, as Will takes down a bottle of Glenfiddich
and pours us both a dram.

“Stop giving a fuck,” he says, and raises his drink.

“That easy, huh?”

“Worked for me.” He smiles. An actual smile. Not one intended with malice, or the cocky grin he’d served up just seconds ago, but a real, live genuine smile. And it’s a beautiful thing. I haven’t seen Will Tanner smile since … well, it’s been a very long time.

I smile too, because I always found Will’s moods infectious, and then I remember where I am, and more importantly who I am, and fear grips me, sweat tingling down my spine and unease roiling in my gut. “You tell anyone about the other night?”

“You mean about the hot piece of arse I fucked on my futon? Or the
other
night, when you took a little nap in my bar and I had to carry you up to my room and have my way with you?”

“What the fuck?” I hiss.

Will rolls his eyes. “Jesus, North. Once upon a time you had a sense of humour.”

“Yeah well, things change.” I down the scotch.

“Yes, they do.” Will holds out his hand. It takes me a beat to realise that he wants me to pay him for the overpriced dram he just poured.

“You know, once upon a time you used to give me booze for free,” I say.

“That was when you were a sure thing,” he says, smoothly. “Now you’re just another drunk arsehole in my bar, wanting free booze.”

Climbing off the stool, I fish out my wallet and throw some money on the counter top. I give Will the onceover, wishing I could tell him, but instead I turn and walk away without another word.

If only he had any idea about what I wanted
.

C
hecking my watch, I shut off the dishwasher so its infernal beeping won’t make me fucking crazy. I sent Jenny home early because there’s just one customer, and I wasn’t happy with the way she was flirting with him. I like Jenny; she’s a good girl. No wait, scratch that—no way is she a good girl. She’s probably a fucking succubus in the sack, but for a sex-starved soul-sucking demon, she’s pretty likeable. I just don’t like it when she’s flirting with my … I just don’t like it when she flirts.

“Last drinks,” I call to the near empty room.

“Dude, seriously?” North says. “There’s me and you here; that’s it.”

“Then I’m calling last drinks for you.”

North polishes off the remainder of his beer and drums his hands on the counter. “And if I throw down two hundred bucks and ask you to pass me the bottle of Bundy?”

“Then I’ll give it to you.” I lower my tone, roll my eyes over his torso as if my gaze alone could devour him. I shouldn’t flirt. I know this, but I do it anyway. Despite knowing the pub is empty, he glances around anxiously.

North pulls out his wallet and tosses a couple of fifties on the bar. He looks pointedly at me and I snatch up the notes, shoving them in my pocket before pulling the Bundy rum from the shelf. I place the bottle in front of him.

“You know we sell it at the bottle shop for forty bucks, right?” I grab another glass, dropping in a few cubes of ice. When I reach for the bottle, North’s hand covers mine. He glares, and his gaze burns into mine.

“I believe that’s mine,” he says.

“Always playing games, North,” I mutter. “Haven’t you outgrown that yet?”

“I remember you liked games,” he whispers, and I have to work to school my expression.

Twelve years on and still such a cock tease.

Others may have tiptoed around danger, afraid to wake it, but North liked to seize its balls and give a good firm tug. And there was nothing he liked more than to rattle someone. And he’d always been so good at rattling me.

“I liked a lot of things I outgrew.” I snatch the bottle away and pour a generous helping into my glass. North’s gaze burns a hole into me. He frowns.

“Like me?” he asks, as though he doesn’t already know the answer to that question.

I glare at him and I’m met with a slow, solemn nod of understanding. North clears his throat and pours a drink, downing it straight. For a long time, neither of us say a word, then he asks, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Be yourself?” His gaze doesn’t meet mine. Instead, he stares down into the near empty crystal, as though he might find the answers he seeks in the remnants of the amber liquid in the bottom of the glass. “How do you live here, Will?”

“Well, you take all your shit and stuff it inside boxes, and then you move it from one house to the next.” I pepper my words with sarcasm because his question caught me off-guard, and being an arsehole has always been my defence mechanism.

“How do you wake up every day and be exactly who you want to be?”

I shrug, playing down the effect his questions have on me, but inside I want to scream.
Is he fucking kidding me with this shit?

With a tight-lipped expression, and anger twisting my gut, I say, “I don’t know how to be anybody else.”

He nods. I can read this man like an open book, always have. The hard set to his mouth, the sadness behind his gaze? He needs to unburden his feelings, but he won’t because we’re not friends. Not anymore. And though I may be the only person in the entire world he can talk to, instead he swallows it back like the liquor in his glass, and I grow tired of trying to find North in all that he won’t say.

Jesus fucking Christ, I am too sober for this shit. We both need our man-cards revoked
.

“Besides, I happen to be pretty fucking awesome. Why would I want to be anyone else?” I down the rest of my drink and snatch up the bottle, pouring another. “You can’t control what people think of you, North. You don’t get a say in what makes them tick, in what they’re okay with and what they aren’t. That’s beyond even your capabilities. The thing you do have a say in is whether you’re okay with you.”

“And if I’m not?” he asks.

“If you’re not, then fix it.” My eyes lock with his, daring him to break through those walls he puts in place because of everybody else’s expectations. He knows exactly what I mean by that, but it doesn’t matter. Despite all his bravado, North is afraid, and he’ll never change. He cares too much what people think.

Before he can pour another drink, I snatch up our glasses and walk over to the sink to rinse them.

“I wasn’t finished.”

“Oh, you’re finished here; trust me on that.”

“Right.” He grabs the bottle off the bar and shakes it at me. “Well, thanks for the drink.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

North slides off his stool and grabs his jacket from the empty seat beside him. I follow him to the door, turning off a couple of switches along the way, shutting off the overheads and leaving only the lights on in the stairwell and the neon signs above the bar.

He turns abruptly, forcing me to run into him. I’m just about to make some snarky comment about him being drunker than I thought when he sets the bottle down on a nearby table and bunches his fist in my shirt. Our eyes lock. A beat passes. One moment ekes out into an eternity as we breathe one another’s breath, and then it snaps like a rubber band when North brings his lips down on mine. His tongue pushes into my mouth. Sharp molasses rolls over my tastebuds and rough hands slide into my hair to hold me in place.

As if I would try to pull away.

As if I could ever say no to him
.

I kiss him back, deeper, angrier, lashing my tongue against his as if it could absolve him of my irritation, of my greed.

I should stop, but I won’t
.

North shifts his body against mine, grinding his hard-on against me. I want to shove him to his knees and push my cock so far down his throat that he chokes on it. I want to hurt him. I want to punch his goddamn face in for making me feel this way, but when his hand slides from my hair down my torso to cup my dick, I remember everything. I remember who we used to be, and who we are now, and I let out a disgruntled moan and push away.

“Go home, North.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

“What are you doing?”

I rake my hands through my hair and glower at him. “Protecting myself.”

“From me?” he asks, bewildered.

“Yes, from you,” I say, furious with myself, and angrier still that he doesn’t know why I’d need to protect my heart from him. “Go home to your safe little hetero world. This never happened.”

His brows shoot skyward in surprise. “Are you blowing me off?”

“If I were blowing anything, you’d know about it,” I say and lean around him, opening the door.

Four women get out of a silver SUV and run across the parking lot towards us—or they try to run. Most just stumble around on their stripper heels, and one girl has no shoes on at all. North freezes when he realises that we aren’t alone. I’m sure they didn’t see anything, but his reaction is damning. I give him a weary look that pretty much says I have his number, and he glances down at his feet.