He's tall in the distance, long sandy blond hair blocking his eyes. But that single ocean blue eye was on me. That ocean blue pierced me as nothing else could. A gaze that was locked on me but I found a way to navigate my storm. Filling the eye of my storm with water. Noah did in seconds what Theo couldn't manage. It was the first crack in me, a terrible wrenching in my gut.
As my heavy footfalls crunched through the gravel of the driveway. Every crunching step away from Theo's hurt. Him... betraying me with another woman was nothing to the public and legal doubt of my ability to care for my children. And those tears... never came. Water filled through the tiny hole in the eye but I was so used to water. So, accustomed to drowning, not breathing was more normal than breathing. That release of the storm I was in the center of would give me a tiny amount of solace. And the burning in my eyes that was threatening an explosion of emotion I was barely holding back.
I spent so much time carrying the load that I didn't have another step in me. Maybe, if I hadn't known what it was like to feel again. To reach out to trust again maybe it wouldn't have felt so bad. I'd still have that numb layer and Theo couldn't have found a way to hurt me again. That tiredness creeps back into my soul. Absolutely done with all of it. I stared into the stormy sky above the eye of my storm. The storm had been threatening to fall for the last three days. Cloud after cloud racing across the sky but passing us by until it didn't as the first drop of cold water hit my nose.
A large figure standing in the shadow of the warehouse just out of view of the paparazzi cameras. Took a step forward when I stopped in my tracks. His ocean gaze was hard and for just a moment I saw it slip past me and slide behind me. Not to the side where the paparazzi cameras were but just next to. And it clicked, that thunderous glare was pointed straight at Theo. And I turned my head back and wished I didn't. A stark Theo stared back at me. He had a hint of remorse finally and it was empty. I was so deep in that place beyond rage, beyond tears, and beyond all things so hard to stay in. Both being torn apart and protected in the center of the storm. But I have hope, and hope isn't my friend.
Fighting for control to move away and find a place where I could drown. But I didn't have any more in me. Nothing was left but emptiness. My top is getting more and more wet and the cold of the rain seeping into my bones. A chill that spread quickly until my body shook quietly.
Two warm arms surrounded me engulfing me in a furnace of all to familiar heat. Noah gathers me up lifting up and my legs instinctively wrap around his waist. My head resting in the crook of his neck. And the tears I thought were beyond all things finally fell. A release of tears that were in the same way you save yourself from a riptide. Logic is so hard to take but the only thing to do is surrender to the sea.
Noah's deep voice pops into my head. A memory of our first trip on the boat. Him standing and explaining to both me and the kids what to do when caught in a rip current. The type that pulls you away from land. You fight against it trying with everything you got to get back to shore and get tired out then drown. Even with a life vest on people have been known to panic. Take off the life vest and try and dive under the tide to get away and drown. He stood in the water towering over everything like the Neptune he is. And what was extremely deep in the water for everyone else was normal for him. He took turns teaching the kids how to survive a riptide. And then it was my turn. I don't know why I thought he wouldn't have drilled the knowledge into me as well. He's always so careful with all of us.
For some reason even though it was just practiced several times I failed the rip current. My tired body would get worn out and my brain thought that I could swim around it. And if i just kept working hard as I could that I'd be able to get to the side of a huge Noah beating the rip current. The kids were gone playing on the beach and they couldn't care about us. The clear water of the shores of California could put a few tropical islands to shame.
"One more time," I said to Noah with determination. He looked skeptical that the training was going to work out. I could almost hear his brain thinking that he was going to watch me like a hawk anytime I was near water.
"Are you sure?" He stressed the sure as if he could quietly convince me. Damn, Noah is just so earnest sometimes.
"Yes, I'm totally sure." I told him. "Any advice?" He thought about it for a second standing shirtless like a giant in the clear blue water. Ocean waves lapped at his naked broad chest while I couldn't stand in the water if I tried.
"When it comes to Riptides, it's hard to surrender to the water. You are being pulled out to sea so fast and were taught never to stop fighting. But the only way to save yourself is to surrender to the riptide." And with those few words from Noah clicked in my mind quickly. I couldn't stop fighting. I'd been fighting for so long that I didn't understand not fighting for every inch. They say black women are born tired. Some black women are more tired than others. But I didn't know how to stop fighting to try and make it so my head was above water. The concept was so foreign which makes sense why I couldn't do it as easily. My kid's trusts Noah and life hasn't taught them to be tired in the same way. They are a new generation and I love that for them. But I am... and it's hurting me. He leans me back bringing my legs up and my head resting against his back. He talks me through the riptide slowly and I keep my eyes closed imagining it again. But this time I surrendered to the pull, letting it pull me out gently.
And for a second time I surrendered to the riptide but this time I trusted Noah fully, I let him take me. Every bit of my weight, I wasn't beyond tears; I wasn't beyond anything. I whisper into his ears what happened. I let him take it all. Everything I had was all of it. And he kept me turning away from Theo and his greedy gaze as the rain fell. I felt no cold, only the salty sea and trees, pure Noah.
"I got you," Noah said.
I trusted, and I told him everything.
Nothing was left but us and the pain. I breathed through it big arms untrusting of any tears at all even though I was being cleansed. Because a few seconds more I wasn't sure what would be left of me and who was coming out on the other side.
We stayed like that locked together just out of reach of the ferocious cameras. Set aside from the world and my storm still raged. Combining with the falling rain as all those emotions could reach me. As they reshaped me in his arms. So much time passed, and he didn't let me go. As the rain washed my salty tears away. Too much had happened, I thought they were going to kill Noah, my kids are in trouble, everything it was too much.
"I am sorry," Noah said. "I should have told you about the blackmail."
"Blackmail?" Back the fuck up more. I had no more room for more nothing was left. Fucking blackmail? Lifting my head from Noah's neck I was caught in his sad ocean gaze.
"Yes, Drama's Kiss sent my agent a video. It-" he stop talking mid-sentence. My mind kicked into overdrive scumbitch sent Noah blackmail.
"So, you slept with her?" I asked hesitantly. The answer had the power to destroy me completely but if she did that to him it would be even more fucked up.
"No, I gave her an interview. She wanted to go on a date after the interviews and she made me nervous. I told her no," he said.
"You didn't fuck her?" I asked just to double check.
"No?" He answered.
"But how did you know how to put the condom on so well?" It was a dumb question but I'm so confused.
"Because you told me if we were not together I should wear a condom. We were not together," he said. Of course the logical, caring, and concise answer, it was very Noah. Just like the coffee he practices with the condom and putting it on.
"Why are you not asking if I assaulted her?" He questioned me.
"Of course not Noah. The only time you ever let her touch was when you were distracted. Otherwise you avoid her attempts at contact. Unexpected physical contact can cause you to stem. That's why I've always been careful." I had a headache brewing from being questioned for so long then waiting for Noah to get out. And the drama with Theo, my whole body was on overload. The only thing I didn't know about was the time I wasn't around him. I'd worried that he fucked her but he didn't. Which answered my questions in a nutshell. I'd fear like a motherfucker to ask him for fear he'd tell me yes. My duh you didn't do it expression seem to surprise the fuck out of Noah.
"Well..." Noah was still shell-shocked. He set me down tilting my chin up and I caught those blues as crystal as water. He was still sad. "It is my fault." The kiss was soft and sad. Without any of the Neptune he puts in his kisses normally. No Super Saiyan Kamehameha my soul, just deep sadness. As sad as the tide going out. I thought the saying I came up for him when he leveled up would have alleviated my headache but it only made me more sad. He took a step back from me, his fingertips slipping from my chin. "I caused problems and now it is an issue that affects your children. It is.." His fingers were getting odd as the overstimulation started. He was very nervous, "I thought maybe, but I made everything worse for you. It is my fault."
The absence of Noah's hands on me was unpalatable. An emotional rollercoaster that I was only hanging on to by the edges of my finger tip because he was holding me up. And without him even this tiny bit I was so tired.
"Noah, what are you trying to tell me?" I asked fear laced through every single syllable. He looked behind me and I turned behind me as well but Theo and his new SUV weren't there anymore. Just reporters' cameras that had the wrong angle to catch us behind the workshop. But Noah's gaze stayed on the place where that SUV was.
"If you need to go, I understand." His cheek ticked and but he kept his hands open instead of trying to hide his stemming from me. Noah took a big breath and another step back from me. I had to stop and reevaluate what was going on. We stuff in silence me with ugly tears and gentle rain ruining everything. Wet cold dripping soggy mess standing the rain. And Noah with those sad, sad ocean eyes waiting for me to throw him away. Not even waiting for it he was expecting it. And he was letting me go. Yes, it would be for my kids. Maybe I could get Theo to forgive me. Promise to not see Noah again or wait until Noah's legal troubles are over. I did violate Theo's trust. He asked me not to bring his kids around Noah anymore or he'd get people involved. Although I didn't agree with it, I also didn't tell him I let Noah say goodbye to them. Plus, when I did it I said nothing about it to Theo. Looking back, the kids probably told him because they were happy about it.
The more thoughts I had the colder I got. It was as if time was slowing down as I stopped and thought about my options. Really, I thought about it instead of simply reacting. The reality that I did have an option to walk away and make peace with Theo. Hell, I might even keep Noah in the end. Maybe... It was a clinical breakdown filled with the credulity of the reality of being a grownup. In divorce sometimes there are no heroes. Sometimes, both people are assholes. I shook as the cold sunk deeper into my bones. My head pounded like a sledgehammer, as the headache I was nursing at the police station morphed into pure pain.
At the end of my marriage I was frozen, tiny blocks of ice broken. Then in that state of surviving I met Noah. A man who didn't say a word to me for months. And I fixed things for him small, things and big things. Making sure the house had groceries. Signing for packages keeps track of who came on the property. Filing information like his paintings. It was a series of small things that fixed things so they were smooth in his life.
Then we got together, and maybe it was an accident. But it was the best accident of my life the night we fell together. I was Alice who walked through the looking glass into Noah's world. And so like the painting at the museum filled with color and life. He told me 'it's life rising up,' and he was right. I saw the world in flashes through his beautiful ocean eyes. My Neptune became something I could touch and feel and love. Endless colors of blue more than I ever thought could exist in this world. And when it ended all that blue haunted me and gave me so much hope at the same time.
Finding Noah again changed my life for the better. I always knew I loved him even before it was over. From the depths of me I knew it. But him being back made me understand how much. And in him I found myself, and re-found my own independence. The way he looked at my little apartment and the pride.
Wet sandy hair covers his gaze. Those ocean eyes slide away from me. Shoulders hunched making a man who is way too big look smaller but failing at it. Blood stains his henley, and a rip that wasn't in his jeans two days ago is as ragged as a wound. The neatly dressed lumberjack looking man I'm used to wasn't here. A man who could barely fit into his clothes with too much thickness appears so different from normal.
Even with everything about him so off he was still my Noah. Mine.
Noah nodded and then took a step away from me again turning heading towards Folsom Lake. It woke me up from my headache daze. I launch myself at his back, wrapping my arms around the big man. Holding him so tight I thought my limbs would break.
"Don't go," I say into his back. "I'm not giving up on us." At my words his shoulders relax. Turning around in my overly tight grip and hauling me to him. "I love you, Noah. You're my forever. Where the hell are you going, you frustrating man." I was a mess and hanging off this monster of a man but I'd be damn If I let go. Noah pulls me around to his front.
"Ok, Shiny," Noah says quietly into the top of my head and carries me with him towards Folsom Lake. And I don't let go of him.
A/n: I'm kinda sacred right now. we are hitting like the last chapters. I had myself a fit of crying cos im like this is the first book I live wrote. omg omg omg. I legit had so few chapters pre written it was nuts but no where near complete. I had to sit down write the chapter and just go off all my endless notes for this series. Had izzy not help me a bit with edit it would simply not been possible to push into this project.
About this project = under the writing hood moment. I had a lot of neo-african dispora fantasy in my last book. And I mixed it in with space base magical realism elements. Even though it was a erotica romance. I had so much fun doing it. I was like fuck it. I had hints of it in the orginal Fixing Noah and I've stretched the thought process out fully in finding Noah. I hope you will enjoy it. I'm honestly not fully sure how it will work out. It's just I enjoy neo-african dispora orisha and it's impact on america here. A personal enjoyment. If it reads a bit confusing tell me and I'll try to fix it. There's a flashback in the same scene so I can see how it can be very confusing.