Page 1 of Risky Taste
Chapter one
NOAH
I button my shirt, rolling my shoulders to settle the fabric against my skin. The shirt is just short of too crisp, like ironing it was the wrong idea, despite the pristine image I like to keep. Maybe that’s just my mood talking. I haven’t slept right in weeks and today isn’t shaping up to be any different.
I rub a hand down my face, staring at my reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the sight before me. My eyes are hollowed out, tired, like a man living on borrowed time. Cheeks are thinned out, my face with all sharp angles and not in the good way. The hair could use some love instead of the rat’s nest of curls sitting on top of my head. My only saving grace is the charming smile I’ve practiced over the years, taking away from the torrent of emotions currently running through me.
Shaking it off, I stuff my phone in my pocket and grab my keys from the nightstand. The clinic is only a few blocks away, a path I’ve memorized until I can point out every little crack inthe concrete. But what used to be a joyous career, a profession I dreamed about, has become so much more difficult than I planned. Some days I wonder if I should even be treating people when I can’t seem to figure out how to fix myself.
I think back to my last therapy appointment, the next one long overdue, and how many times she told me that I needed to change my frame of thinking. That Iamworth it, that my existence and my professiondoeshelp others, regardless of what’s going on in my head.
Some days, the reminder works.
Others? Not so much.
Blowing out a deep breath, I hop down the stairs, trying to bolster some excitement for my shift ahead, the last one before my brother returns from a 3-year deployment. We’re not that close but the silence in the house is unbearable ever since I separated from my husband. A bastard who won’t fucking sign the divorce papers, thinking that I’ll magically just forget every wrong thing he’s done.
Spoiler alert: I won’t.
I’m not even a step out of the house before my phone starts vibrating. “It better not be Heath,” I mutter to myself, slipping out the device and staring at the screen. It’s not. It’s Sebastian, one of my brother’s best friends, bunk mates, and as close to a brother as it gets.
I freeze, breath catching somewhere in my throat. My fingers tighten around the phone, thumb hovering over the decline button. I could let it go to voicemail, pretend I never saw it, shove the emotions crashing into me into some deep, unreachable place.
But I can’t. Not when it’shim. I press accept, bringing the phone to my ear, my heartbeat loud in my ears as I remain silent.
“Noah.”
Sebastian’s voice slides through the speaker, like molasses, the kind of voice that used to make me feel safe. I swallow hard, gripping the doorframe to keep my balance. “How are you doing, babe?”
I almost drop the fucking phone. It’s instant, the way my body reacts. Like something inside me is cracking wide open, years of distance falling away in an instant. My throat clenches and I have to close my eyes because if I don’t, I’m going to fucking lose it.
There’s so much he doesn’t know. So much he’s missed. And it’s my fault.
Because I married a man who never gave a shit about me. Because I let myself suffer in silence. Because I thought moving on meant making decisions that only ended up breaking me further. I squeeze the phone tighter, forcing myself to breathe. “I—” My voice catches. I clear my throat, willing myself to sound normal. “Didn’t expect to hear from you.”
There’s a beat of silence and I can hear his smirk through the phone. “Yeah? Thought I’d wait another three years?” Sebastian sighs, and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter, smoother, like he knows exactly how I’m struggling. “Talk to me, babe.”
Fuck. I slowly close my front door and twist around to lean my head against it, forgetting how easy it is for Sebastian to draw out emotions I’ve locked away. A man that I should have never looked at twice and yet, the last time he called me that, I had been tangled up in his arms, too drunk on him to remember why this was a bad idea.
The moment he left, I’m not sure if I was filling a hole or just craving attention so bad that when the first man looked my way, I gave in. And now, three years later, I’ve left Heath behind—or at least I’m trying to while slowly falling apart.
Sebastian doesn’t rush me as he waits patiently on the other side of the phone, like he always does. Like he knows I need the space to say what I need to say.
I exhale, pressing my thumb against my temple. “I’m… managing.” A lie.
And he knows it. “Noah.” His voice drops, all warmth and care and the kind of undeniable understanding I never got from Heath. “What happened?”
My chest aches because I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him about how I lost myself trying to please a man who never loved me. I want to tell him how I spent years crawling out of that grave. How I buried myself in my work and alcohol and long nights beating myself up over my choices just to feel like I was still here.
But I don’t because I can’t be selfish with Sebastian anymore. “Nothing.” The word barely makes it past my lips. “I just—got busy.” Not completely a lie. The clinic has been keeping me busy, one of the few things that helps me keep my sanity.
Sebastian sighs again, but there’s no anger. No judgment. Just a quiet kind of knowing. “You still at the clinic?”
I force myself to clear my throat, rolling my shoulders back like that’s going to shake the tension out of my body. My grip on the phone is still too tight, my fingers aching from how hard I’m holding onto something I should have let go of years ago. “Yeah,” I finally say, my voice cracking. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to sound like I haven’t spent the last-minute standing against my door like an idiot. “I’m good. What’s up?”
“We’re on our way back,” he says. “Should be there in a few hours.”
That should be good news. It should be good that my brother is finally coming back home, that Sebastian is coming back home. And yet, all I can feel is this tight, uncomfortable pressuresettling in my ribs. Mostly because it isn’t Kurt calling me, letting me know that he’s coming home.
