Niall, if I belong in your family, how can you not? Especially when you are so much a part of that belonging. You’ve made me one of the Butlers and that is immense. You belong, and I belong because you do. And Cal and Jamie are great, but you don’t have to be like them. You’re you and, personally, you’re my favourite.
Aw, Cass, you’re my favourite too.
Of your family?
Of everyone.
He’d come so close to kissing her that day, but he’d bottled it. If he got this wrong it would be awkward as fuck. Destroy things, possibly. By making things uncomfortable, he risked losing his best friend. It would be catastrophic if things went wrong. Losing her could not happen.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then forever!
Not exactly what Burns was talking about, but nope, not going there. Not yet.
But it was getting harder. The more time they spent together, the more addicted he became, he wanted more.
‘You’re dwelling, Noo Noo.’
Niall snapped out of his reverie. Not least because she’d called him by the silly nickname his siblings gave him. Carli rarely called him this, but she’d picked up its usage by his sisters and had used it a couple of times to get his attention.
‘Aye, sorry. But you’ll get a skelped arse if you call me Noo Noo one more time.’
She laughed. ‘I can’t make any guarantees.’
‘Oh, so you must be after a skelped arse.’
‘That sounds pretty exciting. Maybe later.’ Carlidumped her schoolbag on the sand and tugged at her school tie. Jesus. She was sex on the beach.
‘Okay.’ Niall yanked at his own collar.
‘Actually, fuck it, it’s too cold to undress,’ she announced throwing her tie down by her schoolbag.
‘I knew it. Soft Aussie through and through. You give it the big tough girl but you’re sunshine and marshmallows to my thunder and girders.’
‘I said it was too cold to undress,’ Carli reminded him. ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t going in the water. And call me sunshine and marshmallows once more and I’llskelp your thunderous arse.’ Her face split into a blazing grin and she pulled off her shoes, threw them at his feet and jogged backwards towards the shoreline. ‘Come on, Noo Noo, let’s swim.’
Niall grinned. ‘Fuck, aye.’ Whipped off his tie and trainers and jogged after Carli.
The water was nothing short of freezing, but he couldn’t care less. Every shiver and prickly goosebump was worth it to see Carli Caselli soaked through in her school uniform, splashing him with sea water and laughing infectiously. She hadn’t had a whole lot to laugh about with her mum dying and her dad putting a deadline on how long she had left in the country, so each peal from her lungs meant so much more. Niall scooted his hands under the water and splashed her. She squealed and tried to run away, before turning back and splashing him again.
‘Take that, Noo Noo!’ she called.
‘Right, that’s it.’ Niall waded as fast as he could through the incoming tide to where Carli was heading. Having longer strides he caught up with her in no time. She was reverberating with laughter as he scooped her up, strode forward into chest-deep water then sank down, immersing them both as a wave came crashing over their heads. It wasbracing beyond belief and he stood up as quickly as he’d taken them both down.
‘Fuck!’
‘Niall!’ Carli’s screams overlapped with his curses. ‘Oh my God! It’s freezing. Oh my God! Aaaah! You’re insane.’ Despite the protestations, her laughter betrayed her joy.
‘Once you get used to it, you don’t notice it’s cold,’ he declared, unconvincingly. ‘Fuck it’s Baltic, let’s go home.’ Still carrying her, he ran out of the sea onto the shoreline, putting Carli down. ‘You okay?’ he asked.
She jumped from foot to foot, her breath coming in sharp gasps. ‘You are going to pay for that, Butler. I am so cold, even if it is warmer out here now than it was before.’
‘Come on.’ Niall reached instinctively for her. ‘We need to go home and get warm before hypothermia sets in. Come to mine.’
Carli interlinked her fingers with his and then Niall clocked what had happened. He looked down at their hands joined together, then up at Carli, those glistening brown eyes gazing back into his, almost expectantly. She squeezed and it was like catching a six foot wave you never thought you would get. In one beat, Niall’s lips were on hers and they were tumbling into a sweet, abandoned kiss. A salty kiss, too, as fresh and new as the blustery sea air, ardent as their fevered hearts. Niall had kissed a few girls, but never had he wanted to pull them quite as close as he did Carli. Never had he stood on a beach soaked with Scottish seawater, his clothes clinging to his skin, and kissed a girl who made him forget absolutely anything else but that very moment. Forget everything but that very kiss. Forget everything but her. This girl. She’d changed his life with her feisty attitude, her willingness to stand up for him and her determination for both of them to get by. She loved to cometo the beach with him and try to surf. She helped him with maths and humoured all his Robert Burns recitals, although he was pretty sure she loved those. They laughed a lot. And she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
But the thing he liked most about her was how she trusted him to help her, too. Carli didn’t view him as Naughty Niall or Numpty Niall. When she talked about her mum and how much she missed her, he listened and told her how sad he was for her, and she thanked him for that and said that she couldn’t have coped without him. That was astounding. That he could be that to someone blew his mind. Because until Carli, he’d never been much use to anybody. Just another child coming off the Butler assembly line, the brand depreciating in quality after the second one.
