Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You were perched on the end of Chelsea’s bed when Lottie strutted in from the bathroom, her face twisted into that signature snarl of hers.

“Girls, roof terrace, now,” She announced, “I’m calling a war council.”

Marisol sighed, “Let me grab my coffee first.”

“There’s no time!” Lottie snapped.

“We have, quite literally, all day Lottie,” Marisol said, “I’m guessing we’re not involving Blake or Shannon in this?”

“You’re right about one thing,” Lottie replied, grabbing her shawl off the bed and flouncing out of the room.

You rubbed your eyes sleepily. You’d spent last night on the daybed, partly due to the lack of available beds and partly because you hadn’t wanted to share with Bobby the starfishing sleeper and because it was more than your life was worth to try and interrupt Lottie and Gary’s reunion. Mostly though it was because you couldn’t bare the sympathetic glances Lucas seemed insistent on throwing in your general direction. The boy did not take hints well. Or explicit refusal. Or, well, anything that signalled you simply didn’t care that he’d recoupled.

“You okay babe?” Chelsea asked.

“Yeah, fine,” You replied, “Just that I’d have fought harder for an inside bed if I’d known today was going to be drama.”

“I know it’s drama but like, aren’t you excited to find out what the boys were up to while we were gone?”

She rose from her position at the top of the bed, holding her arm out for you to link as you stand up.

You shrugged, “I mean, I just hope it doesn’t end in all-out war.”

She giggled, starting to say something about how excited she was about her first war council but in all honesty, you’d tuned out. It wasn’t necessarily that you didn’t care what the boys had been up to in your absence, but you honestly couldn’t see how it could affect you. After all, the boy you wanted wasn’t coupled up with you and you were technically third in the pecking order. If that.

You took your seat on the roof terrace, sandwiched between Priya and Chelsea.

“So, girls, I think we need to find out what went on while we were gone,” Lottie said.

“I agree,” Hope chimed in, “Especially after we found Jakub’s underwear with that girls.”

“Does that matter?” Marisol asked, a question she surely immediately regretted as she tried to recover, “I mean, he stuck at the recoupling. And it isn’t as if you have a great stake with him romantically anyway.”

“That’s not the point,” Lottie snapped, “These boys could have been up to anything behind our backs and I definitely want to find out more about it.”

“Yeah, like what did Noah mean about doing bits on the first night?” Hope asked with a sigh, “I know he stuck…”

“With me,” Priya interrupted, “And he’d spoken to me about choosing Y/N at the recoupling, we need to remember that.”

Hope snarled, “Well when one of you spends two weeks coupled up with somebody, that’s when you can be worried about them.”

“Let’s not argue guys,” Lottie interjected, “We need a plan.”

“Preferably one that isn’t going to take up the whole day,” Marisol said.

“Easy for you when you haven’t got anything at stake,” Hope snapped, “You’re the only one of us that’s actually happy in their couple.”

“I’m happy with Elijah,” Chelsea blurted, smiling a little awkwardly, “I mean I know that isn’t the point just…”

“Right,” You said, “What about if I talk to Shannon and try to find out some things from her? No offence Lottie but you didn’t exactly make the best first impression on her last night.”

“None taken,” Lottie replied, “I’ll speak to Bobby and Gary and see what I can get out of them.”

“And the rest of us?” Hope asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We can relax by the pool!” Chelsea said happily, clapping her hands together, “I really need to like, relax after last night.”

You laughed at Chelsea’s comment, shaking your head. Rising to your feet, you nodded at the other girls, “Wish me luck.”

You could have sworn you heard Hope mumble something catty as you made your way through the door, but you elected to ignore it. You made your way down the stairs into the kitchen, which was cluttered with dirty dishes from breakfast. This was new. Before you girls had left, you’d had a system wherein everybody tried to do their dishes after breakfast. Although you could guess that all attempts to keep villa peace had probably been abandoned the minute the new girls had entered. The boys had probably tripped over their balls trying to get to them. Well, Jakub and Lucas at least.

“Hey,” You said, spotting Shannon just as she appears to refill her water bottle, “Could I have a chat with you?”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, “What about?”

“About what happened with the boys when we left for Casa Amor,” You said, surprised to see a small smile spread across her lips.

“Straight talking, that’s how I like it. I feel like I could trust you Lara so I’ll level with ya,” She replied, before leaning across the counter and telling you exactly what ‘Shmakub’ had gotten up to while you were gone.

***

“So, what exactly did you find out?” Hope asks, leaning forward and resting her head on her arms, “Anything about Noah?”

Priya rolls her eyes which, thankfully, seems to go unnoticed by everybody but you. You give her a small knowing smile and she squeezes your hand gently.

“I was speaking to Bobby and he said that Noah didn’t seem interested in any of the new girls. Apparently, he tried to be in on it with them and have fun, but his heart just didn’t seem to be in it for whatever reason,” Lottie says.

Hope grins, “Really?”

“I’m the one that’s coupled up with him you know,” Priya sighs, “I know you two were together, but you did break up before Casa Amor. If you ask me, he hasn’t had a particularly warm reception to either of us since we got back.”

“Probably because I was coupled up with somebody else because of a certain someone,” Hope sneers, “And we’ve only been back one night.”

“That didn’t stop Lottie and Gary climbing into bed together,” Marisol quips.

Lottie shrugs, grinning, “Yeah but that was because we got split up at the recoupling.”

“So did we,” Hope snaps.

“Did you find out anything else Lottie?” Marisol asks, smoothly cutting through the building tension.

“Yeah, apparently Lucas made a beeline for the new girls as soon as they arrived,” She says, grimacing slightly, “And he was all over Blake from the moment she got here. They think that they did bits on the first night because apparently Blake was bragging the next day about how she’d managed to take him from Y/N in one night because he’d told her he was going to recouple with her.”

Hope turns to look at you sympathetically, “Babes I’m so sorry -“

You interrupt her, “I really don’t mean to be rude, and I get that everybody’s worried about me because I’m single now, but I really wasn’t interested in Lucas. I meant what I said last night, I’m happy for him. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wish he’d gotten with somebody a little less heinous than Blake but if he likes her then he likes her. I really didn’t have anything with him, and I told him that upfront when he coupled up with me.”

“I guess we all just thought you were trying to play it cool,” Marisol says, “I’m sorry if it seemed like we’ve been pushing it the past few days Y/N. We just thought you might have been trying to be casual in case it didn’t pan out.”

The other girls nod.

“It’s fine, honestly, I get it. I know none of you meant anything bad by it,” You say, smiling, “But I really am fine about the whole thing.”

Chelsea gives your shoulder a squeeze, “I’m so glad to hear it babes! Who needs a man like Lucas when you’ve got girls like us?”

“Exactly,” Priya agrees, “Girls girls girls!”

“Girls girls girls!” Chelsea joins in, clapping her hands in delight.

Hope, forever the sourpuss, interrupts rudely, “I hate to break the girl power anthem up, but we are here for a reason. Y/N, did you manage to find anything out from Shannon?”

All eyes are on you once again.

You clear your throat, “Yeah, I actually found out a lot. Apparently, Jakub was with this girl called Emily on the first night together and then the next morning he started grafting on some girl called Siobhan. She was the girl whose underwear we found with his. She thought he was going to switch and recouple with her, but she didn’t. That was why Bobby’s wooden spoon was in the pool, she threw a big tantrum when she found out.”

“I can’t say I blame her,” Lottie says, “If I’d been led on like that, I wouldn’t be too happy either.”

“Me either,” Priya says.

“But then how does any of it make sense? With the video and everything?” Hope asks.

“Well, obviously Lucas was with Blake in the video,” Marisol says, “Which makes sense given that he recoupled with her. Bobby wasn’t in it. Gary was only in it for the part about his nan. And Noah was in it talking about doing bits on the first night and saying that he couldn’t believe they’d decided to recouple after just one night.”

“That’s the bit I don’t get,” Hope says, “I know Jakub apparently did bits on the first night, but he switched girls the next morning.”

“Well…” Priya starts, “I mean, I have a theory but I’m not sure anybody’s going to want to hear it.”

Your heart starts to beat slightly faster, thinking about the exact words Noah had said and the information that Lottie had found out. Lucas doing bits with Blake, deciding to recouple with her straight off, could it be? No, you told yourself, no, it would do no good to get yourself all excited and find out it was over nothing. It’d happened one too many times now, especially where Noah was involved.

“Well what is it?” She snaps, her gaze briefly slipping from Priya to you, disdain clear in her eyes.

“Okay, hear me out. We all know Noah had a thing for Y/N before Casa Amor, he told me so himself. He’d been considering coupling up with her, but he couldn’t because Lucas got to go first at the recoupling. Maybe he was upset because he didn’t like the idea of her being dumped when he never got a chance to go for her in the first place?”

You instantly feel yourself go warm, the girl’s eyes flick nervously between you and Hope. You swear you can see a smile tug at the corner of Chelsea’s mouth and you’re bracing yourself to break the silence, to say something, anything, but Hope is first to disturb the peace. She springs to her feet, glaring at both you and Priya.

“No,” She snaps, “No, he wouldn’t do that to me.”

“You broke up with him,” Priya says, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve got to admit it does add up,” Marisol says, “But it’s probably better if it comes from the horses mouth rather than us putting two and two together and making five because we only know some of the story.”

 “Then that’s exactly where I’ll go to find it out, I’m more likely to find the truth there than from the sleuthing of two man thieves,” She sneers in your direction, storming off from the terrace and slamming the door behind her.

“Are we?” Lottie asks, gesturing towards the door.

Marisol nods. Everybody scrambles to their feet, eager to get out onto the lawn and not miss the showdown. You’re at the back, partly by choice and partly because Lottie shoved her way through first.

“It’s okay,” Priya murmurs to you as you go down the stairs, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it in front of everyone.”

“It’s okay,” You nod, “It’s better than the sneaking around like it was before. And it saves me having to have the awkward conversation if it was about Hope and not me.”

You manage to say the last sentence with some confidence, but you can feel the lump in your throat, the dryness of your mouth. You know you shouldn’t have let yourself believe it might be true, not again, but you did. You did and you would have again and again. That’s why it was better to have it out now. At least that’s what you reasoned with yourself.

The group of you spill onto the lawn just in time to see Hope striding confidently towards Noah, who’s sat at the firepit.

“Noah!” She shouts, “Can you come over here please?”

The boy is evidently nervous, even you can see that. Although you have to admit that if you were up against the biggest ball of jealousy and possessiveness in the villa, then you would be too.

“Sure,” He answers, anxiously looking over at the sea of faces, including yours, that are now crowded a mere metre from Hope.

“Who were you talking about in the Casa Amor video?” She demands.

He opens his mouth and then closes it again, looking confused, “What?”

“You heard me.”

“He wouldn’t have seen it,” Marisol interjects, “We didn’t get to see the one the villa boys got.”

“Right. Well in the video you were saying ‘doing bits on the first night changes everything’ and ‘I can’t believe he’s decided to recouple already’,” She says, practically foaming at the mouth with all the venom in her voice, “And for some reason, these guys,” She gestures aggressively in the direction of you and Priya, “Are convinced that you were talking about Y/N.”

You’ve never understood the phrase rabbit caught in the headlights so well until now. You swallow, trying to muster everything in you, to convince yourself not to break when he denies it. It will be okay. Somebody new will come in soon. Even if you haven’t found it yet, that doesn’t mean you won’t. You focus on all the mantra’s that the girls have been reassuring you with since day one.

And Noah’s looking at you.

“Well?” Hope says, “Were you talking about her or me?”

You manage a small smile, biting your lip as you escape his eye contact again. Ready to hear the single syllable that’s going to shatter the last of your hopes into a million pieces.

“Her.”

Chapter Text

“Her.”

Everything seems to stop in the second that the word leaves his mouth. You swear you feel your heart skip a beat, palms clammy. You vaguely recognise the feeling of hands gently on your shoulders, trying to push you forward, but you can’t. Your legs are stuck. Glued to the ground by the villa-burning look of rage that settles on Hope’s face.

“What?!” She screams, “How could you? I don’t understand, how…after everything! After everything we’ve been through I-”

“Woah woah woah what’s going on?” Bobby asks, jogging over from his seat on the bean bags, “Is everything-”

“Stay out of this Bobby,” Hope snaps, “This is all your fault. You and Priya and her. All of you and your Operation Nope. We were so happy before all of that. You’ve ruined everything.”

She moves as if to lunge towards you, but Gary appears from behind Bobby, taking a hold of her shoulders, “Calm down.”

“No!” She pushes unsuccessfully against him, the tears starting to flow down her cheeks now, “This is her! This is all her! He’s the only person in the villa I’ve ever wanted to be with, and she just had to go and ruin it for me didn’t she? It wasn’t enough having Bobby and Lucas running circles around her, she just had to have my Noah.”

“I think we all really need to calm down,” Marisol says, “Hope I understand-”

“You don’t understand anything! You’ve been with Graham all of two days and nobody else would ever be interested in him because his only personality trait is boats, what the fuck have you ever had to worry about?”

Marisol visibly recoils, “Listen I-”

Somehow you and Noah have gotten lost in all of this. You know you should say something, defend yourself against the vitriol spewing from Hope’s mouth, but you can’t. It all seems to unfold in slow motion, yet in a matter of a split second.

“Y/N Priya nudges you, as if to startle you from your daze, “Babe, I think Noah wants to speak to you.”

You look up to see Noah trying to meet your gaze, nodding his head in the direction of the villa and holding up two fingers.

“Look at them, trying to weasel off already! Go and do something with him that I haven’t already, go on,” She spits, “I can’t fucking believe you. Miss I put the girls first, girl code, you’re full of shit. You’re fake and everybody here knows it.”

“No, Hope,” You manage to say, shaking your head, “No. I picked Noah on day one. You took him from me. I told you I was interested, and I’ve tried to be respectful of your relationship. I never lied. I was always upfront, I picked him to take on a date for Christ’s sake, it’s not as if I ever made a secret out of the fact I was interested in him.”

“You’re full of shit Y/N! You stole the only boy I could ever have eyes for in here. You don’t care about anybody but yourself!” She screams, fighting furiously against the hold Gary has on her. Out of the corner of your eye you see what you assume to be the security team approaching.

“She’s just upset,” Priya whispers, “She’ll calm down. It’s just a lot all at once.”

“She’s hysterical,” Marisol mutters.

You register Noah walking towards you, then the feeling of him at your side. His arm slips around your waist, ignoring as Hope’s screams change into sobs. You can’t help but feel guilty, but then he leans in close to you.

“Roof terrace?” He whispers.

You nod, “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Neither of you speak as he leads the way. You can feel the eyes of everybody burning into your back and you’re torn. Your heart wants to sink because you can’t help thinking of the friendship’s you’ll probably lose over this, Lottie definitely won’t be best impressed. Marisol and Bobby hate drama. And, Blake surely won’t miss this as an opportunity for ammunition against you. But then Noah pulls you closer to his side and you feel the thrill of it all going through you. How it felt when he said her. How sure you were that he wasn’t going to. You feel tears starting to prickle in your eyes and blink frantically.

Noah releases his grip on you to push the door open, nodding towards the terrace, “After you.”

You’re only too happy to oblige, stepping out into the sunlight. You feel so much fresher, safe from the eyes of everyone and with the sun warming your skin. It feels like you’ve stepped out of a storm.

“Hey,” He says, taking your hand as he joins you and leads you over to the cushions, “Are you okay? I know that was…a lot.”

“I know,” You reply, “But it wasn’t your fault. The whole thing was just…”

He grimaces slightly, “I know. I’d much rather have had the whole conversation in private. I was going to speak to you today about it but then obviously I heard from Gary that Lottie had been doing some snooping and, I kinda figured it was a matter of time. But I didn’t think it’d all go down like that.”

You raise your eyebrows, “You really didn’t think it’d all go down like that?”

“I mean, I guess I thought it might,” He says, rubbing the back of your hand with his thumb in slow soothing circles, “I just hoped we’d get to have a conversation first.”

“Me too,” You sigh, “I don’t enjoy drama for the sake of drama.”

“I know,” He smiles, “And that’s one of the things I like so much about you.”

A smile plays on your lips as you tilt your head to look up at him. His amber eyes are warm, so much warmer up close, and the golden hour lighting does a pretty good job of making the licks of gold around his iris stand out.

“You know, that’s the first time you’ve told me you like me,” You tell him.

He looks a little bashful, “I know. I am sorry about that. About everything, really. I should have handled it a lot better than I did. It was just difficult. I did like Hope at first but then she just got really intense after we’d only been coupled up for a little while. It’s not that I was faking anything,” He says, to which you squeeze his hand reassuringly, “Just it kind of got to a point where I felt like I had no other choice but to be with her. Nobody else seemed to want to put their feelings for me out there because she’d been so forceful about us being a power couple.”

“I understand,” You nod, “It’s not always so easy to get out of situations like that. Especially when you genuinely don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings.”

“Exactly,” He says, relieved, “I was really worried that I’d messed things up with us. That you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me after this whole thing.”

“I’ll be honest, I was kind of going to give up on you,” You admit, “Well, not give up as such, but give up actively pursuing you. It just kind of felt like I was making a fool out of myself and I wasn’t too sure where I stood.”

“Do you know now?” He asks, his eyes wandering down to your lips.

“I think it could stand to be made a little clearer.”

He smiles, leaning down until he’s so close that you can smell cologne tingled with chlorine. Your arms loop around the back of his neck, giving him the perfect vantage point. His lips are so soft. That’s your first thought as your lips touch, gently and cautiously, like you’re trying to walk for the first time. Except you find your feet pretty fast.

He deepens the kiss, allowing you to taste the faint cherry lip balm on his lips. His hands make their way down to your waist, gently trying to manoeuvre you closer to him. You’re more than happy to oblige.

Your fingers rake through his dark hair, the kiss starting to get more frantic now. You hadn’t realised you could want somebody so badly until he was here, in front of you, his tongue asking for permission at the entrance of your mouth. You allow him, God, you’d probably allow him anything he asked for.

He moves you a little, pressing your back against the cushions and you bring him right down with you, unwilling to let him slip away from you for a single second. You’re practically breathless but so needy for him, for his touch, to slip away into this new storm.

By the time you pull apart you’re almost panting, the pull of want in your abdomen more intense than you can ever recall it being, although you’re not entirely sure if that’s the Noah effect or the delayed gratification of it all. If you had to guess you’d probably say both.

“Hey,” He murmurs into the crook of your neck.

“Hi,” You say, “That was…”

“You’re a really good kisser,” He says, smiling, “I wish we’d got a chance to do that earlier.”

“Don’t worry, stick with me and you’ve got at least another two weeks of it.”

From the lawn you hear a familiar sound, a sound that over the past 18 days has conditioned you to have fear struck into your heart. The sound of an incoming message.

“Got a text!” Bobby shouts, “The dumping is in an hour!”

You sit bolt upright, a sinking feeling in your chest, “I’d completely forgotten about that. After everything today, I just…”

“Might have to reconsider that two weeks thing,” Noah says with a sad smile, sitting up, “Don’t worry yourself duck. If you had to leave, I’d leave with you. After everything that’s happened, I don’t want the drama and I don’t want to find somebody else. And I’m sorry if that’s a bit much after everything and I know we just had our first kiss and I don’t mean to sound all-”

You cut him off with a kiss, cupping his cheeks between your hands. It’s a lot more delicate, even more so than your first kiss. It’s as if you’re both realising what you have to lose a second after you’ve gotten your hands on it.

You can’t help but smile as you pull away, “I’d leave with you too. I know this is new but you’re the only person I’ve really felt myself drawn to since we’ve been here. Even if it only worked for two days on the outside, I’d know I made the right choice.”

After all, he’d made his. Her. You.