Keeping Up With The Kahus - Love Island Game Fanfiction

Chapter 13- Thirty tiny fingers, thirty tiny toes...

**TRIGGER WARNING: Pregnancy, birth and NICU related - please just message me if you'd like to know the plot for this chapter before reading.**

NOAH

Even with red eyes, rimmed with flaked off mascara, and a oversized, crumpled hoodie on that must have belonged to Bobby, she still took his breath away. The biggest mistake he had ever made in his life was the way he'd used and treated her, when she would have gone to the end of the Earth for him. He wasn't surprised at the shock on her face; this wasn't his, or Cherry's, neck of the woods.

"Cherry's sister is having a baby," Noah explained. "We rushed up here when she went into labour, but it's taking a while- Cherry wanted to stay around so we're just...hanging out here. Her sister and her partner live in Manchester."

"Oh I see!" Scarlett replied.

"I'm guessing you're here to see Priya and Tai? We saw Tai earlier this evening." He glanced at his phone, "Well yesterday evening, in the carpark," Noah told her.

"Oh, he didn't say, but I think they've got a lot going on today," Scarlett said, totally understanding why Tai had forgotten to mention it, but slightly miffed that she didn't have a heads up that he was here, and Cherry too.

"Is Priya okay? And the babies?" Noah asked, genuinely concerned for them all. 

"Hopefully," Scarlett replied, not giving anything away and Noah knew not to push for further information.

"So, I'm guessing you heard about Hope?" he said, rattling the machine again until the packet of crisps he had paid for finally fell down. "Snickers?" he offered, putting more money into the machine and she nodded, her cheeks reddening. He hadn't forgotten. 

"I did, did you go to her trial?" she asked him. "I didn't want to see her, but my sister went. I don't know Hope knows what she looks like. I had to beg my Mum not to go."

"I went," he said, taking a deep breath. "She just stared at me the whole way through, hardly blinking. She got 6 years, because she had intent to commit further and worse crimes, but she's served some of it already and she'll be eligible for early release if she keeps her head down. My guess is she'll be out in just over 2."

Scarlett shivered. "At least she got put away, unlike Arjun who got a slap on the wrist. That must have been horrid to see her again. Did they go over everything that happened those few days?" he nodded as he sat down in the chair nearby and she sat close beside him, unwrapping her Snickers bar and taking a large bite.

"It was awful; I think I'd blanked out what had happened quite a bit, I've been having some trauma counselling," he told her.

"Is it helping?" Scarlett asked him, checking her phone for any news.

"It's starting to, I think," he replied. "It's made me look at a lot of my life decisions and choices, as well as what happened with Hope. In some ways I feel even more messed up than before but I think that's just part of the process of me unpacking everything in my head, if that makes sense."

"I get that," Scarlett said.

"I am truly sorry for everything," he said, reaching out to hold her hand. She didn't pull it away, sensing how vulnerable he was right now, but took another bite of her chocolate bar. "The way I treated you- it was unacceptable in every way, I took advantage of how you felt from the moment I met you. When you first told me all that time ago back in the villa that you liked me, I couldn't help myself and wanted to have it all, then I found I was able to have it all with you behind Hope's back  in there and back home. Sneaking around made it even more fun as it felt so taboo....and I couldn't stop myself....I am always going to regret it."