Running Away Towards You

By Becca Cole

Noah Quimby teaches Reception students at a posh girl's academy, runs daily with his dogs, and watches new episodes of Britain's Got Housewives every week. Sure, his life might not be the most exciting one around, but it's more than enough for him. He's in a rut, and it's fine--that is, it's fine until a certain someone rolls into town: Wesley Garrett, the paparazzi-hounded, celebrity magazine-cover gracing, lead singer of a world-famous rock band, who also happens to be the father of one of Noah's favourite students. And incredibly charming, to boot. And incredibly fit. And single. And interested in... Noah? It's just all very confusing, is the thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Becca Cole
• Release date: Feb 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005615949

Becca Cole

Hi, I'm Becca, fanfic writer in many fandoms over the course of many years. I'm excited to finally share some of my original writing with the world! As always, reads and reviews are very much loved and appreciated. For any questions or concerns, sending a message through my Goodreads page is the best way to reach me. Have a lovely day!

Book preview

 Running

            Away

                 Towards

                      You

Becca Cole

Running Away Towards You

Build 1.1  02-10-2022

© 2022 Rebecca Cole

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information browsing, storage, or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Unless otherwise indicated, all the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover art: © 2022 Rebecca Cole

ISBN: 9781005615949

For D

Aphrodite to my Zeus

Chapter One

Air heaves it’s way out of Noah’s lungs, his breaths panting as he pushes his legs harder, as he tosses a sidelong grin at the fellow runner he’s racing against.

I’ve definitely got you this time, Noah gets out, wasting breath that he should be saving. Especially when Noah’s rival just picks up his heels, stretching long legs to outpace Noah like it’s nothing. Noah digs deep, speeding up till his trainers are slapping hard on the pavement, but in the end— just like every other morning— it doesn’t make a difference.

Tony beats Noah to the end of the Robinson’s hedgerows with yards to spare, not even slowing down— just goes barreling on past as he begins to bark his head off at the birds from the next farm over, the handful of mallards and geese that like to bed down by the Robinson’s pond. They go honking away across the water, also the same as every other morning. Tony still thinks it’s the greatest thing ever since cubed cheese; Noah doubts he’ll ever fully understand his dog.

Noah groans and stops running, his trainers skidding in the gravel at the end of the lane, immediately bending with his hands on his knees to try and suck the air back into his lungs. When he can spare a piece of it he bellows, Shut it, Tony, you great idiot!

The gray saluki stops barking and comes streaking back to Noah with his oversized ears flapping in the wind and his tongue lolling out, licking all over Noah’s face when he gets near. Noah laughs, pushing the damp muzzle away as he slumps onto his arse in the damp grass. Yeah, you won, we know. Doesn’t mean you’re allowed to torment the poor birds.

Tony pants at him, grinning in doggy-fashion. Noah, heedless of his clothes getting cold and wet, flops onto his back to stare up at the sky that’s the same slate color as Tony’s fur. It’s a typical morning sky in the English countryside, a typical morning run, and the start to what will likely be a very typical Monday at work. Noah tucks his arms behind his head, humming. There’s a particular song that’s been stuck in his head for days now, Noah can’t get rid of it; just when he thinks he’s lost it, it comes back, buzzing like an overly friendly bumble bee. Not that he minds, it’s an ace song. He just wishes he knew how it got there.

Snuffling near Noah’s ear, and then a wet nose pressing against it, followed by an even wetter tongue. Stop, Pepper, Noah says, scolding again.

Gorgeous brown eyes blink down at Noah, unconcerned, and then Pepper wanders away to investigate whatever Tony’s doing, which is more than likely finding himself some trouble that Pepper will be happy to make worse. She can never be fussed about keeping up with Noah and Tony’s racing, always taking her own sweet time about everything, but she’s definitely the one of the pair that Noah has to keep an eye on the most. The two of them together are a double handful, taking up practically every free ounce of time and energy that Noah has to spare— almost like having kids of his own, pretty much. Very nearly the same.

Noah sits up, whistling for Tony and Pep, and they come galloping back to his side, the long fur of their coats sticking to the dew on Noah’s legs as they prance around him. The three of them head at a much slower jog back up to the top of the lane. That’s where there’s a small country house that’s been in Noah’s family for generations, that his grandfather’s grandfather helped build stone-by-stone, with window-boxes full of lavender that Noah’s grandmother made when she was a girl, Second World War plumbing, a clicking radiator eight months of the year, scuffed floors that creak with every step; it even has a creepy attic that Noah had fully believed was haunted— thanks to his sister Beth— until he was twelve. He still avoids it even now, to be fair.

The screen door of the garden entrance always sticks, too, but Noah knows the right way of wriggling it loose, and the dogs go barging past Noah into the house when he does, their nails tapping on the seventies-era lino, whinging at him for their breakfasts.

He’s got the morning-ritual down to an art form: pouring their kibble whilst simultaneously making his tea and toast and bunging necessary bits and bobs into his satchel for work. After cramming the toast down, he showers and dresses, fills his thermos with the tea, and then lets the dogs in the garden for the day, where they’ll probably do worse damage to Noah’s beans and tomatoes than the rabbits could ever manage. Even with all that, Noah’s promptly out the front door and on his bicycle at half seven, trying to juggle his thermos and his mobile and manage not to crash into his neighbor’s prize-winning roses as he goes.

There’s a text from Jess, one of Noah’s oldest mates from school. Probably it came in last night and Noah’s missed seeing it because he doesn’t bother to check his messages all that often; not much point after all, when it’s only Beth that ever texts him on the daily, and his mum calls like clockwork every Sunday. The message is just the usual: Jess’s semi-annual plea for Noah to come down to London for a weekend, pub crawl till they’re trolleyed, pull the lads: all things that had been great in uni but now make Noah cringe a bit.

He sighs, reading the text one more time, then thumbs his screen off and stuffs his mobile back into his pocket. The road is lined with hawthorn trees: Noah contemplates steering his bike into one of them now, if only to save himself from Jess’s wrath for skivving off the London trip for no better reason than not wanting to miss the newest episode of Britain’s Got Housewives.

It’s not that Noah minds any of that ‘having fun’ stuff— especially not the pulling lads bit, although it’s been an embarrassingly long while since his last— it’s just he’s become quite boring in his old age, really. These days, a night in with Tony and Pep sounds infinitely more appealing than trying to fashion himself into a version of Noah Quimby that remembers how to look and act for a night out; the version of himself that used to style his hair in a slick quiff, know how to tilt his head just so, how to fake like he’s sure of himself. Pulling used to be as easy as a smile aimed in the right direction.

But all that’s a much different version from who he is now: normal, grown-up, every day Noah. This Noah wears waistcoats and cardis five days a week, scrubs poster paint from under his nails more often than not, and dances the Hokey Cokey way better than he dances to anything a DJ might spin in a nightclub.

And Noah’s said as much to Jess, plenty of times before, but Jess always gives Noah a disapproving look (or emoji) and tells Noah that he’s twenty-seven, not forty-seven, and could he please try to remember that. Noah usually just shrugs.

He’s twenty-seven, and he’s in a rut. It’s not a bad thing, though. Noah has decided that he likes his rut just fine.

*

When Noah goes to collect his kids after the bell has rung at the end of break time, there’s a bit of a kerfuffle waiting for him. The girls are rubbish at queuing up as a general rule, but today there’s not even a hint of a line, all of them huddling around one small figure that’s tucked in the middle of the group.

Noah was already hurrying his steps, but when he catches a glimpse of a sloppy knot of dark curly hair poking out from behind the gaggle of arms and elbows, he breaks into a jog.

The girls start clamoring for him as soon as he gets close, with Emmy Cuthbert hollering, Teacher, teacher! Lucy’s done it again, all in their high piping voices, some of the others are even laughing. The group unfolds with more bird-like sounds as Noah wades in among them, feeling a bit like Dorothy amongst the Munchkins as he does. Then, at last, there’s the infamous Lucy with her hair flopping into her eyes, beaming and showing off a mildly bloody elbow.

What’s this? Noah tuts as he catches her arm, peering at the scrape. Third time this month, isn’t it? You’re like Bambi on ice.

We were playing Tarzan and Jane, Lucy tells him, trying to swing her free arm as an example, clinging to invisible vines. I was Tarzan!

How about next time you can play naptime, lay there quietly and not hurt yourself, eh? Noah says, making her laugh, which was the point. He shakes his head, tsking. This looks terrible, button. This arm might have to come off. We’ll need to send you to Hospital to get it amputated straight away.

Nuh-uh! she protests, setting off the other girls at the same time, till the emptying playground is nearly ringing with their shrieks and the other teachers are giving Noah’s class disapproving looks as they walk their own students back to classes in neat little duckling rows. In the midst of the chaos, Lucy slips her tiny hand into Noah’s bigger one, blinking fawn-like eyes up at him. She could give Pepper a run for her money with those eyes. Noah doesn’t think he’s built to know how to resist them.

"Want you to fix it for me, Mr. Q. Pretty please?" she says, sweetly— and that’s how Noah ends up walking the girls back to class with Lucy’s hand still tucked into his own, her yammering his ear off about Tarzan and monkeys and jungles the whole time. Noah feels guilty about the show of favoritism, but not enough to actually send Lucy off to Nurse Ratched over in the administration wing. He’d tried that for the first of Lucy’s tripping-over-her-own-feet injuries, back at the start of school, and Lucy’d come back in tears when he’d left her off laughing. So that was no good.

Anyway, Noah has a box of plasters and some antiseptic cream in his desk drawer, because it’s always best to be prepared. He sits Lucy in a chair while he grabs a few wet-wipes and tells the rest of the girls to get on with copying the grammar lesson off the board— not holding out hope that they’ll do any such thing, mind, but buying himself a few minutes to see to Lucy’s elbow.

Guess what! she chirps as he’s using the wipes to clean off the blood and dirt from the scrape. It must sting, but she’s not stopped beaming and swinging her short legs in their bright purple tights, feet still several inches away from reaching the floor.

Noah is pretty sure he knows exactly what, since Lucy’s made a point of announcing her big news nearly every day since the start of October, but he still humors her, furrowing his eyebrows like he’s considering. You got a pet porcupine? he says, acting shocked, and she cracks up laughing. He has to admit it’s quite gratifying to teach four and five year-olds: most of them find Noah a lot funnier than his fellow adults do.

No! she says, and Noah offers another guess.

You’re going to join the Russian circus?

Nooo, she says again, grinning delightedly and kicking her feet even harder. Noah has to shift how he’s standing to avoid an accidental blow from her Dora the Explorer trainers to his kneecap.

I reckon you’ve stumped me, Noah says, picking up the box of plasters and pulling out a selection of different patterns and colors for her to choose from. She grabs a glittery blue one, vibrating fit to burst.

Daddy’s coming home tonight! she says, and her grin is so infectious that Noah beams along, even if he’s never met the man. He’s still happy for Lucy, given that she’s so obviously overjoyed, though Noah has never understood how her father can manage to stay away from that dimpled smile for over four weeks. But when you’re a Brit-and-Grammy award-winning musician on a whirlwind European tour with your world-famous rock band, Noah reckons there isn’t much other choice.

Noah, for his part, is rather more nervous than excited to meet Lucy’s dad— not that he doesn’t have a room full of beautiful kids from all walks of life, even if the Puddington Lake Academy for Girls is a fairly posh school by anyone’s standards. There’s also the daughter of a member of the House of Commons in his class, and another of the Vice-Chairman of Barclays, and hadn’t Noah just been in a sweat when he’d shook their hands at the start of term.

But finally getting to meet Lucy’s dad feels different from that, even if Noah can’t quite put his finger on why. It’s not as if Noah’s a huge fan of his band. He honestly can’t even spell the name of it— Loptra? Lopidoptra?— something weird and indie like that, Noah had forgotten as soon as he’d Googled it. Still, Noah’s learned enough about Wesley Garrett by now to fill his own Wikipedia page, probably, if people were interested in knowing the same things about the man that his daughter knows: he can meow just like a cat, and likes to play tea party; that he’d had a pet hamster named Maddy when he was a kid, and he’d almost named Lucy that except he’d changed his mind and that’s why Lucy is named after Lucy Benjamin from EastEnders instead.

Daddy says he’s really excited to meet you, Lucy tells him, interrupting the drift of Noah’s thoughts. He finishes dabbing the cream on over her scrape, amused and trying to imagine anyone who’s performed concerts for hundreds of thousands of people ever being excited to meet Noah’s very un-exciting self.

He takes one of the plasters and peels it out of the wrapper, asking, Oh, is he? So you told him good things about me, I hope?

Yep! I told him you were my favoritest teacher ever.

Noah concentrates on getting the plaster placed so the sticky ends aren’t over the scrape, then presses it on gently. Hang on. Aren’t I your only teacher ever?

Yeah, she agrees, shrugging.

Noah shakes his head, still grinning, and finally sends her back to her seat.  He picks up the grammar book from the pile on his desk, clearing his throat into the buzz of whispering noise in the room.

Alright, ladies, if you’ve finished copying down the vocabulary words, let’s turn to page twenty-two and go over them together.

*

They end the day with the music lesson, which is always a bit chaotic. Lesson is a misnomer, too, since mostly the girls do very loud things with the instruments that don’t necessarily involve even attempting to follow the sheet music. After that’s over, there’s the usual rush to get