After at least ten seconds, Noah finally cut through the silence with a faint snort.

"Well, this is awkward," he laughed.

"It doesn't need to be awkward," I replied. "You just talk, I'll listen."

"It's you sitting there like that, though, just staring at me. It's really intense."

"Would it help if I sat next to you?" I asked. "Then you wouldn't need to look at me."

As he nodded, I shuffled forward on my hands and knees, climbing up the bed to plonk myself down next to him against the headboard.

"Any better?" I asked, turning my neck to face him.

"Hmm," he replied slowly, with a feigned puzzled expression. "I think this whole counselling thing might be easier if you just did as I asked earlier and took all your clothes off."

"So rude!" I laughed, reaching one arm over to shove him, a lot more forcefully than I'd meant to.

"Ow!" he cried out, faking an injury as he rolled away from me. "Therapists aren't supposed to beat up their subjects, what about the circle of trust?"

Laughing at his amateur dramatics, I responded, "And clients aren't supposed to try and get their therapist naked!"

Rolling back towards me, he looked up with the same glint in his eyes that I'd not seen since the night he was in my bedroom.

"Well, maybe the therapist shouldn't look like you do tonight..."

I felt my cheeks turning pink. How could he possibly be making me feel like this after how he'd been treating me? This was supposed to be a serious conversation. Yet, here we were, flirting with each other like kids in the playground.

"This relationship is purely professional," I said, putting on my most serious, business-like face and sitting back up straight against the headboard.

"Let's go back to your early childhood, Mister Hartnett," I continued. "When did you first realise you were starting to show signs of being an asshole?"

Noah laughed as he adjusted himself to sit back up straight. Letting out a sigh, he began to talk.

"Okay. I was always supposed to become a doctor. Like my dad, and his dad, and probably every other man in my family since the dawn of time."

"A doctor?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "You're not just a pretty face then?"

Smiling at my comment but keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the print hanging on the wall opposite, he continued.

"It was all planned out for me. But, ever since I can remember, all I wanted to do was play music. My parents were happy to pay for lessons in any instrument I wanted to learn, but it was always just a hobby to them, not a serious career choice."

"So?" I said, gently urging him to carry on.

"When I was sixteen, my dad chose my A-Level subjects without me knowing. All so I could go on to apply to the medical school he was desperate for me to get into. Not because he wanted the best for me, but because he wanted to be able to brag about his son's education."

Turning his head towards me, he adopted a smug smile. "I actually started med school, believe it or not. You're sat in the presence of one year's worth of doctor, don't you know?"

It was impossible not to smile back at him, his vulnerability more visible than ever. I had been given more details about his life in the last few minutes than I had since meeting him. It felt undeniably good to know that, at least for the time being, he trusted me.

"So how come you ended up here, in a band and studying music?" I asked.

"I tried to tell them hundreds of times that medicine wasn't for me. Music had always just made me feel like, I don't know, I can't explain it. Just... good. So, as a teenager, me and dad would constantly fight about it."

Pausing for breath, he continued. "My mum would just stay out of it most of the time. She preferred to practice her own form of medicine with alcohol, so half the time I don't think she even noticed the chaos around her."

"Oh, Noah," I sighed, unsure of what to say back.

"Anyway, I tried to rebel in all the usual ways. Started smoking weed and messing about with other drugs, getting tattoos, shagging around with as many girls as I could."

He looked embarrassed at what he had just said, but I simply nodded, not wanting him to stop confiding in me.

"When I got the offer letter from medical school at eighteen, I told my dad I wouldn't be accepting it. I had found a music course in London and managed to get an audition."

His voice fading slightly, Noah continued without any encouragement from me. "That was the day he finally lost his shit and went for me."

"What do you mean, 'went for you'," I asked, nervous of the answer.

"Went for me like a fucking punch bag. He wasn't a big man, I was probably taller than him by that point, but he was so fucking angry. I hardly even had a chance to fight back. He was screaming about how I was a disappointment. How I'd wasted years of private schooling and how 'no son of his' would be a tramp, busking on the street to pay for his next fix."

As the words tumbled out, I wanted to cry for him. For the younger version of him, the child who'd been let down by the one man supposed to protect him. I knew how that felt.

I reached out a hand and placed it on his forearm. Noah turned to face me and smiled, with sadness filling his green eyes.

"I did what he said, after that," he continued. "I accepted the place at medical school. I figured I could use it an opportunity to get away from him and sort my shit out. I kicked most of the bad stuff, but only lasted a year there before I jacked it in and finally did what I wanted to do, not what that cunt wanted."

I hadn't realised I was gently stroking Noah's arm as he spoke, trailing my fingers lightly across the ink patterns traced into his skin. I had never thought about the fact that they might represent a deeper part of him. To me, tattoos had always been a fashion statement. But, hearing Noah's story, I was overwhelmed with the desire to pull his shirt over his head and study each intricate design in detail. I wanted to piece together each part of the puzzle that I was learning made up Noah Hartnett.

"So you dropped out and came to London?" I asked, as I removed my hand from his skin and tucked it between my knees.

"That felt nice, don't stop," he smiled.

I turned so I was resting sideways on my hip, facing him. Gently placing my hand back on his arm, I lightly stroked the soft hairs that blended with the ink. As I ran my fingers along the sensitive skin on the inside of his elbow, I noticed the hairs stand up and couldn't help smirking to myself at the effect my touch had on his body's reflexes.

"So, was that when you moved to London then?" I asked again, not wanting to ruin the moment by forcing him to tell me more, but desperate to know the rest of his story.

"Yeah," he replied. He closed his eyes as I moved my fingers further up his arm to lightly stroke them over his bicep, slipping under the rolled-up sleeve of his T-shirt to reach his shoulder with my fingertips.

"It was a rough time," he continued. "I was nineteen, had no money, no job, and had cut off all contact with my parents by this point."

"Completely?" I asked, slightly taken aback at the thought of voluntarily never seeing your parents again.

"Completely. I was doing whatever work I could find and sleeping wherever I could, with whoever was willing to put me up on their couch for a while. Or in their bed."

"That's horrible," I sighed. Trying to lighten the mood a little, I added, "No wonder you're so house proud now..."

Luckily, he didn't take my comment the wrong way.

"Yeah I suppose," he replied, smiling. "So anyway, I'd known Alex since we were at school. Luckily his parents weren't bastards, so he was already down here trying to make it in music. One day, while I was crashing at his place, he mentioned some audition coming up. The ad said they were looking for young guys who played their own instruments, so we went along. And now here we are; living in this massive house, about to finish our first album."

Still with his eyes closed, Noah's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I did some bad stuff in that time though, Abi. It's taken me a couple of years to realise there are better ways to live and I'm starting to move on now. Now I've met you, I think. You make me want to be better."

"Noah, having no place to live wasn't your fault," I sighed, shaking my head in disbelief. "And neither was what happened with your parents. You were dealt a shitty hand for a while, but you coped through it as best you could. That doesn't make you a bad person."

"I know, but the way I survived isn't something I'm proud of. There's a lot more to it, Abi. There was-"

"No! There's nothing for you to be ashamed of," I interrupted. "You should be so proud of yourself, look at you now."

"You don't understand," he sighed, "The gigs weren't regular back then, I had to support myself and I just thought that selling-"

"You had to survive, Noah!" I said, jumping over his sentence once again. "However you managed to do that, things are different now."

"But they're not," he snapped back, dragging a palm down his face. "I found a way to actually start living. To be able to afford nice things and not worry about what would happen if the band didn't take off."

Moving my hand to his cheek, I pulled his head to face me. "Noah, please stop saying you're a bad person. Whatever dodgy dealings you might have got caught up in back then, you can't change what's-"

Before I could finish my sentence, a quiet knock at the door caused us both to scramble away from each other onto opposite sides of the bed.

"Abi, are you in here?" Kris' voice called loudly from the other side.

"Yeah, we're just talking," I yelled back.

"I've ordered an Uber, Abs. I'm a little bit drunk."

I giggled to myself. I could already tell that, just from the sound of his voice.

"Okay, babe," I called. "I think Charlotte's sleeping it off here for the night." Looking back at Noah with uncertainty, I added, "I think I'm going to stay a bit longer too, you head home."

Noah's reassuring smile told me this decision was fine by him.

"Okay, Abi bear, I'm going then. Love you, call me if you need anything," Kris called back.

"Love you too, be safe."

As the room fell silent again, a gnawing doubt began to roll inside me for simply assuming Noah wanted me to stay.

"You do want me to stay, right?" I asked softly, avoiding eye contact by staring at the print hanging on the wall opposite.

Scooting back over the bed to kneel in front of me, he reached out a hand and interlocked his long fingers around mine. My hand looked tiny in his, causing me to smile as I found his eyes again.

"More than anything," he answered.

Neither of us said another word. Noah slowly leaned his body in towards me. His eyelids were heavy as his face moved closer, his lips slightly parted as he stared down at mine.

"I need to kiss you, Abi," he whispered. "But only if you want me to."

The warmth of his breath danced against my mouth as he spoke, every hair on my neck prickling at the sensation. Blinking slowly, I reached my free hand up to push my fingers through the side of his hair, adorably dishevelled from where he'd been leaning back on the bed.

"Kiss me, Noah," I breathed softly. "Please."

Without taking his eyes from mine, Noah closed the last aching millimetres of space between us and finally met my lips with his.