Page 101 of The Keeper

“Noah.”

The wind carried his laugh through the air, drawing curious stares from nearby tourists. However, my embarrassment over the little show we’d put on for the driver quickly evaporated when we reached the beach. I pointed at a cluster of black-and-white creatures near the water’s edge. “Look! There they are!” I squealed. “They are so cute!”

I took off my shoes and ran ahead of Noah, my heart in my throat.

Boulders Beach was one of Cape Town’s most popular attractions. Besides the white sand and turquoise waters, it was famous for one thing: the protected colony of African penguins that called it home.

They weren’t Adélie penguins, but just because they weren’t my favorite species didn’t mean I couldn’t freak out over them. This was my first time seeing penguins in the wild, and I was mesmerized as they hopped off the rocks and swam through the water.

Penguins, right there within reach. I couldn’t touch them, but I could get closer to them here than almost anywhere else in the world. My only regret was visiting in the winter, when it was too cold to swim with them.

“They are pretty adorable,” Noah admitted, coming up beside me. He watched as a pair of penguins waddled along the shore. One of them shook its head vigorously to shed excess water after its swim.

We were only a handful of people at the beach this early. Noah patiently followed me around and helped me take what must’ve been hundreds of photos until I exhausted myself and collapsed on one of the giant boulders dotting the beach. I still had a great view of the colony, but if I kept this up, my phone was going to run out of juice before I made it back to the hotel.

“Best. Morning. Ever,” I said with a contented sigh.

“You sure? I don’t think you took enough photos,” Noah teased. He sat next to me, his thigh touching mine. He chuckled when I scrunched up my nose and stuck my tongue out at him.

I wasn’t really mad. I saw Footballer Noah in action yesterday, but this was Funny, Carefree Noah. My favorite kind. I loved when he felt comfortable enough to let loose and make jokes, even if they were at my expense.

“I’ve been sampling more hobbies while you’ve been here,” I said. “Quite a few, actually.” Now that I wasn’t nannying for Evie or working a second job, I had more time on my hands than I was used to.

“Yeah? Any of them stick?”

I shook my head and ticked them off on my fingers. “Kickboxing. Gardening. Coding. I kind of suck at all of them.”

Noah raised his eyebrows. “How much time did you give them before you decided you weren’t any good?”

“I know what you’re getting at,” I said. “If I stick to one hobby, I’ll get better with practice, yada yada yada. But I didn’t like or care enough about any of them to stick it out, which was the point of this whole challenge.”

“Fair enough,” he acknowledged. “But you’ve only tried a fraction of activities out there. There are plenty more options you haven’t explored yet.”

“Sure.”

A familiar sense of melancholy crept in, wiping away some of my earlier excitement. Yes, there were thousands of potential careers out there, but I really thought I would’ve figured it out by now. How long would I have to wait before I found my calling? Would I be forty? Fifty? Sixty? What if I didn’t have a calling, and I spent the rest of my life chasing something that didn’t exist?

Noah must’ve picked up on the shift in my mood because he glanced at me, his brow furrowing. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Carina.” Those piercing eyes didn’t miss a thing. “I didn’t want to see you just to see you. I also want to talk. Really talk. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I don’t want to be a buzzkill in the middle of the freaking World Cup.”

“You could never be a buzzkill, and if I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.” He gave me a crooked smile. “Consider it doing me a favor. I’d rather not think about the matches we have coming up.”

I blew out a long breath and cast my attention toward the nearest group of penguins huddling on a boulder. “It’s nothing new. I’m just wallowing in self-pity,” I admitted. “I always told myself I hadn’t found my passion yet because I wasn’t trying, but now I am trying, and it’s still not working. It’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. There are bigger and way more pressing problems in the world, so I feel stupid for even complaining.”

“You’re allowed to complain about anything you want,” Noah said. “There’ll always be bigger problems somewhere in the world. That doesn’t make yours any less valid.”

“I know. I just put myself in a funk whenever I think about it.” I picked at the hem of my sweatshirt. “Maybe it’s because I’m turning thirty soon, and there’s this huge pressure to do something before then. Like if you don’t achieve XYZ by the time you’re thirty, you’re a failure, which is stupid because it’s nothing more than an arbitrary deadline that society deems important.”

I looked down, my fingers still worrying the fabric. I hadn’t meant to turn our trip into an impromptu therapy session, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.

“The thing is, my parents are so good and so passionate about what they do. My mum is a genius with numbers, and she’s known what she wanted since she was basically in the womb. So did my dad. He inherited the restaurant from my grandfather, but he really loves it. Like, that is his pride and joy. They worked so hard to give me a good education and to pay for uni and all these extracurriculars when I was in school, only for me to be…well.” I shrugged, embarrassed. “Let’s just say their friends’ children are doctors and lawyers and engineers. One of them is literally an astronaut. And I’m not any of those things. Not even close.”

“I see.” Noah was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “You want to know what I think? I think doctors are macabre for choosing to be near death every day, lawyers are almost universally disliked, and astronauts are overrated. So they float around in zero gravity. Big deal.”