Chapter 6 #2
“Great, I’ll be right back,” he says and then disappears into the house.
He’s gone for long enough that I take out my phone and see that Marina responded. I breathe out a sigh of relief.
I’m good. Just finished teaching a class I totally forgot about until this morning.
“What are you smiling at, your girlfriend?” Noah teases me as he comes around to the passenger side. I slip the phone in my pocket and get inside.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I tell him, putting on my seatbelt.
“Yeah right,” he says, adjusting his bright purple backpack adorned with glittering stars between his legs.
“New backpack?”
He looks down at it and his features harden, making him look far older than fourteen.
As different as Noah and Daryl are, they do look alike.
Both are on the short side with angular features, but Noah is slim and compact.
Noah’s hair has been a multitude of styles and colors, now it’s long in the front, buzz-cut in the back, like a reverse mullet, and neon blue.
“I like it,” I say quickly. “Though I thought maybe you’d want to match your backpack to your hair.”
He manages a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I was thinking that but then I’d have to buy a new backpack every week and I know Dad’s allowance won’t stretch that far. Especially over something like this.”
“Let me guess, he gave you grief over it?”
“How did you know?” He leans back in his seat. “I know why your mom called you, by the way. We had a fight last night.”
“What about?”
“The backpack,” he says, kicking it. “Because Dad said it was gay.”
I bite down on my tongue, hard, because there are so many fucking things I would love to get into right now about Daryl, but I have to remember that the guy is still Noah’s father, even if he is a grade A wanker.
“Your father,” I begin, choosing my words carefully, “isn’t exactly open-minded. We both know this. What did you end up telling him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” he says defensively.
“There’s nothing to tell. I just like colors.
I don’t know. He kept saying he didn’t want people to think I was gay, that I was hanging out with the wrong people, like Sam, I mean, how can anyone not like Sam?
He wouldn’t drop it, he just kept picking on every single detail of my life, like he was goading me, like he wanted me to admit it. ”
“Admit what?”
He shrugs, his face scrunching up. “I don’t know. Whatever I am. But Laz, I don’t know what I am.” He looks over at me, face white like he’s frightened to death. Suddenly I’m having deja-vu of Marina last night in that very same spot.
“Noah, you’re you. That’s all you need to know. That’s all that matters right now. You’re still figuring yourself out. Fuck, I’m still figuring out myself.”
“But you like girls,” he says. “You know that.”
I nod. “I do. But sexuality is just a part of who we are, it’s not everything. And just because you like girls, doesn’t mean your life is magically easier, either. Believe me.”
“I just don’t know what I like. Sometimes I like them.
There’s a girl in my math class, Natalie, she’s so pretty.
But I don’t want to kiss her or get with her or anything like that.
I’d just paint her portrait…if I could paint.
” He pauses and makes a groaning sound. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this… if Sarah or Dad knew…”
I don’t bother reminding him that we have talked about this before and I still haven’t told them and never will.
Noah isn’t sure where he stands, whether he’s gay or bi or ace or queer and all I can do for him is be a sounding board.
He has new friends now but I’m not sure if he’s confided in them or not.
I wouldn’t blame him for not, the last thing you want when you’re in a hoity-toity high school is for rumors to start spreading, even if your friends seem like you.
California is extremely open-minded but kids will be kids and kids are often cruel.
“You know I wouldn’t tell them anything,” I say.
“It’s between you and them. And if you want to wait until you have it all figured out, I can’t blame you.
Maybe this is just a confusing time for you…
hell, maybe you already know what you want and you’re just catching up.
But you know whenever you need to talk about it, you can talk to me. ”
“It’s weird though,” he says.
“Look, mate, you’re my brother. I don’t care if it’s not through blood, but you are. And you’re also my friend. Believe me, I do anything for my friends, no matter how weird it gets.”
My mind floats back to last night.
He seems to think that over and we lapse into silence. I give him control of the radio and soon we’re cruising down toward Venice Beach, listening to an oldies station of all things.
“I just don’t know what he’d do,” he finally says while The Byrds sing on about every season, turn, turn, turn. “Honestly…I think I’m afraid of him. Like, not that I’ll just get yelled at or he’ll even disown me. That he’d hurt me.”
I give Noah a sharp look. “If your father ever touches you, you call me. I’m serious, Noah. You call me right away and I’ll deal with it. So help me god, I will give him back good what he’s given.”
He nods. “I don’t think your mother would do anything. No offense.”
I sigh. “None taken.” God, I hope she would do the bloody right thing. “But still. If at any moment you’re afraid for whatever reason, you call me and I’ll come get you. You can stay with me and Scooby for as long as you want.”
I’d like to think that Noah is exaggerating in his fears, I mean what son hasn’t imagined his father whooping his arse over something he did wrong.
But in this case, Noah hasn’t done anything wrong and Daryl can be a violent son of a bitch.
Not only does he have a bad reputation in the industry for berating and bullying colleagues and clients, but I’ve seen him lose his shit on pretty much everyone in the house, including Rosalie.
I haven’t seen him hit anyone, but there have been times where I was sure everyone was seconds away from disaster.
Daryl also started out as a Marine in a longline of marines until a leg injury put him on a different path.
Naturally his daughter ends up being a rocker who goes to the east coast with the first guy she fell in love with just to escape him and his teenage son is grappling with his sexuality and the apparent consequences of just being himself.
“As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m right out the door,” he says. “Jane went to the east coast when she could no longer stand it. You were here for what, a year, before you decided to go to Berlin for school.”
“Two years,” I tell him.
“Well as soon as I can, I’m gone. I might even drop out of school.”
“You are not dropping out of school,” I snap at him. “I don’t care how bad it gets, you are not doing that. That will fuck over your whole life. You keep going to school. If it gets bad, we’ll get you out of that house. I promise.”
He watches me for a moment, his green eyes narrowed into a squint, as if he’s trying to read the truth from my face. Then he sits back in his seat. “You better keep that promise.”
“I always do,” I tell him.
When we pull into the parking lot at the beach, Noah opens his backpack and takes out a mascara and a vial of lipstick, pulls down the visor’s mirror and starts running the lipstick’s wand over his lips, painting them a mauve shade.
“Where did you get those?” I ask.
“I didn’t steal them off your mother, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he says, eyes narrowed in concentration as he makes a precise line around his lips before smoothing it out. The kid is like a fucking pro.
“And where did you learn to do that?”
He gives me a close-lipped smirk. “It’s not hard to put on liquid lipstick, you know. Also, I follow a load of makeup artists on YouTube. I want to master contouring next but…we’ll see.”
I want to point out that with his angular face, he doesn’t need the contouring but I let it be. Clearly this makes him happy.
“And don’t worry,” he adds as he swipes on the mascara, “I’ll take all of this off before we go back home.”
I wish Noah lived in a house where he didn’t have to do that but at this point, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“Ready to go?” I ask.
He nods, beaming at his appearance. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen on him all day. “Ready.”
We head out to the promenade and do the typical tourist thing that even locals will indulge in every now and then—people watching. Even though the weather in May can be volatile and it’s been fairly cold and gloomy as of late (which I love, reminds me of home), the beach is still packed.
There’s plenty to see. We pass people on rollerblades, break-dancers, people playing basketball, dogs pulling wagons filled with smaller dogs, fire-breathers, jugglers and several people on unicycles.
I don’t see Scooby anywhere and I wonder if the unicyclists are stepping on his turf.
They’d probably have a jousting match to settle it all. Now that would be entertaining.
Eventually we get ice cream like my mother had suggested and when that’s done, Noah goes over to talk to an artist who is painting sunsets on tiny canvases with pastels.
I finally text back Marina. I’m with Noah. He’s been having a hard time so I took him to Venice for ice cream. Want to come join?
She texts back right away. I would, even if I didn’t feel like driving allllll the way down there. But we’re not supposed to see each other outside of our dates, remember?
Oh right. So I guess that means you don’t want to come to our show tonight in Burbank.
Would if I could but I can’t. We’re still on for our date on Tuesday, right? The weather should hold up.
Why what are we doing?
The bees, remember?
Fuck.
Right. The bees.
You promised.
I did.
Three dots appear and then disappear and I feel my pulse quickening with it. Is she backing out? I mean, I’m not crazy about the idea of donning a bee suit and having them swarm around me, or god forbid, get trapped in my suit somehow, but I’ll do it for her.
She texts: We could do something else…
No, I want to do the bee thing. I imagine you like Candyman, in complete horrifying control of them.
I’ve never been compared to Candyman before. I like it.
“Your girlfriend again?” Noah says and I look up to see him nodding at my phone, watching me with a wary expression.
“I told you, I don’t have a bloody girlfriend.”
“Dude, you always have a girlfriend.”
“Not right now I don’t.”
“Then who do you keep texting and smiling like an idiot?”
I’m smiling like an idiot? I try and rein it in.
“It’s just Marina.”
“The hot blonde?” I give him a look. “What?” he says. “I told you I think girls are hot. I just don’t want to stick my tongue down their throat.”
“Well I don’t want to stick my tongue down Marina’s throat either,” I tell him. “We’re just friends.”
But even though what I just said was completely juvenile, it feels like a total lie.
And now Noah is looking at me like he doesn’t believe a word of it either.
“We’re just friends,” I repeat. Friends who are dating each other for fun. But there’s no way I’m getting into that with Noah right now. Everything is already starting to feel complicated and we’ve only just begun.