Chapter Six
Noah
I hate taking the Edenbury city bus because it’s always packed with people. Our town only has one bus route.
Can’t wait for my car to be fixed.
After I get off the bus, I make my way to Wyatt’s basement, where the guys are already practicing. I can hear his older brother, Elliot, hitting the drums, and Wyatt’s bass and Mateo’s guitar.
“Hey,” I greet as I lean my guitar against the wall. “How’s it going?”
“Something’s off with the song,” Elliot says. “Music’s not right.”
I pull my guitar strap over my shoulder and join the others. “I spent days working on it.”
“Well, it’s not good,” he says.
I try not to grit my teeth.
Wyatt waves his hand. “It’s all good. Let’s start from the top and figure it out.”
Mateo turns to me. “You okay? Seem bothered about something.”
“Nothing. We need to finish this up fast. I’m meeting my wife in less than two hours.”
All three of them gape at me.
“Say what?” Wyatt asks.
“It’s for LRG class. Mrs. Duncan paired us up and we’re supposed to pretend to be married and complete different tasks.”
They stare at me again.
“Good thing that class didn’t exist when I attended Edenbury High,” Elliot says with a chuckle.
“Mom would have made me take it for sure. Not you, though, Wyatt. She thinks you’re a good kid.
” He’s five years older than his brother.
He dropped out of college after his freshman year because he claimed college wasn’t for him.
He’s a great drummer, and we’re lucky to have him.
“Who’s your wife?” Wyatt asks as he pokes me in the ribs. “She hot?”
I nearly choke over my spit. Hot and Evie in the same sentence? No.
I mean, she’s cute and pretty and smart and extremely talented, but…no.
“Evie Hastings.”
As soon as the words are out, my friends buckle over with laughter. They know just how much Evie irritates me.
“Oh man,” Mateo says through his laughter. “That’s awesome.” He high-fives Wyatt, who chuckles harder.
I glare at them. “This isn’t funny. I like that class.”
“Don’t they teach you to bake cookies?” Elliot snickers.
“No! They teach life skills. You know, prepare us for the real world. Why does everyone assume they just bake cookies there?”
Wyatt slings his arm over my shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll knock a girl off her feet with your delicious cookies.”
I shove his arm off. “Shut up, man. Do any of you know how to make a budget? Or go for a job interview?”
Mateo shrugs. “Nah, man. Guess you’ll be more prepared than the rest of us!”
They continue to laugh and I shake my head at them. My friends like to tease me sometimes, but I know they’ll always have my back.
“We’d better start,” Wyatt says. “The new husband can’t be late to his wife.” He makes kissy faces.
I shove his shoulder. “Elliot, give us a beat and let’s try to figure out what’s wrong with the music.”
Two hours later, I’m in the car with Mateo, who drives me to Evie’s house after dropping off my guitar at my house. We still haven’t fixed the music. I guess I’ll be up all night working on it, since I was the one who composed it.
“Say hi to your wife for me,” Mateo teases as I get out of the car before the Hastings’ house. He’s still chortling as he drives off.
I climb the stairs to the front door and ring the bell. It swings open a few seconds later to reveal Zack, Evie’s dad. He has the same dark hair as her and a kind smile on his face.
“Hi, Noah. I heard you’re my son-in-law.”
I smile despite the dread that fills me. “Yeah.”
He claps me on the back. “Evie set you guys up in her room.”
We pass the living room, where Evie’s mom, Ally, is reading on the couch. My mom’s reading the same book for their club.
She shuts the book when she sees me and grins. “There’s our son-in-law.”
“Ugh!” Evie groans from upstairs.
Ally chuckles. “Try not to kill each other.”
“No promises!” Evie calls.
As Zack lowers himself next to Ally on the couch, I head upstairs to Evie’s room, where as usual, the place looks like it underwent a tornado. Books and papers are strewn all over. Snacks and wrappers clutter every available space.
It makes me sick to my stomach just seeing it all. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them. “I’m not working in these conditions. Clean up or I’m going home.”
“This is my room. You should have decided to meet at your place.”
Sighing, I start cleaning up the wrappers.
“Are you serious?” she demands.
“I’m not working in this filth.”
She watches me with hard eyes as I stack the papers in neat piles, gather the rest of the wrappers, and push her snacks aside.
“Much better.” I drop down in the second chair at her desk with my assignment. “We picked careers. Now we need to buy a house or rent an apartment.”
I’m not sure if she’s listening to me as she reaches for her papers and snacks and spreads them on her desk, undoing all my cleanup. “This is much better. I can’t focus when everything is neat and orderly.”
I put them back in a pile. “I can’t work in a mess.”
With every item I clean up, she makes a mess again.
I grit my teeth. She glares at me.
“Can’t you just be tidy for an hour?” I ask. “Would it kill you?”
“Yes, it would kill me.”
“This is so disrespectful.”
“What’s disrespectful is you coming to my room and organizing everything.”
My chest heaves as my eyes narrow at her. Her eyes narrow at me.
“This isn’t working,” I say as I rub a hand down my face. “I don’t want to argue with you all the time.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds. “Why did you have to come here and mess everything up?”
I sigh as I lean back in the chair. “I wasn’t messing everything up. I was cleaning up. We can’t get any work done if your desk is a mess.”
“I can…fine. I guess I’ll make an exception for my Shnookums.” She starts sweeping the pages into a pile.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Shnookums.”
“Evie!”
She laughs. “Fine. Do you prefer Mr. Stick-Up-His-Butt?”
I give her a look. “Let’s just pick a house so I can go home to my house.”
We oddly work well together. Of course we argue a bit here and there—for example, she chooses a mansion we can’t afford and I need to talk her out of it—but for the most part, it’s not so bad.
Until her left arm bangs into my right one as we jot down our answers. Sometimes I forget she’s left-handed. We’re squished together at her desk that’s made for one person. She pushes my arm out of the way and I push hers.
This isn’t the first time our arms have bumped, and it’s just as irritating. Evie and I exchange a look before we switch seats and continue the assignment without any more issues.
“Done and done,” she says as she checks off the last few tasks we have left. “Being married is so easy.”
I take the page from her. “You spent hundreds of dollars on art supplies?”
“Talent like mine doesn’t come cheap.”
“If you exchange those supplies for a cheaper brand, you can save lots of money.”
She pouts. “Don’t you want the best for your wife?”
“You can create beautiful paintings even with the cheaper brand. We need to save money for our future. You know I won’t have a football career forever.”
“So, I’ll support us. Ugh, don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who needs to earn more than his wife.”
“No. Of course not. We just need to be responsible.”
She shrugs. “That’s soooo boring. I think we should be adventurous.”
“And that’s why we’ll never see eye to eye.” I move my papers aside on her desk to fetch the next page, when something floats to the floor.
Picking it up, I scan the drawing. Looks like a detective. “What’s this?” I ask her.
“Oh, that’s for Colt’s computer game. He hired me to do the artwork.”
Right. She mentioned that. “It’s pretty cool.”
Her eyes widen as she clutches her heart. “A compliment from Noah Barrington? I think I might fall off my chair.”
I give her a look. “Funny. But back to our marriage. I insist you switch to the cheaper art supplies so we can afford other things.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m not budging.”
I sigh. Even when things look like they’re going well, she has to be so difficult. But that’s Evie. “Fine. Only because it’s so important to you.”
“Thank you. You know, you can splurge on something, too. I won’t mind and it’ll make things fair.”
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“Come on, Shnookums. There has to be something other than football that you’re passionate about.”
When we were choosing our careers, I wanted to pick a musician. I figured if I can’t be one in real life, then I’d be one in my pretend future. But I chose football because I need to keep my dreams to myself.
“No,” I tell her. “No passions other than football.”
She narrows her eyes at me, as if she’s studying me. Her mouth opens to say something, but then she shrugs and returns to our assignment. “We’re done. Maybe this project is over and we won’t be forced to be married anymore.”
“One can only hope.” I get to my feet. “I’m heading home.”
She starts messing up her desk and sighs in relief, like the neatness caused her anxiety. “Much better.”
I shake my head, then make my way toward the door. But I stop in my place when I notice a snack wrapper on the floor. After picking it up, I toss it into her garbage bin. Evie doesn’t even notice.
Once I’m downstairs, I wish Ally and Zack good night, then leave the house. Evie doesn’t live too far from me, and besides, the walk will do me good.
All this talk about the future and careers makes me think about my own future. And the path I wish I could go on. But I tell myself not to question it anymore. Making it as a musician is hard. I’ve already got a football career lined up, so it makes sense which path to go on.
But why does my heart pull me in the opposite direction?