Chapter Nineteen Noah #2
Rexy: Dead to me, Damon.
Me: Duh, I’m a vampire.
Rexy:
Me: Happy birthday, baby.
Goldie
“You know technically if we’re going for a repeat of last year, I should only be wearing the outfit I have on underneath this,” I say from next to Noah as we stroll down the sidewalk of our neighborhood.
He nods. “If memory serves, you were actually deflated when I showed up at the party. Should I pop you? Maybe rub your ass against the brick?”
I chuckle. “Nah, let’s just rewrite history. It kinda felt like being a little kid trapped in a bounce house someone had unplugged. The fabric is surprisingly heavy.”
He smiles as we fall back into a comfortable silence, and I look around. Tonight is so picturesque, something a travel bureau would use to advertise “Visit Boston.”
The air is as crisp as a Diet Coke, and the leaves on the ground look almost painted on because of the bright autumnal palette.
And even though it’s warmer this October than most, it’s got that It rained earlier feel.
And maybe because it’s my birthday or because it’s almost Halloween, there’s magic in the air.
Noah points to a stoop next to us littered with pumpkins and little white ghosts.
“You wanna meet some of my cousins?”
I giggle before looking at a house across the street. It’s the one from last year that made me climb Noah out of sheer fear. I hold his hand tighter, not because I’m afraid but because I’m having one of those I can’t believe this is my life moments.
We’re literally right back where we started and so far from the people we were.
It’s so bizarre the way life unfolds. A year ago, I was newly unemployed, desperately single, and floundering as I looked for a sign to point me in the right direction.
And I guess I got it in a bright-red neon one hanging above the entrance for a local pharmacy. Because now I’m a cute little inflatable T. rex who’s deeply in love with her flower-print boo, living in my dream neighborhood, and finally getting paid to do what I love. Albeit only one article.
How is this my real life? I don’t remember manifesting it.
But maybe I did when I boldly invited a stranger to meet me at a party. Then asked him to be my boyfriend months later. Let him become the first person to ever read my work. And trusted his belief in me more than my own fear of failure.
I decided without a conversation that I would move across the world for him and that he would want that too.
Somewhere in this year, I started getting comfortable with the uncomfy parts of life and allowing myself to bloom. I owe that as much to my own bravery as I do to Noah’s strength. Because I don’t think one could’ve existed without the other.
In the fine words of Jerry Maguire in the 1996 classic, Noah completes me.
I tilt my head, looking up at him through the mesh cutout of the costume. One day I’m going to marry you.
As if he’s heard my thoughts, his eyehole cutouts shift to my face.
“Huh? Did you say something?”
I breathe out a small laugh. There’s definitely a little magic in the air.
“No, but I was going to say I heard back from the adoption investigators looking into my birth parents.” I’d been meaning to tell him today but got sidetracked, so now’s the perfect distraction from my thoughts. “They might have a lead. I’m meeting with them next week.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then he gives his head a shake like he was zoning out.
“Killer, that’s amazing. Are you nervous? Happy? It’s hard to tell from your resting rex face.”
I smile, even if he can’t see it. “Actually, I’m excited. It feels so silly to me now that I was always so scared to find out more.”
He raises my claw and presses it to his covered mouth before he looks up and down the street, then leads me across the cobblestones. But the moment we’re in the middle, he tugs my hand, pulling me to a stop.
“What are you doing? We’re gonna get run over,” I whisper.
He looks up and down the street again. “It’s all clear. Just a flower ghost and his T. rex.”
I chuckle, but he doesn’t move.
“You know I kissed you right here the night we met.”
I grin, and butterflies tickle my stomach because I can still feel that moment so distinctly inside my body. How urgent it felt but also the way he took his time as if we both needed to savor every second.
There was no way I wasn’t destined to fall in love with him.
From the outside, there’s nothing about this moment that could give away what it feels like. I’m sure we look ridiculous to any passersby. But still, I’m staring up into his sapphire eyes, peeking through those eye cutouts.
And even though my costume is trembling because of the fan, I’ve never felt more swept off my feet.
“Wanna take the risk and kiss me again?” I breathe out. “But I warn you, my teeth are pretty sharp.”
My big dino head wobbles as his shoulders shake.
“Promise you won’t bite?” he says, his voice layered in the gravel that hits me in all the right places.
I shrug, flirting like a good dinosaur.
We stand in silence as his hands slowly lift to my blown-up dome, the air crackling with that all-too-familiar chemistry that’s always ignited between us.
I’m expecting he’ll help it off me so we can kiss, but instead, Noah smashes his covered face into mine, dramatically kissing me the way kids make their dolls make out.
I scream-laugh as he wraps his arms around me. “Noah.”
His deep rumble of a laugh rolls off him before I jump ten feet in the air because a horn honks behind us.
“Oh my god.”
“Oh shit.” Noah laughs as he grabs my claw and pulls me across the street to the safety of the sidewalk, making me swish-swish-swish the whole way while I try and keep up.
“Is it ‘romance isn’t dead’ or ‘romance makes you dead’? I can’t remember,” I say, a bit breathless as he stares down at me.
“You’re asking a guy in the afterlife. I carry a bias. But still, sorry about that. Are you okay? I was aiming for a moment, not the ER.”
I nod, feeling the head wobble. “Right as rain, but I’d be even better if our ride would find us because then I could be a respectable Rexy and make out in the back of a stranger’s car.”
“God, I love how classy you are.” He fake smooches me again, making me laugh, before taking my hand.
“The Uber should be over by the park. I think they’re already rerouting, expecting traffic for the lookie-loos who drive up and down to see decorations.
” He glances down at his phone. “We should try and hurry.”
“Is the car close?” He’s walking faster, holding my outstretched arm behind him as he pulls me along.
I keep yapping. “Because I feel like there’s a decent chance that I’ll get whatever you call rug burn but for polyester if we keep sprinting for blocks.
The inside of my legs are gonna look like Hot Pockets—”
His head turns back over his shoulder. “Hot Pockets?”
“Yeah, like burnt perfection because I might start an electrical fire from the friction.” I laugh. “Slow down.”
“It’s just right around the corner. Pick up the pace. Use your arms.”
Between going deaf from the swish-swish-swish and my own heavy breathing, I don’t notice the thing right in front of my face.
I’m somehow completely oblivious to the scattered tables of food and drinks set out like a foodie magazine photoshoot. All around, twenty or so people stand in the middle of the park where Noah and I spent our first sunrise together.
But just as my mind catches up to my eyes, I see Evie dressed as the twins from The Shining, fake body attached to her and all .
. . then Chase, who looks like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show .
. . Lee and the owners of the flower shop, all as witches .
. . even some girls from college I never see enough of, looking like the cast of Mean Girls.
“Oh my god, is that my parents?” I shriek.
But it’s drowned out as everyone screams, “Surprise!”
I gasp, claws covering my mouth as my shoulders jump, and I stutter a blink. Confetti explodes into the sky from little poppers in everyone’s hands, and it feels a lot like how my heart’s just burst.
My head shoots to Noah’s, who’s already pulled his costume off and is smiling at me big and wide.
“You planned a surprise party for me?” My voice is too high pitched because I’m bouncing between feeling ecstatic and wanting to cry hysterically.
Oh my god. He’s fucking amazing. He’s everything.
“I did. Happy birthday, killer.”
“This is . . . oh my god, Noah.”
He’s already unzipping me as I start to bounce in place, repeating “Oh my god” over and over before I’m finally freed. I reach for him first, but he kisses me quickly and says, “Go. Everybody’s waiting.”
So I do. I run like the wind straight for everyone as they cheer before I’m engulfed in a giant group hug.
Nothing could ever top this.
Noah
Music’s playing while Goldie’s being passed from person to person, everyone wanting to catch up and relive her surprise.
She stops next to her dad, who seems to say something funny because her laugh fills the air, and it’s intoxicating. God, I love her. She really is like her name. This woman shines so bright I feel blinded by her but not by my nerves, because those are out in full force.
I take another sip of my drink, feeling my anxiousness double by the second. All I want is to ask her one tiny question, but that feels like launching a goddamn nuke. Because for the last hour, all I’ve been thinking about is how I could potentially fuck it all up.
What if I ruin her birthday? Or I say something fucking embarrassing in front of everyone and we never live that down? Every year on her birthday, someone will bring it up. Why would I choose this day?
In hindsight, this is feeling like I should’ve brought her sister in on the ground floor instead of letting a clown—Chase—lead the circus—me.
Fuck.