38. Charlie #2
The conversation flows around me, a mix of band talk and inside jokes I only half understood.
Something about Omen being obsessed with eating bananas, and Noah claiming some famous Asian fighter is his father, and something about a Daminals yogurt drinking contest. Amy is touchy-feely with Noah, splashing him in the face, and pushing him in the shoulders while laughing at his cocky jokes.
I chime in when I can, trying to keep the awkwardness at bay. Noah wraps an arm around my shoulder, scooting me closer. Our knees occasionally brush together under the water. Each accidental touch sends a jolt searing through my legs.
Once the sun sets and it gets dark, everyone besides Noah and I goes inside. Moths flutter around the hanging porch lights, and my head dips partially under water, blowing bubbles.
“I don’t like her that way,” Noah says, gazing out into the string porch lights hanging throughout the backyard. “You’re easy to read.” The jets shut off and the bubbles subside. “Just like when you play poker.”
I pick my head up and sit on the other side of the hottub. “But she’s the one I caught giving you head?”
“Before I was seeing you.”
“Were you two doing more than just random blow jobs in the bathroom?”
“I don’t know what it was.”
“Oh...”
“I was drunk, and it just sorta happened a few times. I broke it off that night you walked in.”
“Did you like her?”
“Are you jealous? Because I told you how I feel about her.”
“I’m not jealous.” Liar. Amy seems super witty and overly bubbly.
Me, I’m a bitch. She’s a bit loud when she laughs.
But then I mock people. And she was pretty.
Not like a runway model, but like a natural pretty, where she doesn’t have to wear makeup.
I wish I felt more secure in my own skin and I didn’t need to cake on fifty pounds of foundation daily.
“Why do you feel insecure?” he asks, shaking his empty beer that he shoved a metal can cap in.
“I’m not...”
“You are.” He’s so nonchalant with the remark.
I want to wring my fingers around his neck, but I snap out of it. “You slept with her before, and she clearly still has a crush on you.”
“We are gonna walk inside, and I bet you anything she’s got her hands all over Vince, then she's going to be sitting on Omen’s lap. She’s like that with every guy, I’ve known her for years. We were just screwing around with no strings attached. I felt nothing for her.”
“Still... it’s...”
He tilts his gaze at me, his brows furrowing. “It’s what, because I’m not into her.”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
“Then explain it to me.” He starts to crush the can, the metal bending it in his fingers.
“You don’t really date anyone, so you wouldn’t understand.”
“We are going to spin in circles. Talk to me, what the hell is spinning inside your head.”
“I thought he was different...okay... and how she’s all over you just reminds me of how I felt all the fucking time with him.”
“Brody?” His jaw twitches, and the veins in his neck throb. The anger is laced within the expression on his face, but I swallow it down.
“Yes! When I met him, he was a completely different person.”
“So I was right when we last talked. You still have feelings for him?”
“No! Can you just hear me out?” I ask.
“Yeah...”
“I did have feelings for him at the very beginning. He’d call me every night around eight, and we’d talk forever about stupid shit.
Then we started hanging out. He’d tell me how wonderful and pretty I was.
Get me flowers, tell me a song that reminded him of me.
Being near him was probably just as good as oxy... ”
Noah’s eyes stay fixated on me. The glimmer of the half moon tonight reflects off his irises and a small speck of caramel brown looks at me. He doesn’t say a word. He dips his head to the side as I take a deep breath.
“I went over to his house and caught him watching porn... again, and again, and again... He told me he’d stop watching and jerking to it if I did sexual favors. So I did.”
“Have you ever done anything with another guy besides him?”
“No. I made out with guys all the time, but I thought he would change, so I said yes.”
Noah runs a hand over his chin. “He was manipulating you into thinking he would change if you put out. Sounds like one fucking great dude.”
“Then we started fighting about my rule. I didn’t want to lose my virginity, so he’d remove the tags from the photos I posted of us online, and instead he would post pictures of other girls he was with.
He stopped calling me at eight to talk all night.
Right after I met you, he got mad at me and kicked me out of his car on the freeway. ”
“He did what?” His fists curl around the beer can, and the vein in his neck twitches.
“Well, it gets even better. He told me he was gonna take me out to dinner, so I got all dolled up and I’d waited on the street for over an hour in six-inch heels.
I tried so hard to make him happy, but he treated me like shit.
Then you, you run away from me, and I’m throwing myself at you all the time.
He cheated on several occasions and then I see her flirting with you.
Why is it that every fucking guy I like treats me like this?
” I stand up out of the water, blubbery and a mess, but he grasps my wrist before I can lung one leg over the edge of the tub.
“I’d be fifteen minutes early every time I’d take you out on a date,” Noah says, and I blink back the tears in my eyes.
“Those are just words.”
“I’d post every god damn picture I take of you.”
“Stop...” I suck in a deep breath.
“I don’t watch porn. The only thing you’ll find in my search history is a rabbit hole of where Yoda came from.”
“You’re stupid. You like Star Wars?” I ask with a chuckle.
“I’m not good at dating. I’m not good with feelings.
You’re starting college. I’m finishing up a demo, and it’s right around the corner, a contract, touring.
I have fucking feelings for you. I really do, and I don’t let any girls in.
I don’t want her, I want you, but if you put this all together, with you starting a new chapter in your life, and still healing from a breakup, do you really think this is something that can work? ”
“If you wanted me, you would make it work. None of that would matter, you’d text me, or call me and stay on the phone with me while I study. But you don’t want a relationship with me, you’ve made that very clear.”
“That’s not true in the slightest, I do.”
“Why are you always pushing me away then?” I slink back down into the tub.
“Because I haven’t had it very easy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, I’ve gone to church my whole life, always hearing about The Father, I wondered where the hell mine was.
Nothing beats a mother telling you she never wanted you, and that your father never wanted you.
I was a product of a one-night stand, not love.
I was born a coke baby.” He stares back at the crushed beer can in his hands.
“But umm...” He takes a moment, his chest expanding as he closes his eyes, letting it all out through his mouth.
“I was ten years old when my mom started coming around more. She was getting clean, so I’d be able to go spend weekends with her...
but then she started sleeping all day long.
I could never wake her up. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I’d go leave to play with the neighbors and lie to them so I could sleep over.
That’s how I got dinner on the weekends when I stayed with her.
But it’s fun with CPS getting involved and police hauling your mother off and Gramps telling me she got sick again. ”
“She relapsed?”
“Yeah... and I’d go back to my grandparents again.
I went back and forth like this for years and then she really tried.
She went into a six-month rehab program and got out.
She was three months sober, had a job as a secretary, got an apartment, we got furniture for my room...
and umm...” His voice strains as he takes another breath.
He looks directly at me, his eyes glossy.
“I waited outside for her, my bags packed. I sat on the curb for three hours. It started to rain too, and Gramps was fighting with me to come inside. I bawled my eyes out. Just fucking cried like a baby. That night the police came...” He pauses, sucking in a breath.
“She was hit by a drunk driver. I fucking ran away. I was fifteen fucking years old.”
“I’m really sorry.” I’m tearing up and have to blink the pain away. It’s lodged in my chest and throat. “I dunno how to respond to that. I can’t even imagine what you went through.”
“This is my life. My Gramps is all I have, and I’m going to lose him too. My band mates are my family. I don’t open up to anyone but them. I’m terrified of having my heart broken, and I’m fucking terrified of you.”
“I don’t want to break your heart.”
I scoot over in the hot tub, and lean into his cold, damp shoulder.
He removes his arm from the toasty water and wraps it around my arm.
He looked down at me, his eyes searching mine.
“I just don’t know how I can make this work, and I want it to.
If I’m going to try to have a relationship with anyone. I’d do it with you.”
My heart leaps into my throat as he leans in, his lips dusting over mine before he sucks in a deep breath and fully kisses me.
His lips are cold, his tongue warm with the hint of malty sweetness.
Everything dissolved, the world fading as his mouth claimed mine.
It’s different from his other kisses, it sparked something terrifying in my chest as it exploded all over me.
All the awful things I went through with Brody melted away, disappearing and falling into the deepest trenches in the ocean because Noah picked up all that baggage and tossed it over.
I’m more terrified than ever to mess this up.