New York, New York #5
So much had been said last night, but nothing had been resolved. They’d fallen on each other like animals, but they hadn’t even kissed. AJ looked around the palatial yellow kitchen and realized abruptly that she knew what lay behind every cabinet door, but not whether Noah drank coffee.
As the countless unknowns swirled up around her, the meanest parts of her brain descended like wolves through a fog.
What if this thing she had yearned for her entire life couldn’t survive the light of day?
AJ suddenly felt sure it could not. She couldn’t name one thing Noah liked to do in his spare time. And their bond hadn’t been the same since SNL. The idea of them hanging out felt utterly absurd.
Fuck. He hadn’t seen her yet. AJ would call Libby and slip out.
As she rose to flee the kitchen, the screen door whinnied and Noah’s head and shoulders came into view. Her adrenaline surged. Fuck. This would be awkward. It would be awkward and awful, and they’d realize this connection they’d cherished was nothing more than a projection and—
Bud was sprinting across the tile floor, so overjoyed to see AJ that her ass was actually wiggling. She was thirteen now, a dowager with tearstains in her pretty eyes, but she moved well for an old lady.
“Aw, what a good girl,” said AJ, stiffly squatting to pet her. Bud playfully swiped her hand away, slowly wagging her tail as if to say Just try. AJ burst out laughing.
“That’s how you know she remembers you,” said Noah, grabbing Bud’s water bowl off the floor and walking it over to the sink. “She’s only a ‘good girl’ with people she doesn’t know.”
Bud trotted away from AJ and began to drink as soon as Noah replaced the dish. He straightened up as AJ stood, and the two of them looked at each other.
Holy shit, he was beautiful, his eyes sleepy but bright, his shoulders making the white Hanes T-shirt he was wearing look indecent. AJ froze. Then she felt it—the faintest energetic tug: warmth. She smiled at him shyly. Noah’s eyes creased at the corners.
“You like coffee, right?” he asked.
AJ swallowed. “Yes,” she said. “Do you? I thought you were a health nut.”
“I don’t,” said Noah. “And I am. But every time I’ve seen you over the last six years you’ve been holding a coffee the size of your torso, and I don’t want you to go into some kind of withdrawal.”
AJ smiled. She took a seat at the island and watched Noah reach into the far depths of a corner cabinet to extract a zany geometric metal pitcher.
AJ stared at it. “Is that from Sputnik?”
Noah gave her a miffed look. “This is an Italian espresso pot,” he said, twisting it in half.
“Oh, well then.”
Noah filled the contraption and set it to boil on the stove. As it heated, he began to prepare some extravagant concoction of his own. There was a lot of chopping of onions and tomatoes and cracking of eggs. “What do you like for breakfast these days?”
AJ sat up proudly. “Special K,” she declared, “with Red Berries.”
Noah gave her a disgusted look as he dumped his ingredients into a cast-iron skillet. “No wonder you’re thinking about Sputnik,” he said. “That stuff is dehydrated space food.”
“Actually, it’s a good source of eleven vitamins and minerals,” said AJ tartly. “It’s made with real berries.”
“It’s shlock,” said Noah, who then had the audacity to peel open a can of sardines and add it to his cauldron.
AJ thought she was going to yak. “You’re one to talk,” she said. “What’s that—Voldemort’s resurrection soup? The witches’ brew from Macb—”
Noah’s jaw dropped in a look of sheer delight, and AJ covered her mouth with her hand.
“I didn’t say it,” she muttered.
Noah shook his head, laughing silently. “She’s not even in her urn yet.”
He washed his hands and placed a mug of fresh coffee in front of AJ. He watched her pick it up and tentatively take a sip. “Well?”
“That’s annoyingly good,” she said.
Noah looked pleased. “You need to eat something.”
“Why?”
Noah shrugged. “What if we want to go on a run later?”
AJ could tell instantly he’d been working up to this and was so happy he wanted to spend more time with her, she would probably have tried his appalling sardine dish. “Toast?” she offered.
Noah grinned and threw a couple pieces of bread in the toaster. AJ sipped her coffee and nibbled her toast as Noah pulled out the stool beside her and housed his aggressive omega-3 concoction in under three minutes. As they finished, AJ frowned.
“Yes?” he asked, wiping his mouth on a piece of paper towel. AJ hadn’t even seen him look up.
“I don’t have anything with me.”
Technically, she had one change of clothes at her parents’ house. AJ felt her face color when she recalled that they had all been expecting her home at some point last night.
Noah met her eyes. He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “That’s fixable.”
They headed up to his room and AJ donned her dress from the day before while Noah pulled on a gray T-shirt and jeans. As they changed, they joked about this and that—Noah’s collection of incognito-wear, AJ’s post-funeral walk of shame. Neither of them touched the unmade bed.
Evidently Noah still drove his red Camaro when he was home. As they sped down the mountain, he filled AJ in on Drew House’s slow remodel. Apparently, he’d done a lot of the work himself.
“I did notice your room makes an abrupt departure in sconce style,” she said.
Noah checked the rearview. “The plan was for Eudora to take that room so she could be more comfortable, but when the time came, she naturally refused.” He shook his head. “I might have gone on a rewiring bender.”
AJ smiled. The more they talked, the less anxious she felt. This was a new kind of scene, one where she truly didn’t know her next line until it was her turn to speak. But he was in it with her.
The turn signal clicked on, and they pulled into a strip mall.
“I figured we’ll try T.J.’s first and go from there,” said Noah lightly.
AJ’s eyes swiveled toward him as he parked; his cheeks were tinged with pink. “Oh my God,” she said. “You love T.J. Maxx.”
“Stop,” he said, his cheeks now fully red.
AJ was beside herself. “You want to marry T.J. Maxx.”
“It’s called T.J.’s,” he said, tugging on a baseball cap and getting out of the car.
They found a cart and began to roam the aisles. As they walked, Noah made little knowing comments like “Twenty-five percent off cowls…not bad” and “This used to be in aisle seven.”
“How often do you come here?” asked AJ as they turned into the women’s clothing section.
Noah shrugged. “Pretty often,” he said. “I used to work here when I was in high school, back when it was Caldor. And then being home so much…it’s a nice place to take a break.
No one here gives a flying fuck who I am—they’re all stoned.
Sometimes I just come by and walk around.
The guy who does the outdoor goods section has a real artistic flair. ”
He tossed a sports bra to AJ—it was her exact size. She raised a brow, and he winked almost imperceptibly. Then he threw in a seven-pack of underwear for good measure.
They entered the shoe section, and AJ selected a pair of sneakers.
“Are you going to try those on?” asked Noah sternly as she placed the box into the cart.
AJ shrugged. “I’ve been the same size since I was thirteen, so no.”
Noah rolled his eyes and stalked off into a different aisle. He returned presently with a metal shoe bench and placed it down with a clang beside AJ.
“Sit.” AJ sat. He took the right shoe out of the box, removed the cardboard stuffing, and began to lace it up with practiced alacrity.
“Let me guess—your next role is a cobbler with a dark past,” said AJ, as Noah knelt before her.
“I just think something worth doing is worth doing well,” he said, pulling back the shoe’s tongue so she could slide her foot inside, pushing against his thigh.
As she did, the skirt of the black wrap dress parted slightly.
Noah’s eyes darted toward the opening and for a split second, his face went slack.
Then he grabbed the other shoe and busied himself with the laces. AJ could detect a slight flush on his cheeks and neck as he helped her on with the left shoe. This time he kept his eyes down, but AJ felt his thumb linger an extra second on her ankle.
She walked the short distance to the end of the aisle. “These feel…excellent,” she reported over her shoulder. “Your cobbler character’s going to be very convincing.”
She pivoted around in time to see his eyes intensely focused on the spot where her ass had been a second before. This time, AJ blushed. They stared at each other for a moment, then Noah cleared his throat. “You’re welcome for the extra five years on your knees.”
Methodically, they canvassed each section of the store. Noah slowed again as they passed the swimwear. He nodded toward the rack.
“You guys got a pool?” asked AJ, looking for her size.
“After my mom died,” said Noah. “It’s where the rose garden used to be.”
“Eudora allowed that?” asked AJ, rejecting a periwinkle two-piece.
“She liked to pretend she cared about that garden, but she never actually did anything with it,” said Noah in an irritated tone that told AJ she had just raked up one of their old arguments. She pulled out a navy blue one-piece. This time Noah didn’t insist she try it on.
Instead, he brought her to the outdoor goods section, which lived up to the hype. They stood before a floor-to-ceiling rainbow constructed out of pool toys as a Muzak version of “Hold Me Now,” by the Thompson Twins, played in the background.
“This is…everything,” said AJ in hushed reverence.
“You should see toboggan season,” said Noah. AJ laughed, eyeing the boxes of neon floaties.
Noah grabbed two.
By the time they reached the checkout counter, AJ couldn’t remember how half of what they were buying had made it into the cart. She felt as if she were preparing for the world’s weirdest summer camp.