“NOAH!” I shout, my voice crying out in scratchy and painless agony.
“Hey, Liam! What are you doing here?”
“Getting fucking laid, bro! What are you doing here?”
“Erm. Same, I guess.” I see now that some beautiful girl has his fingers. He still stopped to acknowledge me though, which is cool. “Yeah, I knew you were gonna be out for the night, so I figured I’d bring her back to our room, but I didn’t know you were here. Having fun at your first college party, buddy?”
The girl with his fingers tugs on him, but he stays firmly in front of me, looking down at me like that, like a bastion of hope, goodness, good looks, Greek God looks, uh, he’s hot, and he’s also really nice. He looks like the Sun or something. His face is really soft and cute, but still really sharp and hot. I’m tired and drunk.
“Oh, yeah… Uh, this isn’t my first one, but you know…” An eyebrow raised on his face. Nothing else changes.
“Oh yeah? Okay, I see you, I see you. You’ll have to tell me later, yeah?”
I nod, and turn to keep looking for my shoes.
“Hey, wait,” he says, grabbing my arm. The girl doesn’t have his hands anymore.
I turn back to him. He’s closer than I was expecting, and the blood basically drains from my face.
“Do you need a ride back home? You, uh, don’t have a shirt. And I haven’t even had a drink yet. You’re probably too plastered to drive back, right? Let me drive you.” He turns to his date. “You don’t mind, right?”
“What?” she shouts back. I guess I hadn’t realized that the music was as loud as it is. Maybe he was just that close to me, so that I could hear every word clearly, and I hadn’t noticed. The thought gave me a little shiver.
“DO YOU MIND IF I DRIVE MY ROOMMATE BACK WITH US TO MY ROOM?”
“DO YOU HAVE SEPARATE ROOMS?”
“UH, NO!”
She looks at him and rolls her eyes.
“Then why the fuck am I still next to you?” She walks away, and Noah shakes his head and grabs his arm and loops it through mine, pulling me towards the front door.
“Oh, shit! Your shoe! Let’s find that, yeah?” I nod and just follow him. I probably do need my other shoe, but the fact that so much of our flesh is touching right now makes it pretty hard to think about anything else. The upper parts of his arm literally feel like rocks.
My other shoe ends up being on a table in the “office.” Two people are bare naked inside, and one is inside the other, and everything is on full display. Noah’s eyes widen, he snatches my shoe, and steers me out of there.
“I’ve had sex before,” I blurt.
“Oh. I mean, I figured, but--”
“You don’t have to like, shield me from it, that’s all.”
“Oh.”
He pulls me outside, and it’s freezing without my shirt. When, exactly, did my shirt go missing? Damn, I must be way more drunk than I thought.
When we get to his car, he opens the passenger door for me and ushers me in. A real gentleman.
He slides into the other side, and closes the door with the same snap that every car door ever has made when it closes. He starts the car, then looks at me. He hits me in the center of my chest with the back of his palm.
“Hey, what the hell are you looking at? You’re the dork without a shirt on! I should be looking at you like you’re the goofy one here!” I giggle.
“Well, to be fair, I was in the process of getting laid--”
“Woah, woah, TMI, bro. Don’t need that info.”
“I mean, we’re bros, right?” I slur. It occurs to me that I’m acting more drunk than I feel. He just sort of has that effect on me.
“Well, yeah, dude, but that doesn’t mean I wanna hear about all the gay sex you’re having.”
“Well, uh, I don’t wanna hear about all the straight sex you’re having!”
“I don’t tell you about my sex!”
“Well… you told me earlier! With that girl! It was gross.”
“I didn’t tell you details.”
“I didn’t tell you details!”
“Well… uh… I don’t know, whatever, you dork.”
He reaches over and ruffles my hair. His fingers stay there longer than I think he meant them to, and as he’s taking them back, they brush my bare shoulder. I shiver.
I’m feeling bold.
“You like my hair, huh?”
He turns to face me, an eyebrow raised in the softest and most polite way I’ve ever seen in my life.
“What?”
“It’s just… you know… uh… your fingers… and they… stayed in my hair for a while…”
He doesn’t say anything for a second, and turns back to driving.
Then, he laughs.
“Right, they got caught, because your hair is all knotty. Because you were getting laid.”
“Well, I think it’s because you have the hots for me.”
“You know I’m still not over Kyra, dude.”
“Well, I sure am hot. H-a-u-w-t, HOT!”
He rolls his eyes and keeps driving towards our dorm. I catch him, only once, looking at my bare chest. I’d feel exposed if I didn’t wanna fuck him so badly. Or get fucked by him. It’s a complicated thought process. Basically, he’s just exceedingly hot, so of course he’s straight.
After a few more minutes of driving, we arrive at our destination: the pinnacle of shitty nights’ sleep and me trying not to tear my hair out. We shuffle inside, and the desk worker gives us an odd glance, but Noah just flashes her a smile and we get to our room.
I trip up the stairs and nearly eat cement. He catches me, though, and slings my arm around his shoulder to support me on my way up.
“Hnnf, c’mon, drunky pants. Let’s get you to your bed, nice and snuggly, huh?”
“M’not that drunk. Leave me be.”
“Haha, no way am I going to the hospital for you just because you can’t walk straight, bucko. Let’s go.” I resist, forgetting we’re still in the stairwell, and finally get loose of his grip, laughing triumphantly and rushing up the steps to the door. He rushes after me, grabs my legs at the knee, and picks me up in a bridal carry. “Try to get out of this, will you? Slippery little bastard.”
“Joke’s on you, this is what I wanted all along,” I mutter, though I sure hope he didn’t hear. I let my head go loose and loll to his chest. It smells nice. Like… Those fancy soaps where they smell nice. Manly things. Like… cool ocean breeze or something. Yeah, he smells like a cool ocean breeze. Sweet and sharp.
He gets our door open, somehow, and tosses me onto my bed with more force than I was expecting.
“Dude, if you’re gonna throw me on the bed like that, at least make out with me first,” I mutter. He rolls his eyes and starts getting changed into pajamas. He’s one of those guys that wears underwear to bed, though, so I don’t get too much of a show. I’m tired enough that I just want to sleep like this. On top of my covers. With my clothes on. Teeth not brushed. No water for the morning. Morning Liam is going to kill me. Oh, well.
Noah flicks off the light, and I feel sleep coming for me faster than I intended. Behind my buzzy haze, it feels like a loose specter in our room, flying around and whooshing past every so often. Thank God I didn’t puke tonight.
Noah is still standing, though, and I see him out of the corner of my eye. Before he lays down in his bed, he comes over to caress my face and hair. It’s just a gentle touch, brushing my hair out of my face, and I can’t imagine I look very nice right now, but the way he does it, the brush of his thumb over my cheekbones, the softness of it… makes me wonder how many times he’s done this before and I was too asleep to notice.
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