No one says anything as we tear down Canyon Road, away from Ralph’s house.

Noah is staring out of the window, his arms folded tightly over his chest.

It’s still early, a particularly beautiful winter morning. The sky is clear, the snow twinkling with icy brilliance beneath the pale sunlight. The boughs of the trees are wrapped in a light, transparent mist, leftover from dawn, yet to burn off.

But Noah doesn’t seem to see any of it. He’s got his lip pinched between his teeth, a hurricane of different emotions storming in his eyes.

I’ve finally stopped shaking, so I reach over and rest a hand on Aiden’s arm. He’s looking straight ahead through the windshield, his jaw tensed and his hand gripping the wheel hard enough to snap it apart.

As soon as we put some distance between ourselves and Ralph, Aiden swerves the car over to the side of the road, puts it in park, and twists in his seat. He takes my face in his hands, then pushes a hard, urgent kiss onto my mouth.

“Are you okay?” he asks, stroking my cheek with his thumb, his anxious blue eyes peering into mine.

The familiar warmth of Aiden’s touch steadies me out, calms my racing heart.

“Yeah.” I nod, let out a breath. “I’m - I’m fine.”

Aiden draws back, relieved, then turns to look at Noah. I do the same.

“You good, bro?” Aiden rumbles, and Noah blinks, stirring from his thoughts.

“Emotional Kingda Ka,” he mutters, and I let out a quick, startled laugh. I reach towards him automatically, though I’m not sure what I’m going to do. His grey eyes drop to my outstretched hand, and he gently nudges it away with his knuckles. “I’m fine, Jamie.”

Sometimes when Noah says he’s fine, it actually means the opposite of that, but - maybe not, this time. I can tell by his voice that he’s shaken, but he didn’t shove my hand away roughly, which I suspect he would have done if he was really falling apart. And his eyes aren’t closed off or distant, not staring me down to get me to back off. It’s more like he’s looking at me to show me that he’s alright.

I stare at him, surprised. Ralph has always had such a powerful influence over Noah, even from afar. He has a serious talent for pushing Noah into the darkest places within himself.

This time, Noah is pushing back.

I’m no stranger to the high voltage, pressurized, incendiary version of Noah in the throes of a Ralph-induced panic. This is not that Noah. That Noah would be boiling over with fear and anger, right now, not looking at me with steady grey eyes.

Aiden can tell, just like I can. Satisfied that Noah is okay, he faces forward again, then lets out a heavy exhale, his broad shoulders sagging.

“Jamie,” he groans, “You're gonna kill me, and I mean that. I’m literally, actually gonna worry myself to death. What were you doing getting in Ralph’s face like that, you fucking wildcard?"

I cringe, pressing my fingers to my cheeks. "I know, I know-"

"And I told you not to go in without me!”

“It’s actually good that he did, man,” Noah says, jumping in before I can answer.  “It was - getting out of hand.”

Aiden looks at Noah in the rearview, then at me. He blows out a frustrated breath, and takes my fingers in his.

“Okay,” he says, rubbing his temple. “I guess that’s - that’s fair. As long as you’re okay?”

“I am, honestly,” I tell him again, squeezing his hand. “Is everyone else okay? Where are the ghosts? I sent Will on a scouting mission, but he never came back.”

“They’re together,” Aiden says, to my immediate relief. “They’re gonna meet up with us later. Apparently there was something they wanted to investigate. I don’t know, I was barely listening, I was more focused on getting to you.”

Noah glances back and forth between us, his eyes narrowed with confusion. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

“We told you that we were on a ghost hunt, Noah,” I remind him. “And that I already have a ghost crashing in my apartment. We caught the one we were looking for, so now there are two. They’re seeing each other, actually.” I turn to Aiden, break into a grin, and poke his bicep. “Oh, and they kissed last night, by the way.”

“What?” A grin to match mine instantly spreads across Aiden's face. “Really? Wow. You know what? Get after it, Will. Two hundred years of waiting is more than enough. Poor guy hasn’t kissed anyone since like - the Monroe administration. That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

“Jesus Christ." Noah stares at us with disbelieving eyes. “Do I need to be worried about you two? What kind of chemicals are you breathing in at that shack thing by the river where you’re always hanging out?”

“Do you need to be worried about us?” Aiden fixes him with an incredulous glare. “Are you joking? Noah, what the hell happened? What were you doing at Ralph’s house?”

“He said he had something important to tell me,” Noah says flatly, “And then he told me that if I didn’t move back in, he was gonna tell Raj that he saw me kiss Melanie at Mugshot.”

Aiden stares at Noah, blue eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

“Yep.” Noah shakes his head, and I blink in surprise as a smile slowly turns up his lips. “Man, I wish that Ralph would go tell Raj. I’d love to see the reaction. What do you think Raj would even say?”

Aiden shrugs his shoulders. “He’d probably be like… ‘nice’.”

We all stare at each other, then simultaneously dissolve into laughter. The tension in the car releases, and I feel like we’ve all breathed out some of the stress of the situation. It takes us a minute or two to calm down again.

“I can’t believe that Ralph would pull a stunt like that after the warning I gave him,” Aiden says, when we’re somewhat recovered. “Did I not make it clear what would happen if he messed with you again? I came to him looking for a cemetery, but he’s coming to me looking for a fucking tombstone.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Noah says wryly. “He had that covered. I was supposed to lie to you about it, Aiden. Tell you that I wanted to go back. Make it convincing, he said.”

Aiden lets out a snort of dismissive laughter.

“As if that would have worked. You know what I would have said if you came to me with that story? Fake. Fake, and triflin’. Think I know you a little bit better than to buy that bullshit, Noosh.”

Noah smiles, a rare instance of those dimples appearing for anyone besides Raj, Mel, or Nik. “Yeah, I know.”

There’s a brief silence in the car. The immediate issue has been dealt with, but I have a feeling that Aiden and I are thinking the same thing: we need to get Noah out of here.

Aiden takes a moment to organize his thoughts. “Where’s your car, Jamie?”

“It’s back near Ralph’s house, but - it’s a ways down the road. We can come back for it later.”

“Ralph won’t do anything to it, even if he finds it,” Noah puts in. “He knows that would piss you off, Aiden.”

“Me?” Aiden puts a hand to his chest, all innocent. “I don’t get pissed off.”

“Oh, no?” Noah asks. “Remember in high school, when we came back from partying for your birthday, and you were so fucked up that you dropped your key to the locker room? Lost it in the snow right outside of your house. You were pretty mad about that, as I recall. Given that coach gave you hell about it, made you pay for a new key, threatened to remove you as team captain… and then we found it when the snow melted months later. It was still on the porch. Like, right outside the front door.”

“What?” I laugh, turning to Aiden. “Did that really happen?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” he groans, pressing his palms over his eyes. “That disaster brought to you by Noah continually sneaking behind the bar to refill my glass without me realizing.”

“You’re welcome,” Noah says, grinning - and then, when I twist to make a face at him - “What, dude? It was Aiden’s birthday, he wouldn’t let me pay for his drinks, figured I’d at least get him some more for free. Besides, it’s Aiden’s fault for not noticing.”

“Are you f-? Man, how was I supposed to notice? That cup you brought to the bar for me was huge, it was like a fucking goblet, for chrissake-”

Noah bursts out laughing, and Aiden stops mid-sentence, surprised. He tries to scowl, then falls apart into laughter, too.

I smile to myself, watching the two of them.

“Glad you’re okay, Noosh.” Aiden reaches back to slap Noah’s knee. “Let’s get you home, right?”

Noah nods, slumping back against the seat. “Please.”

Aiden puts the car in gear.

Ralph’s house is on the outer reaches of Ketterbridge, and as we roll back towards town, Noah seems to relax a little more. He looks out at the shop windows, the tree-lined streets, the houses and restaurants - and finally takes a full breath.

He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands between them.

“How did you guys know to come for me? Or where I was?”

My phone buzzes in my pocket before I can even begin to explain.

“Bet you that’s Mellie,” Aiden says, adjusting his snapback. “She’ll definitely have heard about what happened by now.”

“What?” I cast a confused glance at Aiden as I slip my phone out of my pocket. “What makes you so sure? Maybe she hasn’t.”

“Oh, she has,” he says firmly. “You’ve never dated a girl, Jamie, so - just trust me.”

I blink in surprise when I see that it is Melanie calling me.

“Jamie!” she says sharply, the instant I answer my phone.

“Hey, Mel!” I put her on speaker. “We’ve got-”

“Listen,” she interrupts, stumbling over her words in her rush. “Noah went out to get us some coffee this morning, and he still hasn’t come back, and - you’re not gonna believe this, but now I’m hearing that he’s with Ralph?”

“Wh-?” I stare down at the phone, taken aback. “How did you already find out?”

“Angie saw them together,” Melanie says impatiently. “You know that she’s a blackbelt, right? Well - she told Candace, one of the girls she trains with. Candace takes Muay Thai classes when she wants a break from karate, and she told Blaise, her Muay Thai instructor. Blaise teaches at the same gym as Dahlia. She told Dahlia, who told me.”

“Seriously?” I catch Aiden’s eye, and he makes an I-told-you-so face at me. “My god. The network of communication girls have, I swear. You can track a man down in under an hour?”

“An hour?" Aiden laughs. “A group of girls can do in fifteen minutes what would take the FBI months, using only their phones.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Melanie says. “I also heard it separately from my friend Marina, who got the intel through a completely different chain.”

“Wow, okay, that’s-”

“Jamie, I know that Noah wouldn’t go see Ralph unless Ralph did something, or-” Melanie’s voice grows perilously thin. “Have you seen him? I’m freaking the fuck out, right now, I have half a mind to drive to Ralph’s house and-”

Noah takes the phone out of my hand. “Mel, I’m here.”

“Noah.” She suddenly sounds on the verge of tears. “Oh - thank god.”

“I’m on my way, I promise.” He speaks softly, but holds the phone tightly. “I’ll be home soon.”

~~~~

Melanie is waiting in the driveway when we pull up, pacing in small, tight circles. Noah unstraps himself before Aiden even flips the blinker on, and he leaps out onto the pavement before the car fully rolls to a stop.

The second Melanie sees him, she races down the driveway, her loose maroon dress billowing behind her, her braid bouncing against her back.

In one smooth motion, she springs into the air, locks her arms around Noah’s neck, and wraps her legs around his waist.

Noah clearly didn’t expect her to throw herself into his arms like that. He staggers, surprised, but catches her. She buries her face in his tattooed neck, and he rests a hand on the back of her head. She says something in his ear. He turns his head slightly to answer her.

Aiden and I get out of the car as Melanie draws back and kisses Noah, much in the same way that Aiden kissed me when we escaped from Ralph’s. So hard that Noah’s lip piercing leaves a tiny imprint by her mouth.

“Are you okay?” she asks, smoothing his hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah, I'm-” Noah breaks off, laughing, as Melanie starts peppering his face with swift little kisses. “Mel, I’m f-”

She kisses his mouth again, then slips out of his arms, landing lightly on her toes.

“What happ-?” she begins, then stops as the door of the house opens.

Raj steps outside, squinting in the sunlight, his glossy black curls all messy.

“Mel?” he yawns, pulling on his jacket. “Noah?”

He comes down the driveway, puzzled eyes drifting over the four of us.

“I didn’t want to wake him up,” Mel explains, as he strides to meet us. “He was sleeping so peacefully, and Nik had him up all night-”

“What’s going on?” Raj asks, coming to a stop by Mel’s side.

“Yeah, I’d like to know, too,” Melanie says, turning back to Noah.

He seems hesitant to answer, so Aiden does it for him.

“Ralph snatched Noah from Mugshot this morning.”

Melanie freezes, but Raj reacts as if someone just unexpectedly fired a gun one inch away from his ear.

“What the fuck!” He seizes Noah’s hand and drags him closer, like he needs immediate protection. “Holy shit, Noah - are you-?”

“I’m fine.” Noah gives Raj's fingers a gentle squeeze. “Intimidation campaign, that’s all. With some attempted blackmail mixed in.”

Melanie presses her fingers to her lips, her eyes widening. “Blackmail, what-?”

“He saw us yesterday.” Noah tugs on her braid, a shadowy smile rising on his face. “He was threatening to tell Raj about it if I didn’t come back.”

“Tell me about what?” Raj asks, alarmed.

Melanie has already figured it out, and suddenly she’s biting back a laugh.

“That Noah kissed me when we were out getting coffee,” she tells Raj.

Raj glances between the two of them, and I see the realization break over him. He stills, then turns to Noah, looking profoundly wounded.

“You did what?” The betrayal in his voice is impressively believable, probably a talent he mastered doing all those Shakespeare plays. “You - you made a move on my girl, dude?”

“Yeah,” Noah says, with a slight incline of his chin. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Mmm…” Raj's stage-face breaks, and he looks at Noah with nothing but warmth in his russet brown eyes. “This, I guess.”

He wraps his arms around Noah, pulls him into a tight hug.

Noah holds very still, then drops his forehead onto Raj's shoulder.

“God, Noah," Raj murmurs, "I’m so glad that you’re home.”

Melanie lets out a watery laugh. She twines her arms around the two of them.

Noah disappears into a two-sided hug. His voice is too muffled within it for me to hear what he’s saying to Raj and Mel, but I can hear that he’s laughing.

I never thought that I’d see Noah recover so quickly from a run-in with Ralph. When Ralph dropped Noah’s stuff at the house, Noah was frantic, ready to bolt, his eyes wild with fear and misery - and that incident was nothing, compared to what happened today.

And yet. This time, instead of running for the hills, Noah told us to bring him home.

I think of what Raj said to me when we talked at the shop, when he finally admitted that he wanted all three of them to be together.

What, we shouldn’t do it because Noah has demons in his past? All the more reason. We can keep him safe, we can be there for him while he heals.

I wonder if Raj and Melanie realize just how much they’ve helped Noah heal, already.