What a messed up afternoon.
Chapter Five
As much as I hated it, Noah and Stripper Barbie were stuck in my head. Chris was a saint, and sat out on the stoop for an hour with me, talking through the interaction. I knew it wouldn’t help, but I couldn’t stop myself from obsessing over every little detail. I hated that I had let him bore his way into my brain, but he was tunneled deep in there like those alien worms from the movie Tremors.
Unfortunately, thinking about Tremors made me compare Noah’s ass to Kevin Bacon’s, which made me miss what Chris was saying.
“I’m sorry, what?” I said, snapping out of my fantasy.
“I said, he wanted to get to know you better?” she asked again.
“Yeah, but he was being an asshole.”
She looked serious. “Are you sure about that?”
I thought back to his comment, and it definitely felt like sexual innuendo at the time. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Maybe the girl is just his friend?”
“Why would he leave work if she’s not putting out?”
Chris laughed. “I don’t know, Lindy. Maybe he really is the biggest asshole in the world.”
“I didn’t say that.” I felt a little defensive for some reason, although inwardly I had been referring to him as King Dick for the past half hour.
“No you didn’t, but he has the reputation,” she said.
“And he’s not exactly a gentleman to me, either.”
Chris gave me a look. “Come on, isn’t that a little outdated?”
“Chivalry lives!”
She laughed and leaned against my shoulder. “Maybe in your old movies.”
“Why are you defending him?”
“I’m honestly not. But I can tell you have a thing for this guy, and I don’t want you to write it off before you’re sure about him.”
“I don’t know. Do I want to get involved with the campus player?”
I felt her shrug. “Maybe it’s all just a rumor. Remember when people said that I had herpes?”
I laughed softly, although it was only funny in retrospect. Back in high school, some guy that Chris had turned down decided it would be a great idea to tell all his friends that she had herpes as revenge. It was all over the school the next day, and Chris had to combat the rumor for the rest of her time there. I figured that was part of why she swore off guys, but I never asked about it. She had gotten over the whole thing, but it was still an unpleasant time in her life.
“Yeah, that could be true. Just lies from his jilted lovers,” I said.
“Or just boring chicks with boring lives.”
I felt a little bad after that. Noah was definitely cocky, and he had a good time at my expense with his little nickname, but he had never been outright rude to me. Maybe I wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Chris was right, and I had to get to know him before I wrote him off completely. I was way too willing to believe the rumors about him, and too quick to dismiss him completely. I really hadn’t had a real conversation with him yet.
I was grateful to Chris, and she even managed to keep the jokes to a minimum. I had a weird hate-crush, which was totally unlike me, and I was still barely working the whole thing out. She may have sworn off boys, but she was still pretty good to talk to. Eventually, it started to get dark, and we climbed the steps back into our tiny apartment.
I resolved to give Noah a shot.
Or at least I wouldn’t completely dismiss him.
The next day I sat up front again in my film history class. I had been falling behind on my studies, maybe because a certain someone distracted me, and so I decided to buckle down and take good notes. As Professor Johnson was about to start his lecture, Noah came in, late as usual, but without Stripper Barbie. I hadn’t seen her in class since the first day, and was beginning to wonder if she had dropped it. Before I could delve too deeply into that, Noah did something surprising: he sat down next to me.
As he unpacked his books, he grinned at me. “Hey, polka dots.”
“Quit calling me that, Noah,” I hissed back. Inwardly, my stomach was doing somersaults.
His grin got bigger. “Whatever you say.”
“Don’t you usually sit in the back?”
“I told you that I wanted to get to know you.” His eyes looked back at me intensely.
I was taken aback momentarily by his earnest response, but my reply was cut off by Professor Johnson’s lecture. The entire class was spent trying to ignore Noah next to me. Instead, the only thing I could pay attention to was his smell, his heat, and his nearness. We sat at a long, shared table, and our knees were inches apart. He diligently took notes, which surprised me. I had assumed he was a bad student, but he clearly cared about the material, and was paying attention. I struggled to keep up, simultaneously interested in early film technique and wholly distracted by Noah’s perfectly chiseled jawline.