The sweat dripped off his perfect chest as he slowed down and stopped, pulling out of me. I collapsed onto my side, a sweating, panting mess, floating on a cloud of post-orgasm glow. He collapsed onto his back beside me, equally sweaty and tired.
“Fuck, Linda, that was...” he said then shook his head.
“Yeah, it was.”
I rolled toward him and pressed myself up against his side, my hand finding his. Our fingers intertwined with each other as he breathed together. I felt his heart pounding in his chest, could hear it in my skull, and wanted to stay there for another few hours at least.
Just like the last time, we lost ourselves. I slept over his place, though I don’t think we did much sleeping. It was as if a switch had been thrown, and the weeks of tension burst outward and we were smothered in each other.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“How’s it going, dots?”
I looked up at Noah grinning down at me.
“That’s okay, don’t help,” I said.
He laughed and bent down to help me tie off the trashcan. We straightened up and lingered near each other.
“Slow night,” he commented, looking around.
I shrugged. It had been a slow night, though the theater didn’t often get busy except on the weekends. I looked back at Noah and ran my eyes slowly along his body, smiling softly. It was his first day back at work, and it was strange to see him in the theater’s uniform again. On the one hand, it felt like he never took it off, but there was so much history shoved into it that it would never be the same.
And that was okay.
“Pretty normal for a Monday, or did you forget?”
“Please, dots. I practically ran this place.”
“Yeah well, now you’re the new guy.”
“What, are you going to haze me?”
“Maybe.” I gave his chest a soft push and he barely budged.
“Physical violence is a pretty serious infraction, dots.”
He took a step closer and wrapped his arms around me. I laughed, struggling weakly against his strong arms, as he bent forward and began to kiss my mouth and cheeks.
“Oh get off, sexual harassment is worse,” I said, laughing.
He stopped and grinned at me, and I quit struggling. It felt good to be in his arms, standing where anyone could see us. There wasn’t anything else between us, not anymore. Although things weren’t perfect with our parents, neither of us cared. The theater was dark and smelled like old carpet and popcorn, and it felt like a second home, especially safe in Noah’s arms.
At first, Chris didn’t approve of our rekindled relationship. I didn’t blame her, not one bit, for being hesitant. Truthfully, she went back and forth all the time, which wasn’t really like her. As the weeks went by, though, she began to see what I saw in him. It was his devotion, although it was devotion in his own weird way. One day, Chris stopped making comments, and I took that as passive acceptance.
Things can fall into place when you decide what’s important and what can be left behind.
“I haven’t even gotten started with what I want to do to you,” he said softly, interrupting my thoughts.
I rolled my eyes. “Good line.”
“Not a line, dots. Just the facts.”
I softly disengaged myself from his hug, grinning ear to ear, and looked back out over the theater. Chelsea was in her usual spot, and so were the Wonder Twins. Selena was probably in the supply closet getting high, and I wasn’t sure how long she’d last since Noah had come back. Miss H was hiding away in her office.
It had begun to feel like home.
“Lots of work to do tonight,” Noah said, coming up behind me and taking my hand.
I shrugged against his shoulder. “That’s fine, we’ll get it done.”
“It’s coming together.”
I nodded. It had been a month since we had slept together for the second time in Noah’s apartment. After that, things clicked: we stopped pretending like we wanted something different, and gave up on the stupid obstacles we kept making for ourselves. I slept at his place that night, and I hadn’t really left since.
And Noah hadn’t disappeared again, either.
More than that, the film was coming together. Although we had a mountain of information to go through about Miss H, we slowly whittled away the stuff that didn’t seem essential, and came up with a skeleton sketch of her life. We had to keep it to a half hour, since the contest was for short films, but I had a knack for plotting. Scene after scene, hour after sweaty hour, we made it work.
My mom hadn’t been too thrilled when I told her about Noah. Apparently, despite everything she said, she still held a big grudge against his family. At first, she avoided talking about him entirely, but she slowly came around. My dad probably had a lot to do with it. As distant as he was, he was still a good father.