Dating: On the Rebound

by Stephanie Street

  I smiled. “Right.”

  Noah was already in the hall. I moved to follow him.

  “Don’t be a stranger!” Brian called after us.

  I waved back at him before disappearing from his view. Noah’s broad shoulders led us back into the kitchen. His mom was in there fixing something while she watched a cooking show.

  Noah glanced at me. “Hey, Mom, I think we’ll go to my room.”

  Nicole nodded with a quick smile.

  Noah picked up the grocery sack full of snacks and hooked his arm through my backpack before going to the refrigerator and grabbing two bottles of water.

  13

  Tierney

  His room? What was wrong with the kitchen? There was a nice big table. The lighting was good. His mom was there to chaperone.

  Not that we needed one.

  Okay, maybe he didn’t. Noah didn’t seem affected by my presence at all. On the other hand and despite my pep talk, I was ready to jump his bones and we’d just spent the last fifteen minutes talking to his father. How was that for messed up?

  And now we were headed into his room?

  It felt weird to follow Noah up a set of stairs at the back of the kitchen with empty hands, but he’d grabbed not only my backpack, but the grocery bag as well. Not to mention the water bottles.

  “I can carry something, you know,” I said. We were living in the 2000’s not the 1800’s. I was perfectly capable of carrying my own stuff.

  Noah grunted but didn’t give me any of the load. I rolled my eyes behind his back while fighting the urge to stare at his butt. Jeez, this guy. Was there any part of him that wasn’t attractive?

  He pushed open the first door we came to at the top of the stairs. Noah’s room looked exactly as I might have imagined it. Only messier. The walls were painted a dark blue-gray. Anchored with thumb tacks were posters of NBA players as well as Indiana University’s current team poster with a calendar and game schedule. I raised one eyebrow as I spied a basketball goal mounted on one wall. Under it sat a half full laundry basket. Balled up pairs of socks littered the ground around it where he’d missed.

  In the center of the room was a queen sized bed covered with a deep red comforter. White pillows were strewn haphazardly at the head of the bed and his own backpack and several books took up the bottom. A desk complete with a computer and scattered papers sat to one side of the bed while a flat screen television hung above a dresser at the foot. Through an open door in the room, I saw a bathroom that led to a large walk in closet. It was all a mess.

  “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I swear I cleaned.” Noah dropped my backpack and the snacks onto his bed. At least it was made.

  My eyes bulged. “You’re kidding? This is clean?” It was a complete disaster and a complete surprise. “Do people at school know about this flaw of yours?” Because Noah’s reputation as Mr. Perfect might suffer a severe setback if anyone else found out.

  “Not many,” he admitted as he fell back on the bed with a sigh.

  We should get to work. I knew we should, but I was too curious and I wasn’t even going to be shy about it. Noah was a mystery. He put on this show at school, this aura of being so put together, but this Noah? This Noah was on the edge. This Noah was a closet pig.

  Noah laid on the bed with an arm over his face and his eyes closed. I took in the room one more time and smiled to myself. I liked this Noah. Pig Noah was relatable.

  But he also had a whole ton of work to help me finish, so I picked up the dirty socks that hadn’t made it into the hamper under the basketball hoop and pelted him with them.

  “Hey,” he said, but that was it other than the wrinkle between his eyes barely visible from under his arm. I got the feeling he wasn’t really okay.

  I glanced at the door he’d closed when we entered the room. His mom hadn’t seemed at all put off about him bringing me up here, which made me wonder how many other girls he’d brought up. Like Trina.

  I shuddered, not liking the image in my mind of the two of them in Noah’s room. I shoved those thoughts aside and sat down cross-legged beside him on the bed after moving the backpacks to the floor.

  “You okay?” I asked, picking up his arm from his face so I could see him. His eyes were closed and his face was pinched, tense.

  “I thought we were going to work on all this stuff,” I said when he didn’t respond to my question.

  “We are,” he sighed, but he didn’t move.

  “Um, I don’t know what kind of partners you’re used to having, but I’m not carrying your butt on these projects, Jacobs.” I knew full well that wasn’t going to be necessary. I was just trying to get him riled.

  Noah snorted and cracked one eye. “Carry me? I’d like to see you try.”

  Much better. I raised one brow. “You’re probably right. How much do you weight, anyhow?” I teased, pinching the skin at his side because there wasn’t an ounce of fat to grab onto. The jerk.

  “Oh, ho. Kicking me while I’m down, Duchess? That’s low.”

  It was. But he was smiling and he’d rolled onto his side to face me.

  I shrugged while brushing an imaginary speck off my shoulder. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” I sniffed.

  We sat there grinning at each other for far too long. Long enough for my eyes to travel his face and land on his lips. Lips I’d tasted and that had been haunting me for days. His tongue darted out and my eyes shot to his but they were trained on my lips and I knew we were in trouble.

  “Yeah, so, um, we should get started, don’t you think?” My voice was a little breathless.

  Noah still watched my lips as he said, “Huh?” He shook his head a little and met my gaze. I raised one brow. He fell back against the bed, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. “Right.” He squeezed his eyes closed before sitting up. “Floor,” he said as he stood and walked over to the door to open it.

  He wouldn’t look at me and I was kind of glad because I knew I was staring at him with my mouth open. He’d surprised me. First, that he was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me again. Second, that he didn’t try to push me. I told him we weren’t going there and he proved with his actions that he respected that.

  I was almost disappointed.

  Okay, I was a lot disappointed. Kissing Noah could easily become my crack/cocaine.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” Noah demanded. He’d sat on the floor with his back leaning against the bed and was rummaging through his bag.

  “Like what?” I had a feeling I knew what he meant, but a perverse part of me wanted to hear him say it.

  He stopped and looked at me, his gaze direct and unflinching. “Like you want me to kiss you.”

  Wow. I didn’t expect him to be so honest. I should have felt embarrassed but mostly I just knew he was right. I did want to kiss him again.

  “You said no.” He shook his head, but I didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched. Why was that so sexy? Wait, what was he saying? He wasn’t going to kiss me again? That sucked. Didn’t it?

  I focused back on his words which wasn’t easy because he’d stepped so close I could smell the clean scent of his body wash.

  “Unless you ask me to-” His voice was low and rumbly and hit me straight in my chest, but then he stopped. Curious, I glanced up. His smoldering eyes held mine and he started over. “I won’t kiss you again, Tierney. Not unless you ask me to.”

  Ask him? If he kept looking at me like that, I was going to beg.

  I shook myself. No.

  I had to respect where he was coming from as much as he was respecting me.

  Noah kissed me without asking my permission and while I kissed him back, essentially stamping the okay on his brashness, I’d ripped that away when we talked on the phone and said it couldn’t happen again. Noah was a good guy. He wasn’t going to force me or manipulate me into doing something I didn’t want to do. Making goo goo eyes at him wasn’t going to be enough to get his lips back on mine. No, if I wanted
any more kisses from Noah, I was going to have to swallow my pride and good intentions and ask him for it.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

  I lifted my chin and hid my irrational disappointment. There wasn’t going to be any kissing.

  “Alright, then. Let’s make some babies.”

  Three hours later…

  “Making babies is hard work,” Noah sighed. He was sprawled on his bedroom floor, paper and poster board spread all around him. We’d worked hard to set aside the awkward tension and get our work done.

  I reached over to push his leg. “Monster babies,” I reminded him. The little inside joke between him and his dad was beginning to take on a life of its own.

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant.” Noah rolled up and sat beside me, surveying our work. “Making real babies has to be more fun than this.”

  “Noah!” I pushed his shoulder. He grinned and fell over even though I barely touched him.

  I picked up the poster board with colored pencil renderings of our male and female monsters and shook my head. “All I know is we make some really ugly parents.”

  “Monster parents.” His voice was muffled since his face was buried in the carpet.

  He wasn’t kidding. Noah had made it his mission to come up with the most disturbing looking monster. Mr. McGowan had given us some examples from students in years past. Some of them were almost cute while others were more like what Noah had done. Horrifying. Although, he wasn’t a brilliant artist, so they weren’t that scary. His monster was built like Frankenstein, but with a brown face and yellow hair. He had one eye and gills instead of a nose. His mouth was filled with shark style sharp teeth that were also yellow. His monster feet were flat and hairy and had six toes, but he was wearing a tuxedo. We’d laughed a good ten minutes over that one.

  My female monster was almost cuddly. Her body was round and pink and she had green polka dots in her shaggy fur. Where Noah’s monster had one eye, mine had two with long eyelashes that were decidedly feminine. Her nose was small and pert and her lips were full and luscious. She only had three fingers on each paw, but they were topped with long, pointed nails painted a deep violet. Her hair, which grew separate from her fur, was the same color green as her spots and hung halfway down her back in thick waves. She was gorgeous. Well, she was hideous, but she was gorgeous.

  “I still think she should have been in a fancy dress,” Noah said, his lip curled in a small sneer.

  I rolled my eyes while admiring the fifties style dress and apron I’d clothed her in. She looked like a housewife while he looked like a billionaire. They were perfectly ridiculous.

  “Oh, stop it. She looks fabulous.”

  Noah laughed despite himself. “Okay, I think we’re good for today, don’t you?” He rubbed his belly as he stretched. “I’m starving and it’s getting dark.”

  I glanced at the time on my phone. He was right, it was getting late. “Yeah, I should go.” I glanced around at the mess we’d made in his room. I didn’t know how he could still be hungry. We’d eaten everything I’d brought. Noah had never had graham crackers with peanut butter before and let’s just say I’d made a believer out of him. I stood and began picking up the remnants of our picnic, filling the plastic bag with trash.

  Noah sighed and started cleaning up the papers we’d used for our rough drafts of our monsters. We’d not only made the male and female monsters, but we’d filled out the Punnet squares for their babies and drawn rough drafts. We’d have to meet again to finish the final drawings on the other poster board we had, as well as finish the chart with all the traits and dominant and recessive genes for each trait and their respective Punnet squares. We still had a lot to do, but we’d made a dent for sure.

  “We didn’t even work on the dance stuff,” I said as we finished picking up our mess.

  Noah groaned and I totally agreed. “We’ll have to meet after school for a little bit or talk on the phone or something. I have practice from four until five-thirty.”

  “Sorry we messed up your whole day off.” I actually did feel kind of bad. Noah had a crazy schedule. I was just as busy with my writing, but it was all on my own terms. He had a team and a coach on his case and a set time for everything. I imagined he was exhausted half the time.

  He shook his head. “It’s okay. This was kind of fun.”

  It had been fun. We’d cracked up over our monsters while arguing over different traits and disagreeing about silly things like what they should wear. We’d talked about school and a little about our families. He kept me entertained with stories about the guys on the basketball team and we gossiped about different people at school.

  It was honestly the most fun I’d had in a long time.

  Which meant it was time to go.

  I finished packing up my backpack. We decided Noah would hold onto all of our work until the next time we could meet and he said he would take the garbage down to the kitchen.

  “That better not still be here when I come back over.” I pointed to the bag.

  Noah grinned. “Jeez, Mom. Don’t worry about it.”

  I stood in the doorway and just like that we were all awkward again. Did we just say goodbye and I’d run down the stairs and out of the house? Was he going to walk me out? Should I give him a hug? A high five?

  I decided to make a break for it.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I called over my shoulder. I didn’t wait to hear his response. I didn’t stop to say goodbye to his parents. I was out the door and in my car and on my way home before I could change my mind and indulge myself by taking matters into my own hands and lean into him.

  It was the right thing to do.

  Right?

  14

  Noah

  I was starving. I took my phone out of my pocket and sent a text to Tierney. We were supposed to meet in a few minutes in Mr. Hoffman’s room, but he wasn’t going to be there since his wife had their baby a few days before, and I figured we could have our meeting and eat at the same time.

  Me: I’m hungry.

  It took less than thirty seconds for her to read the text and a bubble with three little dots in it to appear.

  Tierney: And this is news? You are always hungry.

  Wasn’t that the truth.

  Me: Let’s go meet at a burger place.

  Tierney: Sure.

  Me: I’ll meet you by the doors to the student lot.

  Tierney: K

  I had to drop some stuff at my locker. The final bell had rung, but the halls were still filled with people making their way out of class and talking. Grayson’s locker was only a couple away from mine and he was there talking to some girl I didn’t know very well. Grayson was kind of a player. He wasn’t a jerk about it, but he was definitely a ladies man. He had a new girl hanging on his arm every week. Sometimes every day.

  I waited until she was done making eyes at him to approach. She rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek before spinning and walking away. Grayson didn’t see me because his eyes were still on the girl who peered over her shoulder every couple of steps, her cheeks flushed pink.

  “Dude.” I didn’t even know what else to say. The guy was a legend. I didn’t know how he did it. And he never seemed to get in trouble with the girls. I would think he’d have made a lot of female enemies at this point but it was like it made them love him more.

  “When you got it, you got it, man.” He nudged me with his elbow, not making eye contact until Miss Sweet Thing disappeared from sight. “What’s up?” he asked, finally turning his attention away from the girl.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  Grayson shrugged. “Her name’s Maren. She’s a transfer this year from across town.”

  That explained why I didn’t know her. Eastridge was a big school, but mostly everyone knew everyone.

  “Hmm,” I hummed. It didn’t really matter. Grayson would flirt for a few days and move onto someone else. “Listen, I have to meet with Tierney about the Homecoming dance. I’ll jus
t skip weight lifting and I’ll be back for practice. Just tell Coach for me.”

  Grayson nodded and we started walking toward the gym. “Sure thing. You know how Coach is, though. He probably won’t notice.”

  I shook my head with a laugh. “Right.” Coach Holden was a pushover. But since our high school coach wasn’t eligible to coach our league team and the school team, he liked having someone pliable who’d let him have a say in how things were ran on the league team and Holden was perfect for that.

  “What’s up with you and Tierney, anyway?” Grayson asked.

  I thought about how to answer that. Grayson was one of my best friends, but I didn’t know if I was ready to discuss Tierney with him. We didn’t talk about feelings, just facts. He’d want to know if I was dating a girl, not if I actually liked her. And mostly that was because he didn’t want to step on any toes with his philandering ways. Still, I hadn’t told a soul about that kiss and it was kind of eating me up inside.

  “I kissed her,” I blurted.

  Grayson stopped short and turned to me his eyes wide. “What? When?”

  My shoulders dropped with a deep exhale. I ran my fingers through my hair. “The other night after our game.”

  “And?”

  I shrugged. “And nothing. I just kissed her.”

  Grayson pulled his chin back with a frown. “You can’t just kiss a girl and leave it at that. Especially not a girl like Tierney.”

  He was more right than he knew. “She shot me down, man.” I hated admitting that to anyone and telling Grayson was the worst. I might be Mr. Perfect but he was Prince Charming. No girl ever shot him down.

  Grayson’s eyes bulged. “She what?”

  I nodded. “I called her later to talk about it and she was like that can’t happen again.”

  Grayson put his fist up to his mouth and tried not to laugh. “Oh, ho, dude, that’s harsh.”

  I shoved his shoulder. “Don’t be an ass, man.”