Swing for the Fences

by Little Buddha

Chapter 7

I woke up around ten, the sunlight pouring through the crack in the curtain and hitting me square in the face.

For a moment, I just lay there, groggy and warm and half-tangled in the sheets. Something felt… off. Not bad, exactly. Just different.

Then I realized: the bed was empty.

Jack wasn't there.

It felt weird – how quickly I'd gotten used to the feeling of another body beside me. The quiet weight of someone breathing in sync with me. The solid presence of a boy who somehow managed to be both infuriating and comforting all at once.

But then I remembered yesterday .

The theater. The trees. The hand-holding.

Noah.

And suddenly, I didn't feel so hollow. I smiled – grinned, really – and flopped back against my pillow, heart fluttering with the memory. It didn't feel real. But it had happened. It had.

Eventually, I pulled myself together – threw on sweats, ran a hand through my hair, grabbed my phone – and headed to breakfast alone.

The campus was quiet in that lazy Sunday morning kind of way. Leaves rustled. A few boys shuffled past me in pajama pants and hoodies. I was halfway through yawning when I stepped into the dining hall, grabbed a tray, and started working my way down the buffet line.

Scrambled eggs. Crispy hash browns. Sausages and thick-cut bacon, still sizzling. And more of those addictive little dim sum dumplings I'd already raved to Emery about – plus another dim sum -inspired surprise: Chinese turnip cakes (which, confusingly, were made with radishes), pan-fried to perfection and absolutely swimming in soy sauce and spicy chili garlic sauce. Yummy!

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted them.

My usual group – Mark, Emery, Noah… and Jack .

I blinked.

Jack was sitting at the table with them. Not just sitting – talking. His sketchbook was open on the table, and he was deep in conversation with Mark, who had his own sketchpad propped up beside a bowl of cereal.

They were flipping pages, pointing at things, discussing shading or color palettes or probably something way over my head.

Jack looked like his usual "couldn't care less" self – slouching, hair messy, dark circles under his eyes – but there was the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Barely there. Almost invisible.

And his knee was bouncing under the table.

I couldn't help smiling.

I grabbed a seat next to Noah, who looked up and gave me a quiet, "Hey."

He sounded tired. His voice was soft, and he didn't say anything else. Just gave me a sleepy smile and took a sip of his iced latte.

I didn't press. Just smiled back and dug into my breakfast, watching Jack and Mark banter over something that may or may not have been an accidental phallic drawing.

I handed Emery one of my dim sum dumplings and waited for the verdict. He chewed slowly, thoughtfully – like he was judging a cooking competition – then shrugged. "It's okay," he said. "Not exactly authentic , though."

Well, fine. I liked them anyway. They had great umami flavor.

He went on to say there was a tiny, legit Chinese-owned dumpling joint in town that was authentic, and he'd have to take me there sometime. My stomach flipped. Was that an offer? A suggestion? A casual foodie comment? Or… was it another date ?

I tried to play it cool, but my brain was already doing somersaults.

Later that afternoon, I wandered into the common room and found a group of guys – mostly upperclassmen – gathered around the big TV.

Someone had queued up the first Detroit Lions game of the season, and within minutes, the couches were full of shouting, sarcastic commentary, and the rustle of chip bags and passing around of Little Caesar's pizza boxes, crazy bread, and chicken wings. I immediately ran upstairs to my room to put on my Lions T-shirt, matching sweatpants, and a Detroit Lions ball cap. I was ready!

I sat down, figuring I'd hang for a bit – and ended up staying for the entire game.

It felt… good. Great , actually.

Comfortable.

The upperclassmen that were there – guys I'd only seen in passing, towering in the hallways, seemingly untouchable. But they actually talked to me. Asked my opinion on the quarterback and the offensive coordinator's play-calling. We debated draft picks, whether Terrion Arnold might be traded after the next season in the hope of gaining more draft picks. One of the boys – Christian Donahue, a tall junior with a messy blond curl thing going on – called me "The Lion Whisperer" after I rattled off some obscure stat about the defensive line, then predicted a blitz, and I was right! It turned out that he also happened to be the second-string quarterback on Harrison West's varsity football team, so he was kind of a "big shot" since our team was outstanding. Oh, and he was super, super hot, too!

A couple of the other guys were cute, too. Not that I was looking . (Okay, I was absolutely looking.), but the bigger, more muscular guys weren't really my type. I preferred "twinks" and "twunks" … although I'd always make an exception for Christian, even though he wasn't really a muscular guy, just super well-defined, strong, and masculine . What I wouldn't give to be friends with him.

But the best part of being in the common room and watching the game with the boys? I belonged there. I could hold my own. I wasn't just some scrawny freshman taking up couch space. I knew football. I'd watched almost every Lions game with my dad growing up, and my dad passed his obsession on to me. Some of my favorite memories were from Ford Field, pressed against a sea of blue and silver, yelling myself hoarse.

Thinking about that made my chest ache a little.

I missed him.

During the fourth quarter, the Lions' explosive offense – powered by veteran quarterback Jared Goff – had blown the game wide open. The lead was massive. There was no way they could lose at this point… but we all knew better than to celebrate too early. No one wanted to jinx it, and it was still the Lions after all.

That's when I noticed a vaguely familiar kid wander into the common room. He looked to be middle school age, maybe thirteen, and without saying a word, he plopped himself right down on Christian's lap and snuggled in like he'd done it a thousand times before. I blinked, completely thrown.

Before I could ask, Christian glanced over and said, "Oh, that's my little brother, Jonah. Eighth grade. Total menace."

Jonah just gave me a sly grin and said, "He keeps me around for my personality."

Jonah looked me up and down carefully, and then declared, "You must be the reason Christian's been shaving his chest again."

Christian blushed beet red, I was immediately at a loss for words, and the rest of the room went eerily silent.

"So, yeah, that's Jonah," Christian muttered. "Don't take him too seriously … ever … please."

Later, back in the dorm, Jack was in his usual spot at his desk, a pencil spinning between his fingers, a stack of books beside him.

We didn't say much at first – just grunted hellos and settled into the mountain of homework we'd both successfully ignored all weekend. But the silence didn't last long.

"Do you think turtles have thoughts?" Jack asked suddenly, eyes still on his notes.

I blinked. "What?"

"Turtles. Do they think? Or do they just… I don't know… turtle?"

I looked up from my history notes. "What does 'just turtle' even mean?"

Jack leaned back in his chair. "Like, maybe they just exist. No inner monologue. No existential dread. Just vibes."

"So, turtles are your mental health role models now?"

"They might be the only beings on earth who've figured it out."

I smirked. "You've been reading that philosophy book again, haven't you?"

He shrugged. "It was either that or actually start my English essay."

"I mean, turtles also poop in the same water they swim in."

"Exactly. They don't care. Enlightened."

I laughed, and Jack cracked a small, lopsided smile before going back to underlining something in a textbook that I strongly suspected he wasn't reading.

A little while later, I caught him staring blankly at his biology workbook.

"Need some help?" I asked.

"I need to stop taking classes that require remembering things."

"Memory is kind of a key part of school."

"Well," Jack muttered, "that feels like a systemic failure."

Jack sure bitched a lot about school, but he was an excellent student. He'd even been on the Dean's Honor Roll a couple times in middle school, and got mostly A's and the occasional B or B+. He wasn't fooling anyone. He was more of a nerd like me than a "rebel" (just don't ever say that in front of him).

We fell into a surprisingly comfortable rhythm – working, trading sarcastic one-liners, occasionally making fun of the aggressively cheerful font in our science textbook diagrams. I even managed to get him to explain how shading techniques in sketching relate to light refraction, which somehow turned into a ten-minute rant about Renaissance artists being "the original influencers."

The conversation then took another abrupt, random, and morbid turn from there when Jack asked me what was the grossest, scariest thing I'd ever seen.

"Probably watching someone getting pulled from a totaled car using the jaws of life. They guy didn't look alive. It was horrible … what about you?"

Jack didn't hesitate a moment. "Vaginas. They scare the hell out of me. Like, I think girls take so long in the bathroom because they're sharpening the fangs of their vaginas as part of their bathroom routine. Either that or they're power washing them to keep the stench at bay."

I almost threw up a little in my mouth.

"Anything else that scares you?" I asked hesitantly.

"Unrequited love," he said simply and quietly. "That's probably why I try to avoid crushes or relationships like the plague. I'm better off alone."

And somewhere between flashcards and a heated debate about whether tea was just leaf soup with delusions of grandeur, I caught myself smiling. We were actually talking – really talking. Sure, most of it was snark and sarcasm, but buried in all that banter, we were starting to figure each other out. A real friendship was beginning to take shape.

Maybe the week ahead wouldn't be so bad… assuming Jack could stick to the same damn mood for longer than 24 hours.

But that "unrequited love" comment – which seemed like one of the most real things he'd said all weekend – is the one that I couldn't get out of my head.

The alarm went off at 6:30, shrieking like a fire drill inside my skull.

I bolted upright like I'd been shot.

God, I hated that thing.

It took a second for my brain to catch up with my body, but when it did, the first thing I noticed was that the bed felt empty.

Again.

Jack hadn't crawled in beside me last night.

I told myself it was fine. We were fine. We'd had a good weekend. A normal one. Almost stupidly normal. And maybe that was the whole point – we were settling into something that made sense, something comfortable. Getting used to each other. Being... friends.

Yeah.

Maybe even good friends . Friends who occasionally slept together.

Still, the emptiness beside me lingered, just enough to make my chest feel a little hollow.

I pushed it away.

The week kicked off fast. Everyone seemed to be waking up to the fact that classes weren't going to slow down for us to catch our breath. Reading assignments piled up. Essays were assigned. Vocab quizzes were announced like miniature executions.

We were in it now.

I kept sitting with the same group at meals – Noah, Mark, Emery. Sometimes Jack joined us. Sometimes he didn't. No one seemed to think much of it, least of all Jack, who drifted in and out like a ghost with decent posture.

But when we did talk, it was easy. Not deep but not forced either. I was learning how to interpret his moods, his silences, the strange rhythm of his thoughts. He had a way of dropping one bizarre observation in the middle of a normal conversation and then acting like everyone else was weird for not following his logic.

And somehow… I liked it. I liked him . Even when he made no sense. He made me laugh, he made me feel needed, and on those rare occasions when he shared my bed with me, it was the most incredible feeling in the world to hold him all night.

On Tuesday night, after prep, Mark came by to see Jack. I didn't even know they'd been hanging out outside of class, but apparently, they'd bonded over charcoal pencils and whatever brand of trauma came from having passionate opinions about shading.

They sat cross-legged on the floor, sketchbooks open, talking in fast, passionate bursts about line weight and visual symbolism and something called "narrative texture." Jack looked engaged in a way I rarely saw – animated, focused, occasionally smirking like he was being challenged in the best possible way.

I didn't want to interrupt. So, I slipped out.

Noah was waiting near the main stairwell like we'd planned, hands in the pockets of his jacket, rocking slightly on his heels.

We wandered around campus beneath the stars, our fingers brushing occasionally – until they just stayed that way, tangled and easy. We talked about everything and nothing: school, new music, New York vs. Detroit sports teams, weird teachers, and random campus quirks – like how the vending machines sometimes ate your card but still spit out a snack, like they felt guilty afterward.

Noah had this dry, effortless sense of humor. Not sharp and chaotic like Jack's – more like a quiet amusement that hummed just beneath the surface. I liked that. I liked him .

And that was exactly the problem.

Because as much as I wanted to spend every second with Noah – he made me feel calm, seen, normal – there was still Jack. Jack, with his impulsive madness and maddening charm, always doing something absurd or, out of nowhere, saying something heart-melting and vulnerable – probably without even realizing it.

I liked Jack, too.

I liked them both . And it was starting to feel less like a crush and more like a ticking time bomb. One of them was going to get hurt. Maybe all three of us would.

And honestly? I had no idea what I was doing, and no one to talk to about it.

And more and more, I kept wondering what came next.

Noah and I had been holding hands almost every night now. Just walking and talking, fingers laced like it was the most natural thing in the world – like we were already something. But we never actually talked about it. Not out loud. Not directly.

And lately, I'd started to wonder – was it time to say something? To make my feelings clearer? If I didn't, maybe I would lose him, relegated to the "friend zone."

But while my heart was still tangled up between Noah and Jack, my mind wasn't. Noah was steady. Emotionally grounded. He took initiative, showed up, made it obvious he liked me. He'd been dropping hints – some subtle, some not so subtle – for weeks.

Jack hadn't given me any of that. Just more confusion. One step forward, two steps back. Heck, I wasn't even 100% sure that Jack was even gay, although I certainly had my suspicions. Lots of them.

Jack was electric and chaotic and intoxicating… but not consistent. Not safe. I didn't think he was ready for a real relationship. Maybe he wanted one, maybe he even thought he wanted me. Maybe he didn't even know what he wanted. And maybe I was finally starting to realize that wanting someone wasn't enough – not if they couldn't meet you halfway.

Noah did. Noah was already there. He was mature … or as mature as you could expect from a fourteen-year-old teenager.

So why did part of me still feel like I was waiting for Jack, or that if I started "going out" with Noah, I would somehow be being unfaithful to Jack? It's not like we were in a relationship. Shouldn't I be able to choose without feeling guilty?

And if I was going to commit myself to Noah, what would be the next step? I'd never done something like before, so I had no idea.

Was Noah thinking about kissing me?

Did he want to?

Because I wanted to.

God, I really, really did.

But we hadn't even talked about being gay . I mean, I assumed he had to be, or at least bisexual. But still. It was weird.

And I'd never kissed anyone before. Not even a peck. I didn't even know how. Was I supposed to tilt my head a certain way? What if I messed it up? What if I was bad at it?

But even with all the uncertainty and the quiet terror of getting it wrong – I knew one thing for sure:

I wanted my first kiss to be with Noah.

On Wednesday, though, the hollow feeling crept back in.

Jack still hadn't come to my bed at night.

And yeah, it wasn't like we ever talked about it. It had just kind of… happened. And then it stopped happening. And I didn't know why.

I missed it.

I missed the comfort.

I missed him .

And I hated that I did.

That night, while we both sat doing our homework, I finally asked.

"Hey," I said, not looking up from my tablet. "Why haven't you, um… come over lately?"

Jack didn't look up either. He just shrugged. "Didn't know you wanted me to."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't say anything."

"Yeah, well… I guess I figured you'd know."

He turned to glance at me. His expression was unreadable. "You want me to?"

I hesitated. My heart thudded.

"Do you like it?" I asked, shyly.

"Doofus," he replied. "Of course I like it, or I wouldn't have come back after that first night."

"What do you like about it?" I pressed him.

Jack groaned, leaned back in his chair, and ran his hands through his mop of hair. "You know I'm not good at talking about feelings and stuff. Why does it matter, as long as I like it?"

"Just humor me, please," I practically pleaded with him. "I want to know." I was gonna get this boy to open up to me if it was the last thing I did.

"I guess," he began, "that if feels good physically. I like the contact with you, I like the way your body feels when it's pressed up against mine. You make me feel things which I generally don't like to do. But I like it with you. And I guess you make me feel safe. I always sleep better when we sleep together."

I was literally shocked that he was able to articulate his feelings so well. And it made me feel happy to know how good he felt with me. He was also clearly trying to be more open with me, which he had promised he would try to do – and he was fulfilling that promise.

"I like the way you make me feel, too. A lot," I said.

He sighed, "So is that a 'yes?'"

"Yeah," I answered. "That's a yes. I want to sleep with you again."

And that was all it took. Probably very uncomfortable for Jack, but it made me feel good. It also made the whole Nick-Jack-Noah love triangle just a little more complicated.

Although I was ecstatic that I'd finally be able to hold Jack in my sleep again, I felt a tremendous wave of guilt, because I had just been thinking about how I wanted Noah to kiss me, how I wanted something more from him. I was totally fucked up and I just knew this was not going to end well. Yet, I couldn't stop myself, despite knowing how selfish and egotistical I was being. At some point very soon, I had to make my choice and live with it.

That night, as promised, Jack climbed into bed beside me again, like nothing had ever changed. We pulled the blanket over us, pressed close, and cued up a movie on my tablet.

I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine, the soft rhythm of his breath. His bare thigh brushed mine beneath the blanket. And despite everything going on in my head, everything I'd been feeling for Noah…

I got hard … really hard.

It certainly wasn't the first time. Jack was … really cute. But it was the first time I really noticed it. And I had to wonder if he felt it, too. He had to.

I tried to think about anything else. I prayed Jack wouldn't notice. That he was too focused on the movie – or pretending to be asleep. But I couldn't help it. The way his arm rested lightly across my stomach. The way he shifted slightly, and his hip grazed mine. And it got even worse when he started running his fingers through my hair and caressing my bare chest.

It was too much . But not enough. And I was a huge jerk.

I fell asleep that night, a mess of nerves and hormones, unsure of what I wanted or what any of this meant.

By Thursday, though, I couldn't stop thinking about Noah again.

About how he made me feel calm. Seen. Like things made sense for once.

And I wanted more than the occasional night stroll and hand holding.

So, I did the scariest thing I'd done all month.

I asked him if he wanted to come home with me for the weekend.

I could barely look at him when I said it, my voice cracking halfway through the question. But he smiled – this soft, surprised, genuinely happy smile – and he said, "Yeah. I'd really like that."

I nearly fell over with relief. This was a big step.

And then immediately started panicking.

What had I just done?

What did it mean ?

What was Jack going to think?

But mostly… I just kept replaying Noah's answer in my head.

"Yeah. I'd really like that."

By Thursday morning, I was practically vibrating in my seat.

One more day. Just one more day.

I was going home for the weekend – with Noah . We'd be on a bus together, sitting side by side, heading back to my house, and I'd get to spend two whole days with him, away from the weirdness and intensity of campus. No prep blocks. No teachers. No Jack to muddy the waters. And away from prying eyes.

And that was where the problem started.

Because every time I thought about leaving, I also thought about Jack . About how good things had been this week – surprisingly good. He'd been showing up to meals. Talking. Even laughing . He hadn't crawled into bed with me every night, but when he did, it still felt like something I didn't fully understand, but definitely missed when it was gone.

And I hadn't told him about Noah.

About taking Noah home.

About any of it.

They still weren't speaking. Just silent nods or quick glances when they passed each other in the dining hall. There was tension there – quiet, low-grade tension that you could only feel if you were paying attention. But I was always paying attention.

And yet, Jack kept showing up. Sitting with us. Eating with us. Almost like he was daring someone to say something about it. Some kind of defiance.

That night, during prep, Jack was in a mood – in the best possible way. His strange, deadpan observations were sharper than usual, and I caught myself laughing so hard, at one point I had to put down my pen.

We were supposed to be studying biology, but somehow the conversation turned into a full-blown debate about whether birds were secretly government drones and whether pigeons were the "beta testers" of surveillance technology.

"You're telling me," Jack said, dead serious, "that it's just a coincidence they never blink and always stare at you like they know what you did?"

"You're telling me," I countered, "that you don't believe in turtles having inner monologues, but pigeons are out here running government ops?"

Jack grinned. "Exactly."

"And who's running this top secret program? Elon Musk?" I asked.

"Now you're catching on, Nicky!" he exclaimed. He'd never called me "Nicky" before.

It was good. Really good.

And that made what happened next hit even harder.

After prep, I went to meet Noah under the trees – our trees – where we sat for nearly an hour, holding hands, talking, laughing quietly, and occasionally just making that kind of dumb, dreamy eye contact that made my insides go soft. We also split a turkey club sandwich and personal cheese pizza from the Grab-N-Go, to go with our pops.

We still hadn't said the word. Not "gay." Not "boyfriend." Not anything. But something was there. Between us. I still had doubts, anxieties, and fears, but they seemed to be lessening ever so slightly every day.

And I was floating all the way back to my dorm.

Until I hit the hallway and heard the shouting.

A voice—Jack's voice—ripping through the door.

I froze. Flashbacks to last week punched through me like a gut hit. But I didn't stay frozen this time. I ran.

I burst into the room to find Jack in the center of the floor, his phone clutched in one shaking hand, face red, eyes wild.

"I hate you, you stupid cunt!" he screamed into the phone. "Fuck you! I wish you were dead! Don't ever call me again or I'm gonna shove a hot curling iron up your coochie! In fact, I hope you get cancer of the clitoris and die, bitch!"

Then he saw me in the doorway, and with one last, "Fuck you, wench!" he hung up, staring at the screen like it had personally betrayed him.

First of all, I couldn't believe the words that came out of Jack's mouth. In fact, I'd never heard anyone speak like that to someone, let alone a woman, let alone his own mother . Sure, she was an evil harpy, but still … It jolted me.

Jack was trembling. Eyes glassy. Chest rising and falling like he'd just run a marathon.

But this time, I didn't just stand there.

Without even thinking about it first, I crossed the room in two strides and wrapped my arms around him.

His whole body tensed against mine – but only for a second.

And then he let go.

His head dropped to my shoulder, his fists clenching my back, and I held him tighter.

Mr. G burst into the room, breathless. "What's going on, gentlemen?"

Jack didn't even lift his head. "I was on the phone with my mom," he said, voice thick, still shaking.

Mr. G looked between us – Jack crumpled against me, me holding him like he might break. He opened his mouth to speak again, but I cut in.

"He'll be okay," I said softly. "I've got him."

"Maybe we should go to the infirmary again, Jack," Mr. G suggested.

"No!" Jack shouted. "I want to stay here with Nicky."

There was a long pause. Then Mr. G gave a small, reluctant nod. "Alright. I'm around if either of you needs anything. Don't stay up too late. I'll bring your sleeping pill around 10:30. I think you're gonna need it tonight. No arguing, mister"

He left, closing the door gently behind him.

Jack stayed in my arms for another full minute before pulling away.

"I don't wanna talk about it," he mumbled.

"Okay," I said. "You don't have to."

But God, I wanted to know. I was scared for him. And I hated that I didn't know how to help.

"You know how much I care about you, don't you?" I whispered to him.

"No, not really," he replied, his eyes not meeting mine.

That stung for sure.

"Well, I do. A lot ," I stated, forcing him to look me in the eyes. "You're my best friend in this whole place, Jack, and … I love you."

"Please don't say that if you don't mean it," Jack whimpered softly in my ear.

"You're my best friend , Jack, and I love you ."

It was the most emotional conversation we'd ever had. And there was no question that I loved him, although I wasn't sure if it was the same kind of "love" I was starting to feel for Noah. Everything was just getting more and more tangled. But nonetheless, it was "love" and I did love Jack.

The rest of the night was quiet. Jack went through the motions of brushing his teeth, changing clothes, flipping off his lamp – all on autopilot. I watched him from my bed, half expecting him to blow up again, half hoping he'd talk.

He didn't.

But after lights out, just as I was adjusting my pillow, I heard a soft voice.

"Hey," Jack said.

I turned.

"Do you mind if I sleep with you again?"

I swallowed. "No. I don't mind."

He climbed in fast, like he couldn't get there fast enough, and immediately melted into me. I wrapped my arms around him without thinking.

And I felt it – warm teardrops on my neck.

I held him tighter.

"Are you still not sure if I care about you and love you, Jack?" I asked him gently.

After a few moments of silence, he whispered back. "I know you do, Nicky. I'm just so scared of getting hurt. Everyone I ever thought ever loved me in my life has hurt me or left me."

Now was definitely not the time to tell him I was leaving for the weekend.

And especially not who I was going with.

As much as I loved hearing him open up to me and show me affection, I knew I was a royal-fuck up and this was not going to end well.

Friday passed in a daze.

Between classes, packing, tennis, and trying to act like I wasn't about to internally combust, I barely remembered what I said to anyone. I was running on half-sleep, a lot of nerves, and just enough guilt to keep me distracted at every turn.

Jack didn't mention last night. Maybe his sleeping pill washed away his short-term memory.

He also didn't bring up the phone call. Or the tears. Or the fact that he'd slept in my bed again. He just got dressed in the morning like any other day, grabbed his backpack, and muttered something about "surviving Friday without setting the building on fire." I laughed, probably a little too hard, and we both pretended we were fine.

He showed up at breakfast, too. Sat with us like usual. Ate cereal. Talked a little. Didn't look at Noah.

Noah didn't look at him either.

The tension was still there – thin, invisible, and somehow louder because of it.

But we somehow managed to get through the day.

After the last period, I returned to the dorm to grab my duffel and make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. Jack was at his desk again, sketchbook open in front of him, earbuds in.

I hovered by the door for a second, then said, "Hey. I'm heading out in a bit. My mom's picking me up."

He pulled one earbud out and glanced over. "Cool."

I hesitated. "I mean, if you want me to stay, I can. I don't have to go."

Jack gave a tired half-smirk and shook his head. "What would you even do? Sit here and watch me pace around in circles and listen to death metal?"

"I dunno. Maybe," I said. "Could be fun."

He looked at me for a beat – long enough to make me think he was really thinking about it. Then he looked back at his sketchpad and said, "Go. Seriously. You've earned it."

He still didn't know who I was going with.

And I didn't tell him.

I nodded, even though he wasn't looking at me. "Okay. See you on Sunday. Hope we can hang out then."

He raised two fingers in a lazy wave, and that was it.

Outside, the sky was pale and gold, and the crisp air had that unmistakable scent of drying leaves and something sweet – maybe a bonfire burning in the distance. I spotted Noah standing by the school's front entrance, bag slung over one shoulder, texting on his phone.

When he saw me, he slipped it into his pocket and smiled. That quiet, natural kind of smile that made something fizz in my chest.

"She on her way?" he asked.

"Should be here any second now."

We didn't have to wait long. Within a minute, my mom's black SUV rolled up along the curb and came to a slow stop. The window rolled down and she leaned out, squinting behind her sunglasses.

"There's my boy," she said, smiling. Then she noticed Noah beside me and raised an eyebrow. "And… you must be Noah."

He stepped forward and offered a hand, like a total gentleman. "Yes, ma'am. Noah Sterling. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, sweetie." She gave me a quick, sharp glance as we tossed our bags in the back. "You didn't tell me your guest was so polite."

"Don't get used to it," I muttered, blushing as I climbed into the passenger seat.

Noah slid into the back, and as we pulled away from campus, I turned and caught his eye. He gave me a small, private grin. I smiled back, nervously twisting the strap of my bag in my lap.

I didn't know what this weekend would bring.

But he was here.

And that had to mean something.

Previous
Chapter

We support Ukraine — Мы поддерживаем Украину — Ми підтримуємо Україну

We support the Palestinian people in their struggle against oppression

Iomfats.org