Nathan Marsh's State of Being

Chapter Twenty Five

touched

"Hey, nerd."

I scoffed at Noel's greeting as he walked into our room. "Bookworm."

He effectively ignored my retort. "You know what? I've made a decision."

"Wow, congratulations." I didn't look at him as I scrolled through YouTube, looking for a video with Brad Leone in it that I hadn't seen yet. I was pretty close to giving up because I was sure I'd seen them all by now. His face was hard for me to overlook.

"I'll ignore the implied insult to my intelligence," Noel quipped. "I've decided what we're going to start doing together."

His words instantly made my stomach flip and I jerked my gaze upwards, my search for Brad instantly forgotten. Was Noel talking about hooking up again? He'd never brought it up again since that day I'd had to leave with Harley.

When I'd gotten back, he wasn't home, and when I asked him over text if he still wanted to get food, he'd said he'd already eaten. That night, he slept over at Kezzie's.

Watching him, my mouth felt dry when I asked, "Together?"

"Yep." Suddenly he spun around. "Where's Chéri?"

I blinked as Noel scoured the desk drawers. He turned to look at me with a small smile and I realized I'd had everything so wrong for that short moment. I felt like a moron jumping to my own conclusions.

"Chéri?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound as thwarted as I felt as my stomach knotted.

"Yes, Nat." I watched him roll his eyes with amusement. "You know the book I asked you to read that I know you've definitely not been reading?"

I cleared my throat and pointed at my bag. He wasn't wrong, I wasn't reading it. But I still carried it with me everyday in case I found the motivation--or courage, depending how you looked at it--to crack it open.

Noel sauntered over to my side of the room and fished his book out of my backpack with a happy sigh. "Ah, there he is." He came over to my bed and waved me to the side with his hand. "Scoot."

I snorted, but did as he asked, making room for him next to me. We sat leaning against the wall, our legs stretching crosswise over the short length of the mattress.

"What are you doing?" I asked, amused.

"Storytime."

I watched his brows furrow in light concentration as he opened the cover and flipped to the first page.

"I thought you hated the idea of kindergarten activities," I decided to say. I wasn't sure why I had, but when he said storytime the memory of him snapping at Harley a few weeks back rose to the surface of my thoughts.

Noel looked at me, gaze suddenly so intent as it sank into mine. "I was in a bad mood that day."

I hesitated. I hadn't realized we were actually going to be talking about it, so my head scrambled for something to say. All I could come up with was, "Okay."

Even I knew it was a pathetic answer.

Noel sighed and sat Chéri in his lap. "I know I don't talk much about family, because there's a lot of bullshit and, you know me. I don't like to be dragged down."

I nodded, because that was all I could do. I was perplexed, waiting to see where he was going with this.

He tapped his thumbs over the cover of Chéri." Basically, I was stressed out that day because I found out my parents were thinking of filing charges against Leesy's boyfriend. My rope was short that day and it's a shit excuse. I know I shouldn't have snapped at Harley that day. It was uncalled for."