Opened my eyes (Noah x Cody) Noco

I like this game

He lets go of my face and pulls himself away. 

As happy as I am... I wonder what he was thinking? 

"Aghhh!" He buries his face in his hands, should I comfort him? What just happened? 

"Uhhh" I don't know what to say, maybe it's better to not say anything. I rub his back, is he crying? I didn't know he was able to cry, Noah's never cried, not even in preschool.

"Why are you crying?" I don't want to get too close to him, although we were pretty close a minute ago.

"I'm not crying!" He wipes his eyes and sits up straight. "I'm not crying." He calms down. "I never cry..." I sit there and kick my feet around.

"Okay." I get that he doesn't want to tell me, I shouldn't be here in his personal space. He's probably going to tell all his friends how weird I am for talking to his family, how weird I am for existing. 

"Boys! Lunch is ready!" A voice yells from downstairs.

"I guess we should go eat, then I'll be out of your life forever again, I know, hold your excitement." I sound a little bit like Noah, snarky. 

"Cody" He stops me as I start to get up.

"Mhm?" 

"You can't tell anyone I cried, if my sisters find out I'll never hear the end of it." He smiles again, I smile back.

"Fine, but only if you don't get mad I read your book" I'm still smiling at him. His face drops.

"You read it?" 

"I was bored on the walk over here." I shrug, it was a pretty good book from what I read, just a little... graphic.

"I thought you could only read picture books" He smirks. He's being mean, but it doesn't feel like he wants to hurts my feelings.

"They're called comic books! And I thought you couldn't cry, yet here we are." That was a crazy comeback! It sounds stupid when I say snarky things. My voice is too high to pull it off.

"Hey! That never happened!" We both laugh, is Noah being genuine? Who would've guessed that he could be authentic.

"So do you wanna go eat lunch?" I'm not actually hungry right now, but if Noah is then we should go down.

"Do you?" Why did he ask me back? I'm terrible at making decisions.

"Not really" 

"Same"

We sit in silence again on his bed. It feels like hours sitting there.

"So Noah, why were you crying?" He looks down at his feet.

"Oh. I don't know" He's lying.

"You can tell me, who am I going to tell? My mom?"

"Yeah, I just realized something."  He's still looking down, this is a whole new person than the Noah at my school.

"What?"

He sighs. "Cody, I'm in love with you." As he says that he looks into my eyes. 

I don't know what to say. Do I-

I don't...

But he's a he! Like I said, I don't swing that way. But in the book, did they know? How are you supposed to know? Maybe everyone does, they just don't realize it until, until they have a funny, cute, Noah in front of them. 

Cute?!

He's not cute!

He just has really nice eyes, and hair, and skin. Really soft skin. I want to feel his soft skin, this time it's me who put my hand on his face.

I close my eyes. This time when we kiss it's different. His lips want to be there, and mine do too. He moves his hands to my neck, it kind of tickles, but in a soothing way.

The door opens.

"C'mon nerds we said lunch was ready-" Naomi freezes. "NOAH WHAT THE-" We're both startled and jump away.

"What did I say about knocking? Get out!" He's mad. I'm still recovering from that kiss.

"Noah you are in so much trouble!" I think Naomi's even more mad.

"Why?" He crosses his arms.

"I don't know, for sneaking a boy in here!"

"You let him in einstein!" 

Naomi takes a minute to think of something to say. What can she say? He makes a valid point. She sighs.

"Fine, you're lucky I like the guy, let's go eat." She walks out.

We all walk downstairs, me and Noah haven't said anything to each other since, but we don't have to. 

I'm still trying to figure out my feelings.

"I got the nerds" His family is sitting at the table. All eyes are on us.

"Nice of you to finally join us Noah" One of the girls says. Noah itches his eye and flips her off. Did no one else see that?

We sit down at the two empty spots at the table, across from each other. Nora saved me a seat but didn't save one for Noah so he has to sit by his other relatives.

There's mac and cheese so I take some, then some turkey. Everything looks delicious.

"Thank you so much for having me!" I'm so happy to be here, to be wanted.

"Thank you for coming Cody!" Granny smiles at me, she remembers my name. I don't even think my grandma knows my name.

There's lots of talking around the table while we eat, I feel Noah's eyes on me. I look back up at him and when I does he looks back down. What's this game we're doing? I continue to stare at him until he looks at me, then I look down. I can't help smiling. He smiles to himself too.

We do this a little bit more until we both look up at the same time and don't look back down. His face is so perfectly structured. Like a sculptor sculpted it; No mistakes. 

I feel another set of eyes on us. Naomi. But she's glaring. We get the hint and both look down again.

Is Noah really in love with me? How does he know? 

I've always thought I was in love, every month I would "fall in love" with a new girl. But that felt different. Being "in love" with Gwen was just trying to get her attention, any time she would talk to me I had to think of something to say to impress her. I was bored. I can't even tell you three things about her.

But Noah likes to read. Noah likes turtles. Noah has two sisters. Noah doesn't actually like his toxic friends. Noah never cries. Noah is warm, even though his house is cold. Noah likes things dark and mysterious like him. Noah's in love with me. And I'm in love with Noah.