Nochelle - Our Stories

F I N A L L Y

~Season 5~

Okay, let's get one thing straight here. 17-year-old Noah Erlick does not like Richelle Nolet.

Well, let's rephrase that. He likes her, obviously, they've been best friends for 10 years. But he doesn't like her romantically. He used to, but he doesn't now. That changed a couple of months ago. Since then, he can't continue to deny it any longer - he is deeply in love with her. Everyone can see it. Their friends, his mom, his brothers, Michelle. Everybody. Except Richelle herself.

Every time they hugged, he wanted to be able to continue holding her, for as long as he wanted. He wanted to kiss her until he couldn't breathe. They are surprisingly very tactile towards each other already, without them realising it, though. Anyone who didn't know them would think they are already together.

It wasn't limited to their connections at dance either. His arm always seemed to end up draped over her shoulder when they hung out at Neutral Grounds, he would kiss her on the forehead when he knew she needed comforting and she would kiss him on the cheek whenever he did something nice for her, which was more often than not recently. He liked their relationship as it was. But he couldn't help but wish there was something more between them. The only problem, he doesn't think she likes him back and he doesn't want to ruin what they already have.

Okay, let's recap slightly. But only to the point when Noah realized he was in love with his Best Friend.

~~~

It was a few Friday nights after losing Regionals and some remaining members of the team were spending the night at Noah's. His mum was working the night shift, and she didn't like the idea of the boys being being alone, so she allowed him to have friends over. And, that's how it started. Noah, Richelle, Henry, Amy and Piper were all sat around in the living room with Noah's brother watching films, gossiping and eating their own body weight in snacks. It wasn't long before they all starting growing tired, but Richelle was the one to fare worst of all.

A few weeks prior, her mother had given birth to another girl meaning that Richelle now had 3 younger siblings under the age of eight. And when I say that this new baby had a pair of lungs on her, that would be the understatement of the century. Every morning, like clockwork, she wakes up at 5:45 a.m, which means that the whole house is awake within minutes. She hadn't been able to sleep past that time since her parents bought her home from the hospital. And when you're a busy high-schooler, dancer and big sister, who always has a lot of homework, choreography and babysitting to do, you rarely go to bed early. Meaning that Richelle was running on about 6 hours of sleep per night. To put it simply, she was exhausted.

Anyway, they were all sat watching a movie; Noah, Richelle, Piper and Amy were all squashed together on the couch and Henry was on the floor (he offered) – Kingsley had gone to bed – Noah's arm was wrapped around Richelle's shoulders, when he felt something fall against his chest. At first, he thought Piper had thrown a cushion at him, that was a regular occurrence—but he quickly found the culprit. Richelle had fallen asleep and was now leaning into him, probably for warmth. That boy is like a human radiator, and everybody knows she gets cold easily.

Amy noticed this interaction and nudged Piper so she could observe the pair as well. Piper had practically known Richelle and Noah as long as the pair had known each other–her older brother always dragged her along to Michelle's with the rest of the 'OG' A-Troupe and to nobody's surprise, Noah was always hanging around as-well. The three became great friends, bonding over A-Troupe gossip and a love for dance well before Piper transferred studios.

They continued to spy as Noah subconsciously tightened his arm around Richelle to keep her as close to him as possible, tracing a pattern over her arm. A small smile appeared on his face as she snuggled in further and he pressed a kiss into her hair. He then preceded to lay his head on top of hers and continued to watch the movie.