Teaching Noah | √

036

"UGH, THIS IS so confusing. I'm not sure I'll be able to get it," I groaned.

"Listen, you're doing great, okay? You've been able to grasp some things already, and that's amazing," Noah said from the passenger's seat.

Noah had been teaching me the basics of driving since morning, and after hours of learning and familiarizing myself with the brake, accelerator, foot pedals, gearshift, with a petty argument with Noah in the middle, I was now learning how to properly use the gear shift.

"You got this, alright?" He looked at me, and when I nodded, he continued, "So, the letters on the gear are N, P, R and D— Neutral, Park, Reverse and Drive."

"Got it," I nodded firmly.

He lifted my hand to the gear before wrapping his hands around mine, "So, when you move the gearshift to N, it's neutral,  the engine will run, and the car will move, but you don't necessarily have to drive with the steering, when you move the gearshift to R, you're reversing. Remember the brake pedal?" He looked at me.

"Yeah," I swallowed and nodded.

"Yeah, so to reverse, you just move the gearshift to R, and move your foot from the brake pedal—"

I was beginning to lose track of what he was saying. I'd been struggling with it the moment he put his hand around mine on the gearshift. What was this feeling I was getting? I tried hard not to pay attention to it, but I was failing miserably, I didn't even know what it meant. What I knew was I liked the feeling, but in no time, he took his hands off mine in a sudden movement that had me wondering if he was feeling the same thing.

Damn the movies. Were those tingly feelings and sparks even real?

"Uh... so, there are some gearshifts that have numbers on them instead, and I'll take you through that briefly too, just in case, you know... uh... yeah."

Noah's patience was out of this world because he had spent close to an hour— if not an hour— teaching me how to back the car out.

"This is so difficult. I'll probably never get it."

"Keep saying stuff like that, and you'll be surprised to see that you're not making any progress, and you're making progress. That's a good thing, just be patient with yourself," Noah said.

I let out a breath, "Okay."

"But can we take a break now? We've been doing this all day, I'm quite hungry."

I nodded towards a building by our right that looked like a convenience store, "That's a store."

Noah nodded before taking out a few notes of cash from the compartment in between our seats, "Do you want something?"

"Anything is fine," I told him.

"Gotcha. Give me a few."

He walked to the front of the store, and I watched him wait for an older lady to walk through the door, holding it for her before walking through the door himself, bending slightly, but not before looking back to throw a quick glance at me. There was a flutter in my stomach, and I almost cursed under my breath. These new feelings rising up were scary to me. It wasn't the same feeling I had when I was only crushing on him. It was more, like I would rather spend all my time with him. And that was what scared me, because I knew where he stood. What kind of person did that make me, then? Especially with Camden. I wasn't sure I was ready for a love triangle or whatever those were called. They were stressful.

My gaze snapped back to Noah who came out of the store with a medium-sized bag in his hand.

"I have to be careful with this, it has coffee in it," He set the bag in between us and took out a packet of chocolate chip cookies, "We're going to have to share this. Your drink is in there."