It made this situation all the more baffling. Who the hell would want to torture someone with such a kind heart? Like a predatory cat toying with a defenseless mouse, living off the thrill of it. Off basic and bloody instinct.

It made my stomach churn.

We found ourselves outside of the station, the spring breeze rattling a couple of branches in a nearby oak tree. Eric stepped aside to make a call, leaving me and Noah standing as if we’d just gotten out of a film. None of this seemed quite real.

I decided to ask him a question that had been on my mind since that morning. “Do you want to crash at my place again?”

Noah looked up, eyes catching a bit of the sun, nearly knocking me off my feet. How did he always manage to do that? Look so damn effortlessly ethereal… and I never described someone like that. But that was Noah. Capturing this otherworldly kind of glow even when we were standing feet away from a dirty police station, an overflowing trash can too close for comfort.

And yet still Noah made this all feel like some kind of movie. The good ones. The ones you watch over and over again, even if it’s just by leaving it on in the background, because occasionally tuning in feels like a warm hug while you handle mindless chores.

“No, that’s okay,” he said, the light disappearing from his eyes as he looked down at his sneakers. “I should sleep in my own bed tonight. I appreciate it, though. I really do.”

“You sure?” I asked, wanting to press but not be pushy at the same time.

“Yeah. It’s probably best.”

I tried not to let my disappointment show, swallowing it like the bitter pill it was, feeling it bounce down my throat and leaving an acidic trail in its wake.

“Okay, no worries.”

“But you should come to the next Reading under the Rainbow. It’s going to be at Yvette’s for, well, obvious reasons. She lives in Decatur. If you want to, I can officially add you to our email chain.”

“I’d love that,” I said, the disappointment quickly replaced by something else, something brighter.

“Alright, perfect. Same email as your work email?”

“No, here, use this one.” We traded private emails and realized we didn’t have each other’s numbers. Those got added in, too.

It didn’t take me a whole two hours before I was texting him, which resulted in me smiling myself to sleep that night as we shared silly memes and viral videos.

9

NOAH BARNES