Hey, Noah

t h r e e | You Could Talk

t h r e e | You Could Talk

I was pleasantly surprised when Noah chose to stop when the path ended and we reached the outside of the woods. He turned to the right where a couple of large boulders sat next to the small sign that pointed out the directions to the dormitories, the main building and back at the field.

I watched the muscles in his arm flex as he effortlessly climbed the boulder, reaching the top with such careless ease.  So he had a good—okay, great body; he was pretty tall, had a great build and made it seem somewhat easy. But I knew from experience that it wasn't, so I just stood there awkwardly, wondering if I should just continue doing that or if I should try to climb the thing and fall on my butt like I always did.

But then Noah managed to surprise me once again when he reached down, holding his hand out for me.

It was absolutely ridiculous that my heart actually skipped a beat.

Wordlessly, I placed my hand in his warm one and his grip on mine tightened as he helped me up just as easily as he'd climbed it a second ago, without even breaking a sweat.

Man, this guy was good for a girl's ego.

He waited till I'd settled on the right before he seated himself next to me on the left. We both looked straight at the view up ahead. The sky was dark, the stars shining, and the light of the lamp was just a soft glow next to us. I could hear vague bits and pieces of a conversation a group of girls were having back near the trees, the music was still a low hum in the background, and in short, it was pretty perfect.

That was when I realized that he still hadn't let go of my hand.

And well... he was all good-looking and thoughtful and kind of sweet even though I still knew nothing of him—so yeah, I liked it, sue me.

But of course that was also the moment where I had to start sweating like a pig.

Well, okay, that didn't really happen, but it was totally about to and I was about to make a fool out of myself along with it. Not really down with that, I started fidgeting a bit the moment I felt my palm get a bit clammy. Noah looked down at our hands in vague surprise like even he wasn't aware he'd been holding it and dropped mine instantly, crossing his arms across his knees and turning away adamantly. Was that the slightest twinge of pink in his cheeks?

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Noah Archer, the guy who kept girls waiting in line for just a minute of his time and left them begging for more when he actually did give it to them, was blushing because he'd held my hand a few seconds more than necessary.

He was so cute.

Tamping down the ridiculous smile on my face, I cleared my throat before beginning to break the silence between us, "So what're you doing at the bonfire?"

No answer.

Stupid question, Riley, I scolded myself. How is that much different from asking him why he showed up at college after the accident?

I decided to try again, "So... when's the next football game?" I cringed right as I said it. It was another stupid question to ask. Football was the thing at Redwood and all the games were practically public information. I'd have to be living under a rock to not know. I could take a guess and say it'd maybe be next week or something, but then again, I didn't know for sure because I wasn't a big fan of football. It was another stupid question, and this was confirmed by the lack of response I got.