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Chapter Forty-Eight

Arriving back at Noah's house, I was still floating on cloud nine after our night of luxury.

Following a delicious room service breakfast, we'd lounged around in our fluffy white robes until it was time to check out; drinking coffee, watching TV, and pretending we were rich and famous.

"So, what do you want to do today?" I asked him, as we both crashed out flat on his bed, dropping our overnight bags onto the floor.

"Just this," he smiled back, rolling over to pull me into his arms.

"Sounds perfect," I laughed, "But we've got the whole afternoon together, let's do something."

"What do you want to do?" he murmured, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know," I replied, scrunching my nose up.

"You look ridiculously cute when you do that," he laughed, placing a kiss on the end of my nose.

"Don't think you can charm your way out of this one, we need a plan," I laughed.

"Okay, how about this for a plan," he began, "There's an exhibit on at the V&A, David Bowie's costumes throughout the years - all his different phases and characters. We could go look at that, then go for something to eat, then come back here and go to bed."

"I'm in!" I clapped, rolling off the bed and reaching a hand out to help him up.

"We're going by tube, though," he added slowly, looking up at me cautiously as he pulled on his boots.

"That's fine, I enjoyed our last journey together," I smirked at him, before throwing an oversized cardigan over my brown pinafore dress and heading downstairs.

Watching Noah's face as he talked his way around the exhibit made me feel warm inside. He had such good general knowledge and could always find a story about something to tell me, no matter what we were discussing.

The costumes themselves were fascinating and brought me back to my childhood, when I would sit on dad's lap as we listened to various vinyl records through an ancient player, studying the sleeves until they were committed to memory. He never liked to pigeon-hole himself into one genre, he'd only become known among the jazz community by chance, away from that he was like a one-man encyclopedia of music. He would have loved that exhibit.

"You okay?" Noah asked, snapping me out of my train of thought.

"Yeah, fine," I smiled, "Just getting hungry, that's all."

"Let's go eat, then," he grinned, interlocking his fingers with mine as we strolled out of the museum and through Hyde Park on our way to the station. The spring evening was crisp but beautiful, with the last strains of the day's sun slowly beginning to set. As we walked, I felt a deep sense of calm and contentment, as though life couldn't be any better than it was right there and then.

"What are your plans for the future?" I asked quietly, instantly feeling like an idiot for blurting out my inner thoughts.

"I don't have any," Noah replied, turning to face me as we walked. "Just see what happens I guess."

"But what about, like, way in the future?" I continued. "Do you reckon one day you'll want to settle down and... have a family and stuff."

After pausing for a second, Noah answered.

"I never wanted all that," he said, with a small shrug of his shoulders. "My life for the past few years has been about surviving the next week ahead, and hoping the band stuff takes off."

"Oh," I murmured, trying but failing to hide my disappointment.

"But, if you'll let me finish," he smiled, "Now it looks as though the band is going somewhere at last. And, now I've found you, I don't know what the future will hold. It's too early to say, but I hope you'll be a part of it, somehow."