things we did when no one was looking

the one with the concert

"You want me to what?" My voice, while hushed, shows my disbelief as I turn my head to make sure no one is hearing us. It's a Sunday morning and Will and Max are in the kitchen, while Noah is currently convincing me to sneak out tonight.

"Come to my concert with me. It isn't that far, just down to Huntington Beach, we're playing in this little underground place, I can come to get you tonight and we can drive down. I promise I'll have you back home before Will notices you're gone."

"I don't know, I have an early shift at the diner tomorrow-"

"Please, princess? You've never seen me perform-"

"Wrong, we watched you on MTV last year-"

"I mean in person, smartypants," he laughs, and loops his arms around my waist, pulling me closer. "It'll be fun, I promise. The guys have been on my ass to introduce you to them for months. And I'll have you back before midnight."

With that fucking puppy eyes, he's pulling right now, it's hard to say no and I sigh. "You pick me up at 8, okay? And we're back before midnight."

"Promise, Cinderella." He kisses my cheek and spins me around before walking back to the kitchen with a spring in his step.

It's been 4 months since we started dating that one eventful night, and I've never seen Noah perform. I guess I'd just been so occupied with keeping Will in the dark.

Come nightfall, Max is helping me pack. "Uh uh, no way you're getting back before midnight, I absolutely won't allow it. I will lock you out of your damn house."

"Will will get suspicious! He can read me like a book, you know that."

"Yet he hasn't been able to tell you're dating his best friend," Max rolls his eyes, shoving a water bottle in my backpack. "You're all set, and if I'm correct, lover boy will be outside your window in 3..2..-"

A pebble hits my window and Max snorts.

Throwing the window open, I smile down at Noah, who's got his arm cocked back to throw again. "Come down, Rapunzel, your Prince Charmings here to take you away."

"Wrong fairy tales," I tell him as I toss my bag out the window. He rolls his eyes and catches it, tossing it into the front seat of his car. "Bye Max," I wave one last time as I make my way down the gutter pipe outside my window, hanging on to the ivy branches growing on it. When I'm close enough, I jump to the ground, taking off towards Noah.

He grabs me and spins me around, pulling me in for a big kiss. "I'm so happy you're coming tonight," he laughs as he opens the passenger side door for me.

The ride feels shorter with Noah next to me, hand resting on my thigh and playing old rock ballads on the car radio. He tells me more about New York, not about meeting big names at Manhattan parties, playing to sold-out crowds at Madison square garden and arranging fan meets at the top of the Empire State Building, but about his first one-bedroom apartment with horrible parking that he lived in when the band first moved there. He tells me about his landlady, a small German woman who sang in her mother tongue as she cooked breakfast, and how she always bought him food, knowing he could cook for shit. He tells me about the pizza parlor across the street, owned by ex-convicts trying to make an honest living, and he tells me of the saxophone player who played jazz outside the Public Theatre. He brings New York City to life. 

"I'll take you there one day," he chuckles as he exits the highway on the roundabout, putting us almost parallel to the ocean. The sun's setting and you can see every color of the sky reflected in the water. "Fly you right out to my nice penthouse apartment and take you all around the city."