“I could talk about business. In fact, I have this idea for a TV show I wanted to pitch you.”
I groaned, and ran my hand through my hair.
“But wait. Really. You’ll love it. You have to hear it,” she teased.
“You just said you don’t watch TV!”
“Not only do I not watch TV, I don’t even like TV,” she said, stabbing the air with her index finger. I loved that we were back on familiar territory. We’d acknowledged what was happening without letting it define us.
“You have no idea how refreshing that is to hear. Do you watch anything? Like online videos or something?”
“There’s this Internet comedian I like. He does these random New York things. Like dances on roller skates in jean shorts in Times Square.”
“Show me,” I said, and we moved back to my computer, where she found a video of a guy in too-short shorts who was skating through orange cones he’d set up amid the tables and tourists. The video cracked me up, and so did her response to it. The sweetness of the sound of her laughter touched down somewhere deep inside me.
“I love it. Haven’t laughed that hard since I found an old copy of one of David Tremaine’s columns. The TV writer,” I added.
She nodded. “I know who he is.”
I shrugged sheepishly. “Of course you do. I love his work. Anyway,” I said, tapping the screen. “I’m going to have to watch all of this guy’s videos.”
She flashed me a smile. “I hope he makes you laugh.”
“One of my favorite things to do”
“Me too. I guess I better go.”
She started to walk to the door, and some kind of emptiness took hold, rooting around in my gut at the prospect of her leaving. I reached out and placed a hand on her arm.
“Are you going to come by again?” My voice was crackly and dry. I wasn’t sure if I should be asking the question. But I was doing it anyway.
“I don’t want to complicate things,” she said, her voice low and breathy.
“They’re already complicated,” I said, my chest rising and falling as it did when I was a little bit nervous. Right then, I was a lot nervous.
“I’ll come by. Do you have papers for me to have signed?”
“No.”
She smiled, reeling me in more. “I will, Noah.”
“You know that no one calls me Noah, right?”
“Are you saying you want me to call you Hayes again?”
I shook my head. “No. I want you to call me Noah.”
She stepped closer, the distance between us halving. She was so near, I could have wrapped my arms around her and tugged her in for a kiss. I clenched my fists, as if that would keep all my desires in check. The matter became more complicated when she whispered my name once more, letting it slide off her lips, like she’d lingered on every letter.
Kennedy
My heart was a hummingbird, its wings beating wild and fast. He’d given me the keys. I was the only one who had them.
I didn’t ask why. I suspected he used the name Hayes as a shield, so he’d have a wall, a barrier if he needed one. But I’d already broken down some of those barriers in the simplest way—I only wanted what was on the other side. Him, just him.
And so he became Noah, and I was the only one who called him by his name.
“’Bye. Noah.”
I swore I heard a low groan from him, then he collected himself. “’Bye, K,” he said, calling me K for the first time, calling me by an affectionate name. It did not go unnoticed, or unenjoyed.
I stopped by another time. Then another, then another.
I never tried to look older. I didn’t get dolled up or apply extra makeup. He wouldn’t have been fooled anyway. He knew the score; he was either willing to handle it or not. When I’d arrive at his office, I came from summer class, or summer lacrosse practice, so I was dressed casually. My hair was usually in a ponytail. I looked like me. If he was going to like me, he was going to like me.
We talked about everything; he told me more stories about his mom, the shows she performed in, the things she said and did, even the sadder times, how he’d come home and find her drunk, how she’d started performing tipsy sometimes too, how she died of liver disease when he was only twenty-one. He’d never known his dad; his dad left when he was two and he never had any siblings, so he was alone. I almost wanted to ask if he was drawn to my mom because she was so similar in some ways to his mom, and she technically could have been his mom too, since she was twice his age. But I didn’t want to go there and dig into their relationship, the way it spilled over from work to friendship, because then I’d be reminding him of the biggest hurdle between us—not age, but her. Instead, I told him stories about school, about the headmistress and her rules, I talked about lacrosse and recounted the games we’d played, and the goals I’d scored, and the plays I made. I wanted him to be impressed with my prowess on the field, that I was a jock like him.
“You should come to my games sometime,” I said one afternoon. I wasn’t planning to ask him out. It just came out then. It was the natural moment to say it.
“I should,” he said with a nod.
“But will you?”
He cocked his head to the side, considering my question. He narrowed his eyes. “Do you really want me to?”
“I’m asking you to, aren’t I?”
He paused, licked his lips briefly. “Kennedy, do you think it would be weird if I came to a game?”