“Not funny.”
“Oh, comeon, it was alittlefunny.”
“Not even a little.”
Noah placed his hands on the ladder. “Go on. I won’t let you fall.”
It was the kind of thing people said all the time. It usually meant nothing, but something about the way Noah said it, steady and low, made Eli’s stomach drop in a way unrelated to height.
Eli climbed. Halfway through hanging a cluster of paper stars, he looked down.
Noah was watching him, not in a weird way, but kinda focused.
Like the seventeen-year-old in Eli’s sketchbook staring across the gym with that easy confidence.
Eli’s heart thudded.
“You okay up there?” Noah asked.
“Yeah,” Eli said, although his pulse was dancing.
“Tell me if you need anything.”
“More hooks.”
“Got you.” Noah handed them up, and their fingers brushed again.
Eli pretended it didn’t matter, but he knew the truth.
It mattered.
They worked until noon, weaving lights, hanging paper stars, and fluffing fake snow along the baseboards. At some point, Noah got a smear of glitter on his cheek, and Eli had to look away because he had the sudden urge to brush it off.
“Cocoa break,” Noah declared to the room’s occupants.
Eli and Noah sat on the edge of the stage, their legs dangling. Someone handed out Styrofoam cups of too-sweet cocoa, and a teenager tested the sound system by playing the Mariah Carey song everyone pretended to be sick of and secretly loved.
Noah cradled his cocoa. “Tell me something I wouldn’t guess about you.”
Eli hesitated.
I drew you when I was fifteen.
I recognized you yesterday, and I don’t know how to un-feel that.
Instead he said, “I’m good at overhearing conversations, but terrible at small talk.”
Noah laughed. “That sounds about right.”
“Your turn,” Eli said.
“Hmm.” Noah stroked his chin. “Nobody believes this, but… I kind of hate New Year’s.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. There’s always too much pressure to be sparkling and new and improved. I’m more of a ‘we survived, let’s eat carbs’ kind of guy.”
Eli laughed. “That’s a strong take from someone who coordinates fireworks and champagne toasts.”
