Noah hopped off the counter, hi-fiving a few people before the crowds' attention turned to someone else. Noah swaggered his way over to her, and when he reached her, he lifted her up, twirling her around. If Melanie was in her right mind and wasn't drunk off whatever potion juice she had drunk, she would have told him to put her down and not to cross boundaries like that again. But Melanie wasn't in her right mind. She was drunk and happy, and quite frankly, couldn't use any of her brain cells to bother to care. So, she giggled instead until she was put back down.
"You're really drunk," Melanie told Noah looking at his flushed cheeks.
Noah grinned. "And what about you?"
"I'm tipsy," she slurred out, and Noah laughed at her attempt to speak.
"No, you're really drunk," Noah said. "Maybe we should get you home."
"You're trying to get rid of me?" Melanie asked, feeling an ache in her chest. She thought he wanted her here to celebrate. Why did he want her to go?
"No, it's not that," Noah said, laughing. "If it was up to me, you would stay. But look at you right now."
"What?" Melanie asked frowning. She blinked rapidly to grasp her surroundings, and after a few attempts, she was able to understand what was going on. First of all, when had she started laying her head against Noah's chest? What the hell was she doing? Second, where did her blazer go? She remembered feeling hot, but she didn't remember taking it off.
"It's hot," Melanie said, losing her train of thought. "And you're being mean."
When she tried to walk away, Noah grabbed her wrist, pulling her back to him. "I'm not trying to get rid of you, Mel. It's just that you're drunk off your ass right now. I didn't even think that was possible, to be honest. I wanted to get you to loosen up, not for you to be this drunk."
"I'm not drunk," Melanie mumbled.
Noah laughed. "Let's go up and talk. You need some air anyway."
As Noah tugged her up to the second floor of the house, Melanie looked behind, vaguely remembering Abigail, to make sure she was safe, and there she was on the floor dancing with some guy. Melanie and Noah traveled up the stairs, and he knocked on a few doors until they finally found an empty room.
When Melanie saw a bed, she couldn't help but drop on it and lay her head down. It felt good. Suddenly, a feeling of tiredness that wasn't there before took over her. She was ready to take a deep sleep.
Suddenly, Melanie giggled.
"What's so funny?" Noah asked as he dropped on the bed next to her. The top of his head touched hers as they both laid down, looking at the ceiling. Even with the door closed, the loud music along with the chatter could still be heard, but not nearly as loud as it had been before. It sounded muffled like they were closed off in a gigantic bubble all of their own. And the thought of that made Melanie happy. Now, she could think, maybe not coherent thoughts, but at least she could hear her own thoughts.
"I'm thinking about Dale's pale ass when he ran into that pool naked," Melanie said, giggling more. Never did Melanie ever think she would see one of her students naked, but what could she expect when she attended a college party. It was like realizing that your child was having sex, even though you were once a teenager doing the same things they were doing.
"He did look pretty stupid," Noah said, laughing himself before he flipped on his side, and for some reason, Melanie flipped on her side to be just like him too. Through bleary eyes, because right now, it felt like a task to even keep her eyes open, she looked at Noah's blue eyes. He didn't look as nearly as drunk as her, and that made her jealous.
"Why am I'm the only one drunk? You drunk more than me." Noah laughed.
"You're a lightweight," he said, and Melanie sluggishly slapped his arm, amusing him more. "My body mass is more than yours anyway, so of course, I can handle more alcohol than you."
"You should be drunk like me too," Melanie said, and she tried to get up. "Let's get you something to drink."
Noah grabbed her wrist, stopping her from moving. "Nah, I'm good. I came up here because I wanted to talk to you anyway."
"Talk to me?" Melanie blinked, confused, her hazy mind trying to think, but it was hard to. "I thought you wanted to party."
"I did," Noah said, "But I also wanted to spend time with you. That's why I asked you to come, Mel. I wanted to spend my night with you."
If she heard that while sober, all of her alarms would go off. It was something about what he said that bothered her but made her happy all the same. It was intimate, maybe even too intimate. He was a college student who could be spending his night getting drunk, hanging out with his boys, and picking up the many girls who tried to get him to dance with them the whole night. But instead, he was spending his time with her. Instead, he wanted to talk to her. It wasn't normal. It wasn't something that Noah should have wanted, and it wasn't something that Melanie should have accepted. But right now, she was too drunk to worry about those things, and she found herself lying back down as she stared into his blue eyes, feeling warm, incredibly warm. She would have been much warmer in his arms, though.
"You had a really good game," Melanie said, hoping that she didn't sound as funny as she did to her ears, but when Noah grinned, she knew she did. "It almost made me feel bad for nearly failing you."
"As you should," Noah said, and Melanie pinched his arm to his amusement. "The ice would be nothing without me on it."
"Do you know that you're really arrogant? Like reallyreallyextremely arrogant. That's what I didn't like about you at first," Melanie said as she unconsciously rubbed her hand up and down his arm. He had really nice biceps. She didn't even know student-athletes had to work out this hard for hockey. Then again, some of her other students who played hockey didn't look like this. They didn't look as strong as Noah did like he could pick her up like a dumbbell and work out with her.
"So, you admit that you were out to get me?" Noah asked. "I knew it."
Melanie rolled her eyes. "No one was out to get you. You did that to yourself coming to my classroom two weeks late and not doing my work. But you were very arrogant."
