With one last look around my neat-ish room, I tripped down the stairs and opened the front door. Noah stood there, in jeans and a blue T-shirt, and at the sight of him, the tension I’d been carrying drained out of me. I grinned. “My hair’s notthatlong.”
He reached over and tugged one of my ringlets. “Long enough.”
I flushed. “Want to come up?”
The nerves came back as I led him up the narrow stairs to my tiny room. Why had I invited him over? Why had he called me? Was it because we were the only ones who could understand each other’s complicated, intertwined families? Or because of the more generic, baser, intoxicating reason a boy called a girl?
Also, was he looking at my butt as we climbed the stairs? I did have a nice butt.
We reached the third floor, and I swung the door open. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
Why was I such a huge dork?
He grinned at me, and nodded at my bed. “This yours?”
“Yes.”
He flopped down backward on it. Good lord. Noah Barbanel, on my bed. I sat at the foot, my back against the wall. Our legs were perpendicular, his pulled up with his knees pointed at the ceiling, mine laid straight.
He picked up Sad Elephant from my pillow and held the stuffed animal high. “You kept it.”
“I told you. He’s too sad to abandon, and I couldn’t burden a small child with his tragicness.”
“You should probably send him to therapy.”
“But he doesn’t have a mouth, see. Just a nose and sad eyes. So he wouldn’t be able to talk about his feelings.” Like, I suspected, Noah wouldn’t. “What happened?”
“How was your date with Tyler?”
“No. You’re not avoiding the conversation.”
He raised a brow, looking cool and unruffled despite lying on his back. His T-shirt ruched up slightly, showing the flat, tanned skin of his lower stomach. “Was he the perfect summer fling?”
I tore my eyes away from the dark hair against Noah’s abs, which were decidedly affecting my ability to breathe. I tried to match his disinterested tone. “It was nice. We went out to dinner at some new place on the Sound.”
He scoffed, almost imperceptibly.
“What?”
He shook his head.
I wanted to pull my hair out. Why were boys like this? Theycouldn’t just make noises and expect me to pull the reasons out of them.
In fact, I wasn’t going to play this game. If he wanted to tell me what his rude scoff meant, he could do it without prompting.
And he did, after settling Sad Elephant back on the bed, next to my stuffed horse. “Typical. Go to a brand-new restaurant. Probably finished with a walk along the water.”
So apparently Noah knew Tyler’s game plan. Fine. It wasn’t like dinner and a walk were such an unusual or bad combo. “He said you broke up with your ex, not the other way around.”
Noah’s head jerked up, and a small smile curved his lips. “You talked about me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. It was small talk.”
“Are you going on a second date?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t like to see my friends date jerks.”
