“We take it slow,” he agreed.
9
Takingitslowwasa lot easier said than done.
The day Noah came over, we ended up making out on my couch, which turned into a hot and heavy frotting session while some Netflix rom-com played in the background. He might have stayed the night, if he didn’t have an early morning and I didn’t have a ton of work to do on my project. Instead, we ended up making out at my door, at his car, and finally said good night. He called a few hours later, to tell me to go to bed. The phone call turned into a video call, just so he could make sure that my laptop wasn’t in the bedroom with me.
Or maybe he was making sure the rubber ducks weren’t back in full force.
We talked and texted for the next two days, but with the deadline for the first phase of my current project looming, I couldn’t make time to meet with him. Every night, we ended up on video calls. I had a feeling that he was checking in on me during some of the calls and texts. I knew he was during the video calls. He made sure I was eating more than just bags ofSour Cream and Onion chips, drinking more than root beer, and knew what day it was.
Even my friends didn’t hover and worry the way that he did.
Unfortunately, all of the care he was showing me was making it really hard to take it slow. If anything, it was like someone was pouring water down a slide and pushing me down it. I was barreling fast into emotional attachment. I’d always fallen hard and fast, even with loves that I knew from the start wouldn’t be forever. With Noah, it was different.
For one thing, I knew how good we could be. I knew what it was like to be loved by Noah Guthrie before, and the way he was treating me gave me a taste of what it would be like again. Except that he’d told me that it took him longer to feel anything like that. I knew that he didn’t even know if he could feel it ever again, because he’d not had it since we’d broken up. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, didn’t want to convince myself that I was the exception to the rule.
I needed to rein myself in.
Luckily, I had a deadline. I could find a balance between losing days the way I had over the weekend and burying myself in work. The first step was a list of milestones I still needed to reach for the project. I took painstaking care with each one, outlining the necessary steps to accomplish them. There were a few milestones that I’d already completed, and I included them on the list as well. I set deadlines, and then I sent a picture of the list to Noah.
Noah
That looks like a lot.
Matt
It’s not as bad as it looks. But if I don’t answer or my texts are short…
Noah
Don’t assume you’ve sacrificed yourself to the ducks?
You know I’m still going to check in on you, right?
Matt
You worry too much.
Noah
And if I hadn’t interrupted you the other day, you might STILL think it’s Saturday. [kiss emoji]
I laughed at his text and told him it was time to get back to work.
The tight schedule made it easier to focus on my work more and on him less. His check ins came in a few times a day, and he still called me every night around dinner. But two days flew by without being terrified that I was falling deeper into my feelings for him. Unfortunately, when Thursday came around, I still had a long list of things to do. I texted my friends a rare cancellation of our Thursday night plans.
They sent back a slew of shocked GIFs and emojis and more than a few messages of shock.
I didn’t blame them. I couldn’t remember the last time any of us had canceled on our Thursday night. I hated it. It felt unnatural not to be with them at the Rusty Nail or Goliath or even Dana’s Diner. Those nights were sacred for us, and they always had been.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard a knock at my door an hour after canceling. I really shouldn’t have been surprised to find my friends piling into my apartment before I could even get to the door. Eli was dangling the key I’d given himfor emergencies. Holden was carrying a case of beer. Seb had a stack of Pie in the Sky boxes, and Jonas was empty handed but had an apologetic look on his face. I wondered if he’d tried to talk them out of it. After all, he worked with codes. He knew how stressful the job could be, especially when a deadline loomed on the horizon.
“What are you doing here?”
“You’ve been locked in this apartment for a week. No one has seen hide or hair of you since last Thursday,” Eli explained as he pocketed his key. He plopped down on the armchair while the rest of our friends milled around the apartment. Seb’s pizza boxes were put down on the side table while Holden made his way to the kitchen with the beer. “Figured if you couldn’t come out to play, we’d bring the party to you. You don’t even need to entertain us. You can code, and Jonas can play the role of rubber duck or do that weird talking to you while you type what he says thing that you coders do.”
“Pair coding,” Jonas supplied. He was still near the door, like he was waiting for an official invitation to actually come inside. I patted the couch cushion next to the one I was sitting on. “And that only works when I know the project. Matt probably has some confidentiality things with his client that would make that impossible.”
