I told him a little about one of the exhibits I was working on at the museum, and he asked a lot of questions about the history of the art pieces I mentioned. He was more engaged in the conversation than anyone I had talked to about it. Most people got a glazed over look in their eyes when I talked about my job, but not Matt. He hung on every word and asked intelligent questions.
Time passed quickly, and we might have stayed there talking well into the evening if his phone hadn’t chimed with a text message. I watched as he pulled his phone out and sighed. “I forgot I made dinner plans with Holden,” he groaned. “I’ve got to head out.”
It was hard to believe that it was already close to dinner time. “Walk you back to your car?”
“I’d love that.”
We left the boat with him once again offering his hand to me to help me over the gap between the boat and the dock. Our hands and arms bumped each other’s as we walked back up the narrow boat dock. They kept bumping as we walked along the sidewalk back to the parking lot of the restaurant. I didn’t know if it was on purpose or if he was still just incapable of walking in a straight line.
Whatever it was, I didn’t think I minded.
I walked him right to his car. We stopped by the driver’s side door. There was a weird sort of tension lingering in the air for a moment. I didn’t know how to say goodbye to him. I swallowed hard before nodding. “Goodbye, I guess.”
“It was good seeing you today.” I could hear the nerves in his voice.
Then, he pulled me into a hug. His arms wrapped around me, and I noticed how much thicker they were now than when we were in high school. When I pressed against his chest, I noticed how much more solid he felt against me. He smelled like the salt air with some kind of woodsy undertone, a cologne or something he’d never worn when we were younger. I’d noticed the ways he’d changed while we’d hung out, but I didn’t notice any of that until I was up close and personal with him.
My mouth was dry, and my tongue felt like cotton.
The hug lingered for a few moments longer than it probably should and left me feeling unmoored when it ended. Matt climbed into his car, and I watched as he left the parking lot.
I could still feel the heat and weight of his arms.
3
“You’redistracted.”
I blinked across the table at Holden. He had been talking about…something. I’d like to say I knew what he was talking about, but he was right. I was distracted. I was thinking about that hug with Noah in the parking lot of the restaurant. I was thinking about the way it lingered, the way it felt comfortable and familiar. It wasn’t just the hug that felt comfortable. Everything about spending time with Noah that afternoon felt like slipping into an old, familiar tee shirt.
“What’s going on, Matt?” Holden’s voice sounded uncharacteristically concerned. He was usually so high energy that he didn’t notice certain things. Of course he’d choose now to become observant.
There was a part of me that wanted to tell Holden about the afternoon I’d spent with Noah. I wanted to tell him about lunch, about spending time on the boat, and about Noah finding that rubber duck he’d made for me, sitting amongst all the other ducks that lived on my boat. I wanted to tell him how everything came flooding back when I saw it in Noah’s hands.
I remembered the way I’d felt when he’d given me the duck: conflicted. Conflicted because our future plans had all centered around us going to universities close to one another. He was going to Brown, and I was going to go to MIT. We’d be less than two hours away from one another, and that wasn’t an insurmountable distance for two eighteen-year-olds with cars. We had plans for visiting each other, and we found a small town halfway between the two colleges to get an apartment during our sophomore year. He’d given me the duck the same day I got my MIT acceptance letter, because he had full faith that I’d get in.
But when I’d gone to visit MIT after applying, I’d not felt any kind of connection with the campus. It wasn’t a place where I could see myself thriving. Everything about the campus felt cold to me. I’d chalked it up to nerves at first, but when I decided to visit a college on the west coast, I felt the same thing that Noah had talked about when he’d visited Brown. It felt like a place I belonged, a place I could thrive. I’d applied secretly and therein lied the conflict of the duck.
I’d kept the duck though, even after Noah and I broke up. It was a piece of my first love, something tangible to remind me of the way it felt. It sat on my dorm room desk and helped me when I was stuck on a programming question for my classes. It traveled with me when I went on my summer boat trip after graduating from college. It was like having a piece of Noah with me during those times. As I moved on from him, it moved further away from me. All the way until it joined the shelf of other rubber ducks over my bed on the boat, a bed I didn’t sleep in often.
Those ducks were my reserve ducks, kept for when I worked on my boat and needed their opinions. They were rarely pulled out, rarely used, rarely thought about, but just as important as the shelves and containers of ducks I kept in my apartment.
“Matt…” Holden’s voice pulled me out of my memories.
“I’m fine. Just…” I sighed. I should tell him. I should tell him about the hug with Noah and the beat of a moment when I thought he was going to kiss me. I could just imagine what he’d say about it all. And if I told him, he’d tell Eli. Eli would give me hell about the fact that I clearly wanted it to become something again, just like he had when we’d been at the Rusty Nail on Thursday. Eli would tell Seb, and the story would make its way around the group. Everyone would start teasing me, or they’d talk me out of even imagining what it would be like to kiss Noah again. No, I couldn’t do that. I didn’twantto do that. “I’m just tired.”
I felt guilty lying to Holden. I didn’t like to lie to my friends.
At least I could take comfort in the fact that Holden didn’t look like he believed me in the slightest, but he’d never been the friend that pushed and pried. No, that was reserved for Eli. He let it rest, and he didn’t mention my distracted state for the rest of dinner. I thought I caught him looking at me weirdly a few times while we finished eating, but if he didn’t say anything? Well, I could pretend that he’d fully let it go.
I was still thinking about the hug hours later. I couldn’t focus on the coding project I was working on. I just kept thinking about the way Noah’s body had felt pressed against mine and the moment when I thought we were going to kiss. While I’d ruled out the idea of talking to my friends about it while I’d been at dinner with Holden, I was having second thoughts now.
I pulled out my phone and navigated to the group chat, but I couldn’t think of how to even start. I looked at each of my friends’ contacts and tried to imagine their reactions to mecalling after eleven because I was freaking out about a hug from my ex-boyfriend.
Then, I dialed the source of all these thoughts.
“I was just thinking about you,” Noah said when he answered the phone.
“Yeah?”
