I grabbed a handful of tissues, and even though I blotted carefully, my makeup was coming off. It wasn’t that I even cared about being put together, but people would be able to tell something was wrong. I couldn’t deal with other people’s concern on top of my own.
I scoured through my desk drawers, looking for something else to eat and maybe that eyeliner pencil I was pretty sure I’d lost in here months ago. It could replace all the mascara I’d wiped off. Britta had given the eyeliner to me a long time ago, saying it wasn’t her color and she didn’t want to bother returning it.
It was right after that disastrous hot air balloon date with Noah, when I somehow ended up as the third wheel, even though he’d invited me after she cancelled. That was when he’d realized how crazy he was making me and started keeping his distance. And then he was just… gone. I hated how much I’d missed him.
Aha. I found the eyeliner and pulled down my reading glasses to read the small print on the side. Dark Chocolate Brownie. I could go for a real brownie right about now.
There was an unmistakable creak from the stairway door opening, and I got up and stuck my head out of my cubicle to see if I could spot who was coming in, but I’d already missed their entrance. Probably someone from the IT department anyway. Even so, I grabbed a clean tissue from the end of my desk and wiped under my eyes in case there was any mascara left to betray me. I was about to return to my chair when a familiar figure in a hoodie turned the corner and ran straight for me, doing a Mission Impossible style three-sixty turn right before ducking into my cubicle and dropping into the extra chair in the corner. Of course, he immediately dragged it closer to me the second I sat back down.
“I made it undetected.” Noah took off the aviator sunglasses he’d been sporting, and then lowered the hoodie that had covered his brown hair. “I hope you still like ham because—” He stopped talking and his smile dropped when he took in my face. “You’ve been crying.”
And now I felt like crying again. I grabbed another tissue and quickly turned and wiped my nose, just in case. There was pathetic, and then there was letting someone see you with a soggy nose level of pathetic.
“You brought me lunch.” I said, turning back to look at him.
“You said you were working through.”
“How did you get past the security guards?”
Noah carefully pulled a ham sandwich in its paper wrapping and a small Styrofoam container of potato salad out of the bag. He’d remembered I liked the café’s potato salad as my side. I held in more tears. I would not cry over potato salad. Besides, you couldn’t cry and eat at the same time. I knew this from experience, and I was going to eat every bite.
“I walked up to the newest security guard with these sunglasses on and my hair teased up high, where it spikes in the middle like a preppy mohawk. I told him I was surprising Genesis with lunch. She’s always got a new boyfriend hanging around. He didn’t even question me.”
“That’s a scary little security leak we may have to take care of.” We shared a smile knowing nothing would be done about it. Genesis from accounting was the CEO’s niece. If she decided to start her own petting zoo on the fifth floor, she’d get it. Luckily, she just collected admirers and not miniature farm animals.
I wondered what Noah’s hair would look like in a faux-hawk. It wasn’t something he had ever done before. He must have patted it down after talking to the security guard. I loved Noah’s hair. It was a soft ash brown, not straight or curly, but somewhere in between.
“Trying to picture it?” he asked. Reaching up, he gathered the longest part of his hair on top and attempted to get it to stick up again, but it wouldn’t behave. It just flopped back down, looking adorably tousled. I reached out and ran my hands through it, taming it back down to his usual style.
“I’d need hair gel to do the mohawk thing properly,” he murmured.
“Ah yes, more hair gel is always the answer.”
“It really is. But all I had to work with was water.” His eyes met mine and I suddenly realized what I was doing and how close our faces were. He’d been leaning into my hands. I’d rolled my chair closer to reach him. Being around him used to be comforting and natural, but now it was always mixed with confusing.
I rolled out of his reach and pressed my palms together. The problem with friendship was that it looked a lot like flirting. The only difference was our intentions. I didn’t know what Noah’s intentions were, but I knew mine. We could only be friends and nothing more. I already knew what more looked like, because we used to flirt, back when I thought he was interested in me. More looked like a flame flickering and then quickly burning out. More looked like awkwardness and pain. More looked like regret.
“Please tell me what’s going on with you.” Noah leaned forward, his expression full of concern. “What’s wrong?”
I started eating instead of answering, at first as an avoidance method, and then because it was just so good. Noah waited as if he had all the time in the world. Instead of watching me eat, he made origami shapes out of my printer paper and lined them up along my desk. A dragon, a lotus flower, a giraffe, a jumping frog. He could create just about anything. It was why he’d been so good here. Some of our best greeting cards lines, the ones that had turned us into a solid brand, were because of his ability to market them in ways no one else had ever thought of.
He stole a pencil and wrote on some of the inside flaps, sneaking looks at me to make sure I saw him do it. More notes. More words I’d have to keep out of my head, along with the speculation about why he was here. Why was he back here in Phoenix? Why was he here at my desk?
I reached the bottom of the Styrofoam container with my plastic fork and put it down. “Did you get something to eat?”
He nodded. “I’m fine.” He leaned forward and laced his fingers together.
Ah, he was still waiting for me to tell him something, to confide in him. His brown eyes were so warm and inviting, tempting me to trust him. But when I thought about which parts I could share, I just couldn’t seem to pick and choose. Not without dumping it all out in one messy heap.
I didn’t even know where I was sleeping tonight. My car was at Denver’s house. Denver had assured me I could stay with him as long as I needed, but who knew how solid that offer was, or if his roommates were on board with it. I’d only met one of them, and he stared at me over breakfast like a particularly interesting lab specimen until Denver told him to clear his bowl and get out of the kitchen.
No, I couldn’t do this. The day wasn’t over and I still had work to do. I couldn’t afford to let my guard down. Not with Noah, and not with my coworkers who would return and expect me to have it all together.
“Thanks for this, but I really have to get back to work.” I grabbed my purse out of the drawer and pulled out my wallet.
“You don’t need to pay me for lunch, Jenny.” Noah didn’t look offended, but he did look a little hurt.
It didn’t matter. I had to press forward for my own sanity. Having all of Noah’s undivided attention was feeding a beast inside of me I’d promised to tame. The one thing I really wanted from him and would never ask for, was a hug. A really good hug. I imagined pressing my face into his neck and just feeling his warm pulse for a while, like an affection-starved vampire tired of the cold, lonely expanse of eternity.
