Clarissa laughed and clapped her hands. “Your highness? Is he our servant boy, now?” She came around the table almost cat-like and sat on the box he’d just taped up. “Servant boy, feed me a cinnamon bear.” She laughed at her own joke and then held out the candy bag in her hands.
The moment I’d told her I was moving out, she’d unleashed the Clarissa 2.0 level of her personality. I wasn’t sure if it was the joy of winning or Noah’s friendliness that had unleashed it, but she had been shamelessly flirting with him the whole time. It was a good thing Dan was helping Sadie at their dad’s place and not here. I had a feeling his marital status wouldn’t have mattered to her.
“Your hands work just fine, Clarissa. This servant boy is only here for the princess.” He winked at me and strode off to get another box from the stack at the front door.
I liked his stride and the way his eyes stayed on me until the last moment when the wall finally separated us. But I also hated it. I hated how easily he could make me feel special and how little any of it meant. If he didn’t want to kiss me, why was he constantly doing things like that? I had dropped my guard and been fooled again. And worse, I wasn’t blind-sided this time. I had history to prove how stupid I was being. When it came down to it, Noah clearly didn’t like me like that. When was I going to get the message? He didn’t want me with Denver, but he also… didn’t want me.
Well, that didn’t mean I had to fall apart like last time. One thing I knew: No more hugs. I was going on a hug fast. Forever.
Also, I was going to make a big batch of chocolate chip cookies for Denver and his roommates after we moved in. None for Noah. My conscience itched as I watched him walk back in and packed up the last box. Okay, I’d just thank him in a different way. Sadie could make him the blueberry muffins he liked so much and I could pay him, or offer to drive carpool an extra week and save us all from the Chilivan.
I was pretty sure I had everything out of the kitchen, but I went through the cupboards one more time to be sure, and found a chipped mug and an old sandwich maker. I didn’t want either of them, but Clarissa had made it more than clear that she didn’t want anything left here we hadn’t already negotiated on.
As it was, she made it seem like a huge inconvenience to leave my twin bed and my little red chair against the wall in my bedroom for a month until I could move it into the new apartment. Denver already had two twin beds in the room Sadie and I would be sharing so it didn’t make sense to bring more furniture than we needed.
The thought of sharing a room with Sadie tonight made me nervous all over again, like I was twelve and prepping myself for my first middle-school sleepover. Hopefully this time nobody would soak my bra and stick it in the freezer, or draw an eyeliner mustache on me. My track record with picking good friends was… not stellar. I didn’t have the ability to just go out and make new ones like other people seemed to. So in the past, I had sort of put up with things maybe I shouldn’t have. Not Clarissa-level, but things that made it easy to distance myself when the time came.
I did have Lauren. She’d texted me pictures of Hawaii today and asked how I was doing, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. When things settled, I’d tell her everything.
I shoved the mug and the sandwich maker in the top of an already full box and forced it shut, since we were out of boxes. As it was, I had stuffed the last of my clothes into garbage sacks, and used a large plastic shoe box for my unmentionables. All my shoes were in grocery bags.
Noah and I worked as a team taking everything downstairs and shoving it all in the back of his white Dodge truck. I’d never seen his truck before, only the van.
“Why don’t you ever drive this?” I asked after he got my door and then hopped in on the driver’s side. It had a nice leather interior and he kept it clean. I could even see vacuum marks in the flooring.
“It only seats two, so I can’t use it for carpool. My younger sister drives it more than I do these days. I only get one parking spot at my apartment complex and she’s more than happy for me to park it at home.”
“Does it have a name like the Chilivan?” I glanced behind me through the back windows to make sure the boxes were behaving themselves as Noah pulled out of the parking lot and picked up speed.
“No. My brothers named the Chilivan. I don’t really give things names. Vehicles aren’t pets. Although, to be honest, my dog’s name growing up was Dog, so I guess I don’t give my pets names either.”
“Poor thing.”
Noah laughed. “He was a very happy dog. He absolutely did not care.”
“See, girls don’t do stuff like that. We name all our dolls, and we make up stories with really beautiful names in them. Oh, and we have our baby names picked out before we were even interested in boys.”
“Oh, yeah? Let me hear some of these names. What are your future children going to be called?”
“Nunya, and Nunya-business.”
“Two excellent choices.”
“Thanks. I was really worried about getting your approval.”
We smiled at each other, but then there was a lull, and my thoughts immediately returned to the completely indecent hug I’d foisted on him. I wasn’t sure whether to apologize or to try and set the friendship ground rules I hadn’t even told him about before breaking them.
I guess if you had to talk about only being friends, that meant you were worried something else was possible. And clearly, nothing else was possible here.
I’d never been so glad to have a big console between us. The thing was massive. Even if we’d wanted to hold hands, it would have required meeting in the middle over Mount Cupholder.
“Thank you for helping me move.”
“No problem.” Noah looked over at me, opened his mouth as if to say something else, and then closed it again and stared forward at the road. He was probably trying to figure out how to talk about the almost-kiss thing, too.
This night had been humiliating enough. I didn’t need a lets-just-be-friends talk from him as a cherry on top. It would be just like Denver telling me he had no intention of kissing me at the reception. Only so much worse. That had been a miscommunication. This would be pure rejection. I’d just have to cut him off before he could. “So, how do you feel about cinnamon bears?”
Noah shook his head. “She’s ruined them for me. Completely ruined them. Did you know while you were packing up your clothes Clarissa tried to stick half a cinnamon bear in my mouth?”
