Page 9 of Going the Distance
“Why? Can’t handle my manly man stink?”
He wrestled my head into his armpit before I squirmed away, shoving him back.
“I’m so proud of you, Lee. This is awesome.”
“Guess I’ve just gotta be as good as Noah now,” he mumbled. “Keep up the Flynn reputation.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t worry about that. Pearson’s a jackass sometimes. That was a stupid thing to say. Now go shower before I actually vomit from your manly man stink.”
Lee saluted me before practically skipping off to the locker room. I cheered after him, whooping, and it turned to giggles as I watched him jump up, clicking his heels together and throwing his arms out.
Sitting back down to wait for Lee, I got my phone out to video-call Noah.
It was only after he picked up that I realized this was something Lee would probably want to tell his brother himself.
“Hey, one sec,” Noah yelled at the phone, holding it half against his chest as he walked. There was a lot of background noise. It sounded kind of like a party. I saw blurred figures in the background as he moved around, saying “excuse me” and then, finally, “Right. Hi. I’m back.” He grinned at me, showing off the dimple in his left cheek. His cheeks were flushed and his long, dark hair stuck to his forehead a little.
My heart stuttered to see him, and I found myself smiling back.
“Where are you?”
“The library, can’t you tell?” He laughed. “I’m at a party. Well, outside the party now. We started early. So, what’s up? Or did you just call ’cause you miss me?” He winked, then looked more closely at the video. “Are you on the football field? Oh shit! Trials! How did Lee do?”
As I stammered, “He, uh, I probably shouldn’t…” Noah whooped, punching the air and jostling the camera around. I sighed at him when he focused his phone back on himself. “You so didn’t hear that from me, though.”
“Hear what, Shelly?”
“Right answer.” I tucked a piece of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ear. “Ugh, today could not have been over soon enough. Do you know how much homework I have after just one day? It’s crazy. And all those résumés I handed out the last couple of weeks for part-time work? None of them have got back to me. Please, please tell me senior year isn’t all like this.”
Noah raised an eyebrow at me. “You don’t even wanna know how many chapters my professors recommended I read this week. I have zero sympathy right now.”
“Speaking of, I wasn’t sure if you’d answer. I thought you’d be studying.”
Noah shrugged, scratching behind his ear, eyes drifting away from the screen. “I was, and now I’m at a frat house. Steve scored us invites. I swear to God, he knows everyone here, and I don’t even know how.”
“That’s cool. So how is college going? The classes, I mean. Obviously the parties are great.”
Obviously they were, because he’d been to a bunch since the semester had started.
I just kind of wished he’d tell me less about the parties and all his new friends and tell me how the rest of college was going.
“You know, it’s just class. It’s fine. So, get this, this guy just now was doing a keg stand, and—”
“Noah…” I couldn’t hide the look on my face, but he was doing a pretty good job of trying to look upbeat and change the subject.
“What’s up?”
“How’d that assignment you had go?”
“I, uh, I don’t get a grade back on that for a while. Anyway, so—”
He cut off when someone shouted for him in the background, calling something else I couldn’t quite make out. Noah shouted back, “One sec,” leaning away from the phone before bringing it back in front of his face. He bit his lip—looking utterly cute and annoyingly apologetic. My stomach sank.
“Listen, Elle, is it cool if I call you later? I’m sorry, I really wanna talk. This is just…”
Do you?I thought, because he seemed to be doing a really great job of avoiding talking.
But it was no big deal. All the parties and stuff, it was just…part of the experience, right? When he started college, he’d sounded so excited about his classes. But the last few days…he hadn’t even mentioned them once.
So I smiled and said, “Don’t even worry about it. We can talk tomorrow. Have a fun night.”
“I love you,” he told me, blowing a loud kiss down the phone at me to make me laugh.
“Love you too.”
I didn’t have long to dwell on whether or not Noah was avoiding talking to me or if I was just overthinking it, because Lee was out of the locker room soon enough. He waved his phone at me, a big smile on his face as he told me how the drama club would be doingLes Misthis year and that Rachel was planning to audition for Fantine.
Back at the parking lot, I caught his arm before we got into his Mustang. “Hey, listen. I’m really proud of you for making the team, you know that?”
“This is our year, Elle. This isour year.”
