Page 31 of Backslide
She looks down at his hand and then up at his face and grins. “Straight from your hand, huh?”
He flushes. “I like to think of them ashandpicked.”
She laughs and the sound—and the fact that he elicited it—floods him with warmth, eclipsing his embarrassment.
“Very thoughtful of you to be so concerned for my health,” she says. “And my sanity.”
“Well, I take health classreallyseriously.”
“As you should. Five servings of fruits and vegetables a day!”
“Especially during baseball season.”
She blinks up at him. “You need to be healthy while you watch baseball?”
“I need to be healthy while Iplaybaseball.”
“Ah,” she sighs, dropping her lids closed for a moment. “That makes more sense.”
She didn’t know?It’s not that Noah consciously uses his athleticism as social currency, but of course he’s aware that being the star of the team, the way he performs, makes him shiny in some kids’ eyes—in somegirls’ eyes.
But Nellie doesn’t even know that he’s a star player. He can’t rely on his prowess as a crutch. Maybe he couldn’t have anyway. She’s the kind of girl who likes art classes and books and freaks out from one hit of pot. When he says he plays ball, people’s interest is usually piqued. They ask him what position he plays or his favorite pro team(an unholy tie between both the Yankees and the Dodgers, oddly), but she looks completely unmoved.
He shuffles his feet, suddenly nervous again. Forces his hands into the pockets of his low-slung jeans. She doesn’t know shit about him. What if now she thinks he really is some kind of oats-obsessed idiot?
“I’m kidding,” he blurts out, as she looks up at him expectantly. “I’m not, like, uptight about health. I mean, I’m healthy. In a regular way.”
“As long as you’re not healthy in an irregular way.”
She shoots him a flirty smile, which he wants to return, but he feels like he’s losing the thread of this conversation, slipping deeper and deeper into some kind of social quicksand.
And it doesn’t help that he is so distracted by her pink lips, by the way she bites the lower one periodically as she listens. By the way her crop top stretches across her chest, layered gold necklaces a bit tangled above. By the curve of her waist, smooth and toned above frayed jean shorts.
This isn’t like him at all. Normally, Noah can win anyone over—talk toanyone. Charm anyone. But now he has gone blank. He can’t think of a single thing to say.
The silence is torture.
“Anyway,” Nellie says, eventually, glancing down the street in the direction she’d been walking. “I guess I should head home.”
“Totally,” he says. “It’s getting late.” Which it is not. At all. It’s still the full light of day.
She cocks her head slightly, glances up at the brilliant blue sky. “Right. Well, thanks again,” she says, holding her hand out expectantly.
It takes Noah a beat to realize she’s asking for the Cheerios. As he drops the cereal bits into her palm, his fingertips graze her skin, putting every nerve in his body on alert. And that minuscule contact makes him instantly desperate for more. To run his hands throughher hair, over her shoulders, her back, scraping down her hips, up her thighs and under her…
What is happening to him?
He is losing his goddamn mind.
She takes anobetween her fingers and pops it in her mouth, letting it rest for a moment on her tongue. She closes her eyes, obviously still a bit stoned.
He watches, rapt. Trying to tamp down what’s coursing through his body.
“My God, Cheerios are good,” she sighs—and it is almost like a soft moan. “I’m definitely adding them to the grocery list.” When she reopens her eyes, they’re shining. “Hey, thank you, by the way. For real. You really helped me back there.”
“At Clark’s house?”
“At Clark’s house.”
