Noah and Mycroft know caring is (notanadvantage) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-02-17 14:19:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | arthur, mycroft holmes |
Who: Noah and Cory
What: Meeting
Where: Golden Nugget
When: Nowish
Warnings/Rating: None.
Noah wasn’t getting any better. He should listen to his gut more, his stepmother said, but that was a worrisome notion lately. The umbrella that rested against his denim-covered thigh was a constant reminder of the fact that he was not alone in his own mind, and listening to his gut might not be listening to his gut at all. No, when the dealer asked him whether he wanted to hit on 17, Noah hit, even though that niggling voice in the back if his mind insisted that too many low cards had been played to make it a good move. Noah groaned when the dealer turned over a seven, and he pushed away from the table in search of another game.
The first thing people noticed about Noah was his striking blue eyes. He had black hair, inky straight, the kind of hair that never held a kink and never stayed out of those blue eyes. He was 22, but he looked younger, with plump baby cheeks and a nose that was too pointed to be attractive. He was pale, with long fingers and a refined gait, and he didn’t slouch despite the tendency to hang his head in crowded places. His adoration of the casino was clearly printed on expressive features, and he stopped to watch coins clank out of a slot machine as he moved through the Golden Nugget with the ease and familiarity of someone who spent a lot of time there.
A call from the bar drew Noah’s attention, and he reluctantly stepped away from the loud slot machine and went to talk to his stepmother, who was wiping down the bar after a busy shift. The grin he gave her as she spoke was crooked, a tip of soft lips at one corner and he ducked his head in a gesture that was equal part embarrassment and mischief as she smoothed a hand over the layered black and grey shirts he wore in the heat of desert spring. A few seconds later, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his denim jeans, and he wound back through the crowd again. He stopped at a low-stakes table, having lost too much already to hit the high-stakes tables again, and he looked at the men seated there. His stepmother always said who you played was more important than how you played, but his gut said that wasn’t true at all. Maybe he was going mad, like the mad king. He tapped the end of the long, black umbrella on the ground as he considered the table, and he hummed something classical under his breath. Noah hummed a lot; it was a bad habit.
Cory, on the other hand, might as well have been made of green felt and cheap carpeting for all he stood out in the room. The dark pants and vest were as bland as bland could be considering their lack of embroidery and Cory’s bizarrely academic, slapdash appearance managed to seep out of his gaze and posture without visible effort. The players at his table--there were three--fit the usual stereotypes very neatly. A Japanese tourist sitting in a humble suit, concentrating on his pairs of cards as they came and went; a passing tourist dressed scantily, probably awaiting shopping companions; and a mostly drunk, resentful regular who was losing badly and making sure the whole room knew about it. The latter was a type all dealers knew, the kind that viewed the dealer as the house and the house as the enemy, especially on a bad night.
Cory’s hands and eyes were the only things that were really alive about him. He was aware of what was on his table and while he didn’t bother with politeness, he was keen with his numbers, clear with his speech, and doing his best to ignore the increasingly abusive insults of the man drinking the jack and coke. The passing tourist gave the drunk a sour look after his recent spate of insults and took himself off, brushing past Noah as he went. Play paused because the drunk managed to clip Cory’s fingers tossing in his last hand, and he was being a bastard about it while Cory shook the sting out of his knuckles, glaring daggers.
Noah didn’t care for drunks. It was one of the few things about the casinos he didn’t like. He loved watching people, as a rule, enjoying that more than actually interacting with them. But drunks, drunks were an exception to the rule. They reminded him of his father, and Noah didn’t like thinking about the end his father had met. He barely looked at the drunk, which was very obviously done because everyone was looking at the drunk. He focused on the retreating tourist, then on the businessman, and lastly on the odd academic dealer at the table. He was looking at said dealer when the drunk clipped the other man’s fingers, and Noah made a thoughtful sound as he took the seat the tourist had vacated.
A handful of bills slid across the table, and Noah waited for his chips with the patience of a non-gambler. There was no hunger in his blue eyes, no need to recuperate great losses, no need to make a large fortune in one hand. His voice, when he spoke, was slightly accented, British mixed with a fair dose of Nevada-nothing. “Glaring once meant you were challenging someone to a duel,” he said, quiet and conversational, sounding too refined for the chair he was sitting in. “Clipping someone’s fingers, that wouldn’t even wait for a second man as backup,” he mused, still not looking toward the drunk.
Usually more people at his table simply meant more work, especially dealing low stakes when the tips were rare. However, at this point, Cory appreciated anything that would distract the asshole from making the next half hour difficult for him. His lower back was hurting and only the lack of clock anywhere inside the casino prevented him from demanding an early break right there. It looked bad if you had injuries on your hands and they wouldn’t let him deal if he had bandaids, so he wiped the back of his hand on his vest behind one hip and started spreading cards from the dealer’s shoe at his left.
Cory was watching his hands but also half-listening to the conversation, willing to soak up anything that would alleviate the combination of boredom, intense dislike threatening an explosion, and the strange, ominous feeling of panic that felt utterly alien. The feeling was strong in the early mornings, just before he woke all the way up, but he could never remember exactly what the voice in his dreams said. At least it wasn’t her voice. “Excuse me?” he asked, pretending he had not heard the new player clearly.
“I was pointing out that politeness and manners have changed a lot,” Noah clarified, still not looking at the drunk, even if he was speaking about him. Really, he wanted to just be quiet about it. Normally, he would have thought what he’d just said, but he wouldn’t have actually voiced it. He wasn’t confrontational by nature, and he wasn’t particularly confident. He was more dreamer than fighter, and he kept his head down and looked at his cards, hoping the drunk would ignore his criticism. Or, maybe, not understand it. He knew drunks had limited capacity for understanding. Hadn’t his father missed half of what he had said?
A serving girl came by the table with comps, and Noah asked for a coke with ice. He knew her, the serving girl, and she gave him a look that was disapproving. Most of the people in the casino knew about his relationship with his stepmother, and most of them disapproved; the serving girl was no different. “Thanks,” he told her, after she’d already turned her back, and he opened up betting by tossing two chips into the center of the table.
Cory barely noticed the waitresses in most cases; he had to concentrate on his table and what was on the felt. The drunk, however, was taking his hands off to grab at something on her tray, so he looked up and caught the strange look the waitress gave his newest player. They were both waiting on the Japanese man to make his decision (dealer showing 2, Cory with his hand on the shoe), so he took the opportunity to look into Noah’s face. He looked only vaguely familiar, perhaps a regular.
The drunk was too drunk to notice the criticism, but Cory did, and he appreciated it. He gave Noah a very slight smile out of one corner of his mouth. The Japanese man tapped the table. “Twenty-one,” Cory congratulated the man, who smiled happily. The drunk man hit like an idiot on 18 and went bust, and this time he made a grab for Cory’s wrist as the dealer took his chips. Security would have appeared out of thin air in a better casino, and they were coming, but slowly. “Get the hell off me,” Cory said, angrily, not a dealer at all in that second. His floor manager was coming, but not any faster than the security.
Noah sat back when the drunk man’s hand snaked out. The reaction was one born of instinct, and the quick movement made things flash in Noah’s mind like faded notecards - a classroom, a broken window - silence. He blinked, and the man’s hand was still on the dealer’s wrist. The angry retort from the man who held the house in his hands was unexpected, even in a casino that wasn’t blessed with the kind of dealers that worked on the actual strip. “You shouldn’t have hit on 18,” he said, not even thinking before the words tumbled past his lips. His blue eyes went wide with the shock of what he’d said, but it was apparently not sufficient, because he followed it up with, “it’s not his fault at all. It’s yours.” He groaned as soon as he finished saying the words, because good day, Captain Obvious. “Terribly sorry,” he added, looking back down at his cards, a nine showing.
The Japanese man was wide-eyed with interest as security got soaked with the man’s new drink before they took him by the armpits and led him inexorably from the table. Another man followed with the man’s chips, which Cory’s manager changed out while he stood back, looking abruptly calm and a good two inches taller while he rubbed his wrist thoughtfully. The manager said he would bring a replacement, and, after a split second, the dealer nodded slowly and stepped up again to the table. “Sorry,” he said, to the two remaining players. He paused while watching Noah’s face. His speech was a little more studied, and there was something different about the movement in his eyes. “...Check or hit?”
“Check,” Noah said, distracted. He didn’t think before making the call, too concerned with what he’d just done. He pursed his lips with displeasure, and it was a gesture that went poorly with his features. He was too young for it, for one, and he was too harmless for it too. The waitress that returned a few seconds later was not the one that had come previously, but rather his stepmother. She whispered at him as she handed him his Coke, and it grounded him slightly. He hadn’t told her about what had been happening, about the book and the key and the umbrella... The umbrella. He looked down, only to find his hand wrapped around the curved handle, and he looked back up at the dealer with a sheepish smile. “My apologies this time,” he said, watching his stepmother walk away and then offering a similarly apologetic smile to the other player at the table.
The dealer’s hands moved with new precision and less speed, flattening his fingers and turning one card with the other. A Jack of Spades. House was at 12. His shoulders were straighter, and he faced the table with a military intent that brought his chin down and made his eyes slightly bright. He took up another card and turned that. An incredibly unlikely 8. “House is at twenty.” He dipped his head politely at the Japanese man, a courtesy he hadn’t shown any sign of knowing before, and doubled the man’s bet for him. He turned to look at Noah, waiting to see if he was lucky enough to have an ace, and at least keep what was in front of him. “Is it raining outside?” he asked, without looking down at the umbrella.
At first, Noah was too distracted to notice the changes in the dealer, and he only noted the new confidence in the man as an afterthought, something noticed as strange, but nothing more. The dealers at the Nugget weren’t particularly good, and the military style stood out for that reason alone. He tapped two fingers on the cheap green felt, even as that sensation at the back of his neck continued to build. He had already checked, and the movement of fingertips against the green was a nervous one, rather than a request, and he repeated it a moment later. “Pardon?” he asked of the rain, glancing down at the umbrella a second later. A player never looked anywhere that wasn’t at the dealer or his cards, and Noah looked up with a quick jerk of his head. “Oh, no. I just like it a bit,” he said of the umbrella, and he flipped his card as that angry sensation filled his mind again. Not terribly good at this, was the thought that came along with it.
The dealer’s new bearing didn’t last very long. He was watching Noah’s unintentional twitches with a keen eye that belonged to people who played for much higher stakes, but ever so slowly the cloudy sulk seeped into his expression, and his features relaxed. The Japanese tourist was incredibly patient, obviously not in a hurry to lose his money or perhaps aware that the fewer hands an hour the better his chances were, sated with his win. The dealer smiled at Noah again, a stronger, deeper smile, and then it was gone, and the dealer looked away, again floppy, disinterested, tired. The manager returned with a replacement in a very similar red vest. “Push,” Cory informed Noah, allowing him to keep his chips without adding or removing any. “That’s my shift. Good luck.” He actually gave a distinctively American jerk of his chin at the Japanese tourist, who blinked at the shift of signals even if he wasn’t aware enough to notice exactly what it was that had changed. With a last glance at Noah, Cory moved away behind the tables and toward the back of the casino.
Noah looked down at the cards with visible confusion, and he had to remember what “push” meant in this instance. He gave the tourist a smile that was embarrassed and contained a fair bit of red to his cheeks, and he pushed away from the table a hand later. He didn’t cash in his chips, which jangled in his pocket, and he looked toward the bar where his stepmother was waiting with a look of displeasure on her face. He pretended not to see her - a feat which was easily accomplished by glancing over her head - and he turned in the direction the strange dealer had gone. He knew where the dealers closed their shifts and clocked out, and he hung around outside the employee door and fed pennies to a slot machine with a dragon blinking in neon above the bank of machines. He likes the sounds more than the cards, the chaos of the ding and clang, and he almost missed the dealer’s exit as he lined up five dragon’s eggs in the hope of a good bonus prize. Like every good slot player, he was loathe to leave the machine behind, but he did so, wandering the casino in a convenient zig and zag, then out into the Nevada sunlight. He looked left and right, looking for familiar dark hair amid the lazy traffic of Freemont street.
Cory didn’t look much better even without the red vest. He wore a wrinkled white shirt that featured the original Star Wars 1977 poster and cargo shorts, and he was thin in an inconsequential, slumped over way. He said an audible “Hey dad,” to another dealer at the last table just as he broke out of the slot machines, but he didn’t wait around to see if there was a response. He had his headphones on by the time he broke out of the smokey boxed refrigerator that made up the casino, and made his way at a very slow, swaying (to the music) pace toward the bus stop a few yards down the crowded pavement. Something--something strong--made him turn quickly around and look at Noah with the sharp, intent gaze of someone who knew he was being followed.
Noah skidded to a stop, and he almost dropped his treasured umbrella. “Hey,” he said sheepishly, moving forward again a second later. Outside, in the stifling dry heat, the layered shirts looked even more out of place than they had inside the casino, and he squinted to keep the sun out of his blue eyes as he looked at the shirt Cory wore. “Better than the prequels,” he said easily, but it was obvious it was just a conversation starter. Pale, long fingers and snooty demeanor aside, it was fairly evident that Noah wasn’t much of a science fiction fan. There was a piccolo tucked into his back pocket, and a leather journal tucked beneath it, and he reached his hands back and shoved them into those back pockets, as well, as he waited to see if his reluctant companion’s gaze softened. He rocked onto the heels of his converse, which were pristine white, and he rocked forward again. Someone in the crowd jostled his shoulder, and he didn’t look at them, just as he’d avoided the drunk in the casino.
Again, the confusion of appearance. The headphones came off and the shoulders came up, and Noah was treated with the unique appearance of alertness and total concentration, not as if he was a potential threat, but as if everything about him was being noticed and recorded. People in Star Wars shirts very rarely displayed such behavior, even ones that had a black notebook in the back of his pocket too. Cory was missing the piccolo. He smiled suddenly, a soft smile. “Without a doubt.” He hoped the player wasn’t going to try to discuss cards with him. He really wasn’t in the mood, and not even the vest could force him to like the people who came to him to lose. This guy had that look to him. Maybe it was the shoes. “You from around here?” Referring, obviously, to the local bus.
“What were you listening to?” Noah asked, which he clearly had more interest in than the comment about the Star Wars prequels, and he distractedly answered the question about being a local with a nod, and a, “yes, just west of Freemont.” Just west of Freemont was nothing good, but Noah didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the admission. In truth, he wasn’t generally so social, and he seldom talked to anyone about where he lived. He dug his hands further into the pocket of the loose denim jeans, and he looked over his shoulder at the sleeping-golden lights of the Nugget. He didn’t mention the casino, though, and he didn’t mention his abysmal card skills. A second later, he unhooked the umbrella from his wrist, and he leaned on the handle, crossing one ankle over the other in a strangely graceful gesture that left his entire balance on one foot and the tip of a converse.
Cory might have suspected the pose with the umbrella to be something practiced and even showy, but he looked at Noah’s face and there was such a contrast between the lean and his serious face that he figured it must be a weird habit. He had uneasy feelings about a lot of things, and for some reason he felt wired, as if he’d had a lot of caffeine. He never took so much notice of his surroundings before, much less the people in them. “Romi Mayes.” And then, after a very short pause in which he looked for a spark of recognition, he said, “She’s this Canadian blues singer. She’s really good.” He unhooked his headphones--round, bulky things that were very white now that the skull had been rubbed off them by age--and offered them to Noah. Tinny sound was barely audible over the chatter of passing tourists and the slow rush of traffic.
Noah didn’t know the singer, but he took the headphones eagerly and slipped them onto his head, black strands of hair messily wrapping themselves around the plastic that connected the padded ear-covers. He listened to the beat and squeal of strings, and within a few seconds he was humming along and tapping the toes of the foot that was flat on the ground to the rhythm. The singer’s voice was breathier than he liked, and the song that was playing relied a little too heavily on what he considered fillers, but it wasn’t bad. By the time he pulled the headphones off, he was humming again, like he’d done inside the casino, stripping the song down to its most basic parts. “Not bad,” he offered, holding the headphones back out. He considered making suggestions that were better, but similar, but he didn’t. He held his tongue, as he did with nearly everything - or as he had until the Umbrella Incident.
The noise of the outdoors seemed incredibly loud when the headphones were off. They did an excellent job of insulating Cory from the world, and the seal seemed almost too good. Cory had been watching Noah’s face to see what he thought of the music, but it was a lazy, lidded gaze, and he wasn’t all that concerned at being disliked for his taste. He’d forgotten his nametag at work today and he wasn’t wearing it now, so he could be himself if he wanted. To the extent that he could be himself, anymore. “Yeah. I used to listen to her constantly, but I stopped, and I’m just getting back into her stuff.” Cory smiled a little sleepily, his usual, casual smile. “What kind of music do you like?” Cory kept looking at the umbrella. It drew his gaze like a magnet.
“Mostly classical,” Noah admitted, “though I like some instrumentals that are more modern, like Apocalyptica,” he explained, thinking it would earn him points with the man in the Star Wars shirt. “Some older things as well. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. If it has words, I like old records, the ones that crackle when you put the needle on,” he expounded, realizing that he was going on at some length a second later. He smiled, the self-conscious kind of smile that came with little pride or self worth, and he rocked back onto both feet a moment later. “I like written things put to music too,” he added, an afterthought, the words tumbling past his lips without any intention on his part. The umbrella almost fell from his fingers, and he grabbed it like a lifeline as he straightened and regained his footing. He ducked his head, his black hair hanging into his face, and he forced himself to look back up and straighten his shoulders immediately after - something that was obviously worked at, rather than instinctive.
Classical never sounded right to Cory. Always so... screechy. Some of it was okay, a lot of the big booming stuff, but he usually wasn’t in the mood. He liked some of Zeppelin’s quieter stuff, and he nodded with agreement at that one. “Written things to music. What, you mean like poetry and stuff?” Cory tipped his head, interested, and his shoulders rounded a little more as he oriented himself to one side and leaned in Noah’s direction. A second later, without much pause, Cory intertwined the fingers of his right hand and took a tiny step forward. “Listen. Seriously. What’s with the umbrella?”
“Sometimes. Loreena McKennitt does it well, even if she is considered too girlish for men to listen to,” Noah said, grimacing almost immediately after at the unintentional candor. The step forward made him forget the embarrassment, however, and he watched the approach (small as it was) with wary eyes. The question made him step back, and it made him look down at the umbrella, which was safely in his grip again. “I like it?” he said - or tried to say - it came out a bit like a question, and a shrug of shoulders followed. “It’s distinguishing,” he said a moment later in defense. “How about you? Why does your demeanor change so quickly from one moment to the next?” And while he was aghast at the boldness of the question, some part of him was proud of himself for having asked it.
Cory had actually heard Loreena McKennitt, because his mother owned her Christmas albums, or one of them, or something--and Cory would have preferred roasting over a slow barbecue in hell. The boredom was almost equivalent. But he smiled anyway because people liked all kind of stuff. He didn’t pursue, he just stood back and swung his earphones in his hand, thinking. He blinked a few times, and then shrugged. “Arthur.”
“Nice to meet you, Arthur,” Noah said, thinking it was the other man’s name and not realizing it was someone else’s name entirely. “I’m Noah,” he said, reaching out a hand in universal greeting. He managed to refrain from explaining that he was descended of kings, but it was rather harder than it normally was. He always thought it, but he never said it, and lately he had been wanting to say it. He worried that one day he might proclaim it from the middle of the casino, which would make his stepmother scowl in that way he didn’t care for.
Cory blinked at the hand a second and then twitched into action. He took Noah’s hand in his for a slightly sweaty grip, shook it, and smiled. “No. My name’s Cory. I was talking about... about something else.” He gave the hand an awkward shake and then slipped his fingers free. “Nice to meet you.” He turned away briefly as the bus pulled up, but it was crammed with people--floor to ceiling. Five people in front of Cory at the stop managed to shove themselves in, gasping, and then the bus pulled away again, leaving a small crowd--Cory included--still waiting. Cory turned his attention back to Noah.
Noah lived close enough to Freemont that he didn’t need the bus, but he expected Arthur - no, Cory - to get on when it came gasping to a stop in front of them. He glanced up at the sardine can of tourists, and he waited for the other man to join them. When Cory didn’t join them, Noah looked surprised. “What kind of something else?” he asked warily, with the demeanor of someone who wasn’t sure they actually wanted a response to the question they’d asked. He tapped the end of the umbrella on the floor, the pointy end serving as a makeshift cane, and he leaned on with that same sort of odd grace from before.
Cory was going to wait around to see if there was a bus less full, or maybe he’d just die out here in the heat. Whichever came first. Cory pointed a delicate finger rough with guitar strings and the sharp edges of playing cards down at the umbrella. “Maybe it’s like that kind of thing.” He grinned, mostly joking, a floppy hair kind of grin more puppy dog than anything.
Noah looked down at the umbrella, and he frowned at it, his still-boyish mouth turning down slowly as he stared. He wished people would stop noticing the umbrella, but he was getting better about it. When he’d first brought the thing, he’d fumbled it all over the place and drawn more attention to himself with it than made him comfortable. Now he carried it like an extension of his arm - most of the time - but people still noticed on ocassion. Still, Cory had acted strangely enough in the casino that Noah tilted his head in inquiry instead of becoming defensive. “How?” he asked, none of Cory’s joking grin in the question.
His bluff called, Cory lost some of his smile. He had a bad tendency to squint, and he did this now as he turned dark eyes down the road as if to look for the bus that seemed never to come. "Like a really weird new part of you you can't shake." He didn't like standing this long. His leg didn't hurt him but it seemed like the joint got stiffer the longer hours he worked, and he rubbed at his hip where his cargo hem stopped. "Really, really weird."
Some people might feel better knowing that others were experiencing the same weird things at them, but not Noah. For Noah, watching the letters fill up the journal, talking to people on it, and talking to Cory, it only made things real. Noah didn’t want things to be real. He had been the strange kid his entire life, and now he just wanted normal. Normal didn’t come with journals or umbrellas or card dealers that acted like two different people. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, and it was a challenge when he said it; a challenge he really hoped wouldn’t be met by the man rubbing his hip like something ached.
Cory's friendliness melted away, but he didn't grow cold. He'd risked more than his job talking to this guy, and if losing Becky was finally making him crazy, he thought saying something obscure to a stranger might help. He nodded a couple times, not meeting that challenge, his gaze on Noah's face looking for whatever he'd done to earn the defensive snap. "Yeah, okay," he said, in a softer voice. He didn't press it. He didn't look at the umbrella again. He fiddled with his headphones.
That just made Noah feel bad, but he wasn’t willing to take it back. He jerked a shoulder back the way he came, and he tapped the umbrella against the floor nervously. “I better get on,” he said, guilt lighting up his features as brightly as the neon lights on the casinos once night fell. He began to turn, but he stopped and looked over his shoulder, pressing his chin to the gray fabric that covered his collarbone. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, trying to soften the blow. “I’m just normal, that’s all. Descended of kings, but not at all mad.” Which might not make anything better, he realized after the words had been said. “My last name’s Bailey,” he added, “I’m in the book if you want to talk or anything. I’m not always a prick. Only sometimes.”
After the first attempt at resuming the conversation--or at least, Noah's attempt at ending it gracefully--Cory put on a weak smile that was falsely bright, the kind that would have accompanied pointless agreement in similar conversations that answered inquiries with 'I'm totally fine.' It was painful to watch. He stopped trying when Noah stopped, however, and the fallen apathy had returned. Cory squinted at Noah's face. "Yeah, I'm there too. Holroyd. ...You don't look like a king." Tiny, tiny smile, but at least real.
Noah smiled too, and the return smile was just as small and just as real. “You’ve never met one, have you?” he asked, his confidence in this, at least, without measure. His mother had filled his head with stories of his kingly relations, and it was the first moment of real certainty he’d shown in the entire conversation. His shoulder straightened, and he pushed the mop of black hair out of his eyes, and he held his head higher, like this one thing mattered above all others. It set him apart, sure, but not in a bad way this time. He even swung the umbrella a little, just a little.
Cory grinned. He bounced back quickly from these small hurts; like drops in an ocean. "Nah, but I seen pictures. You'd need to be way fatter."
“That was Henry the Eighth,” Noah said, his voice going authoritative. “Not all of the kings looked like that, and Henry was considered fit when he was young. It’s how he managed to seduce all those women. Well, that and the fact that he was king,” he explained, shrugging once he realized he’d probably said more than Cory was actually interested in hearing. “Favorite subject,” he added apologetically.
“Maybe it’s because they’re always wearing all that stuff, and it makes them look fat,” Cory suggested. Grinning still, he transferred his gaze to the road as the next bus trundled forward. This one, by strange stroke of fate, was nearly empty. All of the people waiting at the stop acquired big smiles. Cory readjusted his grip on his headphones and his bag and gave Noah a little wave. “I’m sure I’ll see you around, if you visit your girlfriend a lot.” Not even considering that his assumption about the familiarity between Noah and the waitress might be incorrect, Cory started moving away down the pavement as the bus squeaked to a stop. He already had the headphones up.
Noah didn’t correct the misunderstanding, which wasn’t really a misunderstanding. And, for once, he didn’t have the urge to keep talking. Something about that particular situation didn’t sit right, not with him, not with the umbrella, and he almost groaned when that thought entered his mind. He watched Cory go, and he rushed to the nearest trashcan, stopping in front of it before he could change his mind. He lifted the umbrella, tossed it in the bin, and then he turned and ran the remained over the way home, white rubber soles squeaking on the unforgiving Nevada pavement.