Re: [Outside the Rec Center.]
Holly was great at bottling his inner chaos. He presented a calm face to the world, and he'd kinda gotten pretty good about believing his own con, right? Noah made that really hard. Holly had embarked upon their interaction today in total self-protection mode. He'd strapped on the life-jacket and prepared to float, but Noah made that kinda stuff really challenging. So, right, they'd ended up in some pretty turbulent waters and, given sufficient time without communicating, the tide would absolutely rise. But there wasn't time for that, and, yeah, he really did want to see Noah. He hadn't been bullshitting when he made the confession that he wanted look at the guy, and FaceTime didn't cut it. It was, like, digital had been enough for a month, and now five hours felt like too much time. It wasn't logical, and he could probably quote a bunch of his mom's old movies and their sappy sentimentality, but he was absolutely refraining from making that kinda comparison.
Did he want to go curl up in bed? Yep. Did he want to curl up in bed with Noah? Yep, and those thoughts were actually pretty present, because Noah stirred shit up in a way Holly had never experienced before. Like, inside him, and he was just trying not to think as he heard footsteps approach.
He opened his eyes and glanced over as the Venmo ding hit, and he laughed and shook his head. He didn't even have to look to know Noah had just smartassedly hit him with money, right? So, he didn't reach for his phone or anything. He just looked over at Noah, watching his approach. He had thoughts that bubbled up: The pants looked good, could he steal the jacket?, did Noah deliberately make his hair look like he'd just gotten out of bed? Thoughts burbled, and Holly watched as Noah sat. He hadn't met that 'hey' with anything but attentive thought, not yet, and he grabbed the bottle of cold water gratefully.
He was opening the bottle, not expecting the kiss. There was no one on the court, and they weren't out in the open, but they were out in the open. Surprise, and he barely got a chance to kiss back before he was looking around, you know, to make sure no one had seen anything. "You're terrible at being in the closet, Wilbur," he finally said, but his eyes were still holding onto that surprise. He nodded to the space beside him, against the wall. Safer, right? If Noah sat right across from him, he might do something stupid. Then, because he was lamenting the shortness of the kiss, he uncapped the water and took a long swallow.