Re: [Outside the Rec Center.]
Noah could bottle his inner chaos. Well, it wasn't generally his inner chaos. He had his own, but it tended to get crushed to the sides, shoved away and flattened into nothing significant. But, floating on the sea of other people's emotions/thoughts/wants/etc./etc. constantly, oarless, from birth 'til now had taught him a little bit about keeping a bottle on things. That didn't mean it didn't show up on his face. It did. But, generally, he could parse what was his and what wasn't, that kind of thing. That was all much more difficult with Holly, whose 'etc.' Noah felt with blazing-sun strength. So. Even those turbulent waters, tamped down under a veneer of icy self-preservation? He felt them churning in his belly. He knew he was making things hard for Holly. Probably not in a good way. But, he was having a really hard time, like, pulling himself back, even though he should.—He was running on the momentum and inertia of everything too, though, and, yeah, no, what should've been enough no longer was. Noah felt stupidly consumed. He wanted to be with Holly in this probably-too-intense way, but it was why he didn't even think twice about rolling up to the Rec Center on all of a couple hours of shitty alcohol-rough sleep, having never showered, with nothing to really offer but some water and snacks.
Holly was good at the not thinking thing. He was pretty good at it. It was like, a black-out curtain over a window. It snuck in around around the periphery, finger-beams of sunlight, but otherwise, the darkness came down, and Holly was counting in a pattern Noah didn't know. (He didn't know prime numbers off the top of his head.)—He heard Holly's laugh, actually heard it, irl, and he smiled, glancing up as he finally approached, the blacktops to his left, the building and dude on his right. Holly's question about his jacket popped into Noah's head like a bubble, followed by the second about his hair, and Noah laughed. "You can borrow it, but I need it to wear to games," he said of his jacket after his initial greeting. He sat.
It was obvious the kiss took Holly off-guard. Not because of the insider scoop Noah got, but because of his face, and, yeah, okay, they were out in the open. But, dude, Noah was impulsive and not really that careful. The anonymous truck stop sex was about as careful as he got, and that was careful because everyone was super shady about it and because there were, like, zero attachments formed. Once he liked someone though? He was all in, even if he really shouldn't be. It wasn't that he didn't see the dangers. He did. But, he wanted to kiss Holly, so he kissed Holly. He shifted on his ass on the grass until he was back against the brick of the building, shoulder to shoulder with Holly, legs outstretched in tight joggers. He smiled, but he didn't offer any explanation for his behavior.
He opened his own Gatorade and took a drink when Holly did. Then, with a small sound of remembering, he shifted to pull some stuff from his pockets. A plastic-wrapped blueberry muffin. A (probably year-old) granola bar. A (still slightly green) banana. An orange. Wiping blue from his lips with the back of his hand, he nodded at the goods arranged on the dead grass. "Take your pick."