Re: [Outside the Rec Center.]
Being scared of something didn't mean Holly didn't like it. In fact, he liked Noah's earnestness, which was scary. He wanted to believe everything Noah said, which was even scarier. Self-preservation said not to trust the dude, and Holly usually heeded his sense of self-preservation to the exclusion of everything else. But, yeah, here he was, and his own head was spinning with all the lies he'd spun. Like webs, right? And he was so tangled up in them that he couldn't tell how to unspin, and all he knew was that he liked the fact that Noah was tangled up with him. Blame it on body heat, because he just couldn't think straight while Noah was beneath him like this, and he'd find some other excuse to explain all the minutes immediately before this one.
"I can lie to you, then," he said, deadpan, tease lingering behind it. Holly could lie like nobody's business. It was a skill developed on the other side of a camera lens, and he could kinda turn himself into whatever was wanted of him. "What do you want me to be?" he asked, and maybe that was more existential than jealousy, but he was pretty sure he hadn't molded himself out of clay to be anything for Noah, right? He just, you know, was, and that had kinda been just the right thing so far, at least that was what he thought. But he saw that shrug, the color that captured Noah's cheeks, and he attempted to rewind the conversation in his head. Like old VHS, and it made that buzz became illustrative of the mylar rush. "I mean, I don't know if I liked you being there, not because I didn't like you being there." Okay, that made no sense, but the night before was also drowned in ethyl. "But, like, you being there makes it about us, makes it intimate or something, I don't know. What I give them isn't real. With you, it is," he said, trying to voice something he should probably have waited to explain when he wasn't so sleepy and miserable. "We should try it sober," he blurted, suggesting what he'd held back before, because, you know, apparently Noah looking sad was his Kryptonite or something.
"I hated Mr. Franco's class," he said, lulled by the fingers in his hair. "My poem was about ants. He was unimpressed." He was going to make some smart remark about wanting Noah for his money, something along the lines of 'of course,' but Noah's fingers were on Holly's lips now, and that was Holly's mute button or something. He just looked at the other guy, and then he put his cheek to Noah's chest. Yeah, his eyes were closed, and his boner was hard against Noah's thigh. Noah's fingers slipped along back and skin, and there was a long silence which Holly kinda just used to think about whether it would make him feel better if Noah was one of those guys that loved being in love.
His fingers brushed idly at Noah's shoulder now. "What did I do that snared you?" he asked, curiosity flickering into a small flame. "I don't know. I guess it would be terrible, but it would be safer," he admitted, replying to Noah's earlier question. "I don't know that I can do your, like, anonymous thing, like, that I can be okay with it. Your closet is scary. You liking girls is scary. I know I do the cam thing, right? But I think about, I don't know, walking in and you're talking to some guy online like you do to me, and I'm going to end up hurt and feeling like an idiot." Too honest? Maybe.
He raised his head, opened his eyes. "You're like the kinda the definition of 'too good to be true.' If something's too good to be true, then it usually is, you know?" He looked at Noah for a second longer, and then he stretched and replaced his fingers with his lips and sucking on the side of Noah's neck.