Re: The Capital: Holly W & Noah N
Noah was trying not to think. He soaked up the varying emotions and thoughts and memories and feelings and everything else as they rang out from the people around him in impending cacophony. The record store was big, and people were milling around. A girl looking at the CDs was sad about her mom and dad divorcing. Noah didn't really want to feel that, so he shifted a little closer to a dude who, it seemed, was trying to come up with a playlist for the local college radio station he was DJing at tonight as part of his demo. He was giddy and nervous, but happy, and Noah wanted that. He didn't, like, get weird about it or anything. He just stood by the cassettes, the names of artists tipping through his head foreign and unknown, but with the weird sensation that they were familiar. It was distracting enough that he didn't feel Holly right away.
But, then came this thin-lidded hurt. It was panic and fear and self-consciousness and vulnerability and it was all poured together, and it drowned out anything else Noah could feel. He looked up from the plastic cases to find Holly, his face placid, approaching him, and Noah chewed on his lip as he watched the dude. He wasn't casual. He looked worried and earnest and like a dude whose heart was on a string held in someone else's hand. "Hey," was what he opened with, soft. But, Holly was already talking about Bob Seger. Noah didn't even know who that was. He looked at the cassette, at the old dude on it or whatever, and then he gave a distracted shrug because he really wasn't paying attention to the music.
If the sweater was trying too hard, Noah didn't know it. I mean, he didn't think it. Maybe he knew it because Holly knew it? But, he didn't agree. He thought the dude looked good—fuck Dietre, man. Whatever he thought about Holly and whatever Holly thought about Holly, Noah thought he was hot and that hadn't changed—, and his hair looked soft and maybe still a little damp. He had a strong urge to reach out and tuck it behind Holly's ear, but he remembered the rules, dude. Two hours. No touching. No fucking around. Normally, he might try to push a little, but normally, he thought Holly might give. He wasn't so sure now, and, dude, he felt about as bad as he had felt after the motel room. And after the stupid party. Ugh.—It didn't come to him for a long minute that he was supposed to say something back and he hadn't. He was busy sighing and thinking and lifting a hand to push it through his hair. "Oh." He gestured vaguely at the whatever. The thing. "Yeah, I guess." It was super thrilling stuff.
Noah frowned and looked down, slipping his hands into his pockets. He struggled, obviously, with some internal dilemma, before he finally said: "You look nice. I like the—" It was a sweater, Noah. "—thing." He smiled, but it only lasted a few seconds before it gave out.