Exit Wounds | Noah Sebastian

S E V E N

"Good, good, place your feet then reach. And don't look down," he coaches as I make it higher and higher up the wall.

I think I'm up roughly six feet when I try to glance down I can tell I'm overing above Noah's height. "I want to come down, I need to come down."

"You could literally jump and you would be fine," I hear him say under his breath, "follow the same path back down, lead with your feet, feel for the bigger pegs."

"No, Noah, I need to get down."

"Yes, I heard you that's why I gave you instructions to get down," he calls up to me, the eyeroll is implied, since I can't see him.

"I'm stuck."

"No you aren't, not unless you were bitten by a spider and your spidey senses are tingling."

"Fuck you."

"That sounds serious, I promise I'm right here and I will catch you if you fall." To prove a point I let go of the wall, I expect to land on the thick padding lining the ground. My body lands softly in Noah's lean arms and he crushes me to his chest. I begin hysterically laughing.

"You are insane," Noah remarks through chuckles. He gently places my feet back on the ground, and I feel a little colder the second his hands leave my body.

"Let's see if you can beat me."

"Beat you? This isn't a competition."

"Yes it is, beat my height. I stopped on that neon green peg."

I take a step back to watch Noah. He walks over to the wall and skillfully maneuvers up the wall. I watch his lithe body grip the pegs and his veins protrude from his hands. I frown once he makes it to my marker. I knew he would feel comfortable climbing higher and I didn't feel bad about what I accomplished today, but it would have been nice to excel.

Noah looks over his shoulder at me and grins mischievously.

"Don't look at me, you are going to fall!" I call up to him.

And then he lets go and lands softly on his feet.

I frown, "Why'd you do that?"

"Do what?" He winks, "let's go get some food."

I open my mouth to protest, but think better of it and follow Noah to his car. Noah pulls up to a taco truck parked outside of the park. Noah orders us a bag of soft tacos and we walk over to a bench that's under a tree.

"Why'd you let me win?" I ask, taking a large bite of my taco.

"Why'd you need a place to stay?" He counters, his brown eyes shine with amusement.

"You don't fight fair."

"All's fair in love and war."

"Are we at war?"

He doesn't say anything. He just shrugs at me. I'm finishing my fourth taco when he speaks again.

"Really, though, I'm a pretty good listener if you need to talk."

"I'm sure you are," I quip and throw our trash away. "I think it's time to go."

When Noah pulls up to the house, I hop out of his car before the vehicle has even stopped.  I unlock the door and disappear behind it, but not before I hear Noah call out a goodnight.  I wasn't going to spend a second thinking about how much fun I had with him today and instead put all of my thoughts into typing a post for the blog.

Climb Murfreesboro was a chain and didn't need my advertisement, but I would still make a little money from my normal traffic.  I type the post as quickly as I can, trying to remember every single moment of the day, adding in anecdotes where I could.  I hate my first draft, and have to type the whole thing over.  I edit the photos I had taken, Noah was in half of them, and almost delete all of them.  However, I think Noah might help the views a little. As much as he got on my nerves, he was incredibly attractive and there was no denying that.