Playing His Little Game

17 - Joking

Holly pursed her lips and whipped her head back and forth looking for the right place to start. Finally she pointed to a place and ran off, leaving Noah and I behind, trying to catch up with her.

“She’s pretty excited,” Noah exclaimed to me with a wide grin as we entered and watched her dig through racks of dresses.

I only nodded and focused on Holly, trying with all my might to ignore my best friend. I didn’t want to the rumor being spread, even with Sam knowing the truth. Since then things have been… nice. In fact, it wasn’t awkward whatsoever with him knowing. He didn’t judge. When he spoke about his mom, it was only to point out things that she would do, or something like that. He never brought up me being involved with the accident. In more ways than one, telling him kind of made our friendship better.

I did take his and Malcolm’s advice though by staying away from Noah for a few days. I didn’t want him to freak out on Emma if I told him what she said to me, she’s jealous of me. It has happened to his other girlfriends before—none of them threatened me like her, but you know—and to be honest, if I were in her position I would feel invidious as well.

But I still hated the witch.

We moved through the mall with ease. Holly didn’t like any of the dresses she would try on but it was okay. It was early and we had a lot of time left before she was due back at the hospital.

At one point Holly was jumping around ahead of us, heading to another store, leaving Noah and I behind her.

“What’s stuck up your ass today, Mel?” Noah asked in a joking tone. “You’ve hardly said a word to me.”

To answer his question I just shrugged. It was a common gesture used by me, so I didn’t expect him to go into too much detail about it but he did.

“Come on now, you can talk to me you know. Is it Sammy-boy? Did you take another trip to hickey town?”

“No!” I objected and then turned red. Nothing of that sort even happened since that day in the rain. All the kisses we shared were in the heat of the moment and there haven’t been any passionate moments like that. I lowered my voice now, “We’re fine.”

“Is it the bet then?”

“No, Noah. Everything is fine.”

He nodded once to himself and was going to ask another question until up ahead Holly tripped over her own two feet. It was completely on accident, but every single person around rushed to help her.

An old woman grabbed her arm and hoisted her up. “Oh, you poor thing! Are you okay, sweetie?”

Holly huffed out and pulled her cap closer to her head so she could hide her obvious cancer baldness. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Another woman rubbed her back, “Are you sure? Do you want to go to sit down for a bit? Have some water?”

“I’m fine!” Holly wretched her body out of the reach of the two women. Noah stepped forward and wrapped a protective arm around his sister.

“She just fell, that’s all. It was an accident,” Noah told them with a warning tone in his voice.

The first woman looked at us. “We just wanted to make sure she was okay, especially with the… you know.”

Holly was fuming and pushed away from Noah and stalked through the women. Noah glared at the two ladies and ran to his sister. I looked at the siblings with a surprised look and apologized to them for the eruption—even though they were completely out of line—and followed after the Freely’s. I found Noah pounding on the ladies’ restroom door and he breathed out in relief when he saw me.